THE SNP has urged Boris Johnson to call an election and let the people of Scotland “have their say on this shambolic government”.
In a statement to MPs, the Prime Minister insisted the UK’s negotiating teams were making good progress in the Brexit talks and that he did not want to go to the country.
“I do not want an election,” he said. “We do not want an election. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition wants an election, by the way, as far as I can make it out.
“We do not want an election; we want to get the deal done.”
The SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, doubted the Tory leader’s sincerity, comparing him to US president Donald Trump. Johnson was, he said, acting like a “tinpot dictator”.
“He may say that he does not want an election, and his colleagues certainly do not want one, but I will let him into a secret: we do, because we want the people of Scotland to be able to have their say on this shambolic Government,” Blackford said.
The Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP accused Johnson of a “lack of leadership by moving to prorogue Parliament and strip power away from elected representatives”.
He added: “While he can dance around and profess to speak for the people, we all know the truth – he is in fact doing the opposite. By proroguing Parliament, the Prime Minister is robbing the people of power; robbing them of a say over their future.
“In true Trumpian style, the Prime Minister is acting more like a tinpot dictator than a democrat. He talks of the will of the people – but what about the will of the people of Scotland? Prime Minister, the Scottish people did not vote for Brexit.
“The people of Scotland did not vote for a No-Deal Brexit. They did not vote for the Tory party and they certainly did not vote for this Prime Minister.
“The people of Scotland voted to remain in the European Union. The Scottish people voted overwhelmingly against the Tory party and this government.
“The people of Scotland made their choice, and they chose that the SNP should be their voice.
“So I ask the Prime Minister: are you a democrat, or not; do you respect the will of the Scottish people, or not?
“Will you, Prime Minister, if you believe yourself not to be the latter, then give the people back their say: allow Parliament to have its say; respect the will of Parliament in stopping a No-Deal Brexit – a No-Deal Brexit that would be devastating for jobs and communities?”
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Johnson responded by criticising the SNP stance on creating a new currency after independence.
He said: “The EU, it remains the policy of the Scottish nationalist party once we have come out of the European Union on 31 October, it is their avowed policy.
“They are inevitably committed to this, by logic to go back into the EU.
“That is what they say they want to do if they were to achieve independence: to submit to the whole panoply of EU law, to scrap the pound in favour of some unknown currency hitherto unbaptised – the Salmond, or the Sturgeon or whatever it happens to be – and, above all, to hand back control of Scotland’s fisheries to the EU, just as they have been reclaimed by this country.
“What an extraordinary policy.”
The Prime Minister was later tasked by Glasgow South MP Stewart McDonald to back a vote on independence.
“Ruth Davidson walked last week, the Prime Minister’s majority in this place has gone this week, and he might even expel his hero Churchill’s grandson [Tory MP Nicholas Soames] from his own party.
“I do not care what he does to his own party, but I take exception to the impact of his policy on Scotland.
“Would Scots not be better to vote for independence so as to maintain our place in the EU?”
The Prime Minister said this was not the case: “Scots did not swallow that argument in 2014. No, they rejected it by a thumping majority. They could see that they were better off together with the rest of the UK, and so it remains.”
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