NEW Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay has been panned after he said his party will attempt to block Scottish independence being debated in Holyrood.
The MSP was chosen to succeed Douglas Ross as his party’s leader and was panned for using his first conference speech to declare the “independence dream is dead”.
Front bench appointments are set to be made by the new Scottish Tory leader this week but he confirmed to journalists the constitution and external affairs spokesperson role, currently held by Alexander Stewart, will be dropped.
He said he would instead be introducing a housing spokesperson and told journalists: “We are going to change our approach and be stronger in standing up to nationalist attempts to discuss their favourite topic of breaking up the United Kingdom.
“I believe the public want politicians in the Scottish Parliament to spend more time working on pragmatic solutions to the problems in our economy, schools, NHS and all the other issues that they care most about.
“Instead of responding to any more pointless SNP or Green debates on independence, we will respectfully put forward positive policies on the bread and butter issues affecting people’s lives.”
He added that his party would try to amend the business motion when an SNP-led Scottish Government debate centres on the topic.
Failing that, the party will turn the debate to issues like education and housing in a bid to block a debate on independence.
“We’re not going to give up the chance to speak in Parliament or engage in the nationalists’ self-indulgent political stunts,” he said.
“So every time the SNP try to talk about this divisive obsession, we’ll instead spend that time putting forward our own common sense ideas to change Scotland.
“It’s not the done thing at Holyrood, there may even be pushback and attempts to shut us down when we don’t debate the SNP’s chosen topic, but we’re not going to let the Holyrood establishment dictate what issues get attention.”
Party reaction
Both the SNP and Scottish Greens have hit out at Findlay for his comments, with MSP Stuart McMillan saying that to say the Scottish Tory leader’s “judgment is questionable would be an understatement”.
The SNP MSP added: “The Scottish Parliament exists to discuss issues that matter to Scotland. Given more than 50% of the population support Scottish independence, I would suggest this is one of them.”
Meanwhile, Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie (above) said it was “obvious” why Findlay didn’t want to debate independence as “not even he can defend an increasingly unequal, broken and dysfunctional Westminster system”.
He added: “Over the last 14 years Scotland has suffered from years of Tory cuts and austerity, a racist anti-migrant agenda, a devastating Brexit deal that we didn’t vote for and now a Labour government that is cutting support for pensioners while sticking to Tory spending plans.
“The Scottish Greens will continue to put forward our case for a progressive independent Scotland where power rests with the people rather than a government we can’t remove, an unelected monarchy, or an archaic House of Lords.
“The Scotland that we believe in is one with the powers to remove the moral obscenity of Trident nuclear weapons from the Clyde and with all the levers of a normal country to tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate and nature emergencies.”
Elsewhere, Alba's general secretary Chris McEleny commented: "Last week, the Tories were joking that Russell Findlay was the hardest man in Scottish politics and just a few days into the job he's already running scared on independence - and no wonder.
"Scotland is an energy rich land but thanks to Westminster austerity we have people living in fuel poverty. Who would want to defend that?
"If I was 'run scared' Russell Findlay, I wouldn't want to try defend the Union against the benefits of independence either."
