THE SNP have announced plans to hold an emergency conference in early 2023 to discuss the route to independence after the Supreme Court ruled Holyrood could not hold indyref2 without Westminster ’s permission.
Nicola Sturgeon announced that the event would be held in Edinburgh on Sunday, March 19 – and the Unionists are fuming.
The Scottish Conservatives’ constitution spokesperson, Donald Cameron, claimed the conference was a “needless diversion” which showed the SNP “aren’t a party of government”. Every Holyrood election since 2007 might beg to differ with that assessment.
Nevertheless, Cameron forged ahead: “The timing will jar with Scots worried about their household finances.”
Quite what issue people will have with a one-day conference being held on a Sunday in March is unclear to everyone not wearing a blue rosette.
Cameron finished: “The nationalists are tired after 15 years in power and are merely looking for the next constitutional lily pad to hop on to.
“What they aren’t discussing is what’s best for Scotland — growing the economy and protecting public services, fortifying our NHS, and properly funding councils.”
Fortifying the NHS is the purpose of the tax rises the Tories have cried foul over, and growing the economy? Well, a little something called Brexit has made that quite the challenge.
And it wasn’t only the Tories a’raging this festive season.
In what is surely one of the least self-aware press comments ever released, Scottish Labour claimed the SNP were “desperately scrambling for relevance”.
“They know only Labour can kick the Tories out of Government and deliver the change we need,” the party’s constitution spokesperson Sarah Boyack added.
“In Scotland and across the UK, there is a majority for change and a Labour government in Westminster will deliver that.”
Aye, right.
But it didn’t stop there. It must be a slow news day, as the UK Government also got a word in.
A spokesperson from Whitehall vacuously insisted that people in Scotland actually don’t want an independence vote at all.
They said: “People in Scotland want both their governments to be concentrating on the issues that matter most to them – like growing our economy, getting people the help they need with their energy bills, and supporting our NHS.
“As the Prime Minister has been clear, we will continue to work constructively with the Scottish Government to tackle our shared challenges.”
Continue to? The Jouker must have missed something there.
