THE UK is not a stable country – and Boris Johnson does not have a “basic respect for truth”, Nicola Sturgeon has said.

The SNP leader also said that the issues and “really big” consequences of Brexit were being obscured by other events.

The First Minister was speaking to the BBC’s departing political editor Laura Kuenssberg for her final show before stepping back from the role.

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Kuenssberg penned a final article in the role and also presented a short documentary entitled “Everything Has Changed”. For the pieces, she spoke to “five politicians, all of whom were, in one way or another, central to the political battles that went on”.

These were disgraced former health secretary Matt Hancock, former UKIP leader turned GB News host Nigel Farage, former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, former business secretary Andrea Leadsom, and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Kuenssberg said Sturgeon, the SNP’s leader since late 2014, had been “one of the few constants in a period of extraordinary change”.

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Looking back over Brexit and the Covid pandemic, Sturgeon said the period would be remembered as “the most eventful and actually the most consequential in our lifetimes”.

Saying it was easier to ask “what hasn’t changed”, Sturgeon told the BBC that she had been forced to reassess her priorities “not just as a human being but as a leader”.

Asked if the UK seemed to be “stable”, Sturgeon said: “Given my politics and my desire to see Scotland independent you may think I don’t want it to be but …No, it doesn’t.”

“I think Brexit and one of the ironies of everything else that’s happened over the past two or three years is that the really big consequences and implications of Brexit that are being felt and experienced are being obscured.”

The First Minister further hit out at Boris Johnson’s government, suggesting that the conventions around conduct had been “smashed to bits”.

She went on: "I've had deep differences, obviously, with both David Cameron and Theresa May.

"But, you know, I reflect back on dealing with them and they had a respect for the office. I think they had a basic respect for truth and civilised debate, which I'm sorry to say, I don't think we have in the current incumbent."

Sturgeon also said that social media had changed “the tone and the tenor of political discourse”.

She said it had become “much, much tougher” to be a politician on social media, not because of increased scrutiny, but because of a “toxic atmosphere”.

Kuenssberg is set to become the presenter of the BBC’s Sunday morning politics show in September of this year.

Her full documentary can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.