TORIES are a direct threat to Scotland’s place on the world stage, the SNP have warned, after one of their MSPs wrote to his Westminster bosses calling the country’s efforts to cooperate with other nations “wasteful”.

In a letter to Dominic Raab, Stephen Kerr asked the Foreign Secretary for reassurances that the Scottish Government would be told to stop trying to enhance Scotland’s relationships with countries around the world.

This is the same letter for which Kerr was rebuked over his removal of a Gaelic translation from the Scottish Parliament logo, and a Scottish Parliament spokesperson said: “The member has been reminded of the policy in place around the use of the Scottish Parliament’s corporate identity.”

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The letter from the Central Scotland Tory MSP is riddled with hypocrisy as the offices he complains about were opened by a Tory government years before the Scottish Parliament was even created.

The National:

Evelyn Tweed (above), the SNP MSP for Stirling, accused him of a “highly dangerous” bid to diminish our country’s standing around the world. She said: “Stephen Kerr has been an MSP for just a few weeks, yet his ill-founded Westminster-knows-best arrogance has already bubbled to the surface.

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“His attempt to diminish Scotland’s standing on the world stage is highly dangerous. It exposes how his party has abandoned any pretence that the UK is a partnership of equals.

“The Tories are a direct threat to devolution, to efforts to promote Scottish trade and to attract job-creating inward investment and our nation’s place on the world stage. This position is also absurd.

“Does Kerr genuinely believe the Tories will win more support by saying to Scotland, ‘vote us into government so we can do nothing about promoting Scotland abroad?’”

Tweed said Kerr also demonstrated “breathtaking” levels of hypocrisy or arrogance, and added: “Scotland’s first offices in the EU were set up by the Tories when they ran the Scottish Office in the 1990s. Even Cosla has an office in Brussels. Does Stephen Kerr want that shut down as well?

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“The Tories have nothing positive to offer Scotland and that is why they are continually rejected in election after election.

“The Scottish Government stands in direct contrast with the Tories at Westminster.

“While they have pulled up the drawbridge with their chaotic and disastrous Brexit, the SNP will give our country – in a post-pandemic referendum – the choice to be on the world stage as an independent country with a seat at the top table of the European Union.”