Boris Johnson will be “the last prime minister of the United Kingdom”, the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford predicted yesterday.
Mr Blackford said Theresa May’s successor was living in a “parallel universe” after he pledged to renegotiate a Brexit deal with Brussels, or take the UK out of the EU without a deal on October 31.
The comments came after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her Welsh counterpart wrote to Mr Johnson to say that it would be “unconscionable” for the UK to leave the European Union without a Brexit deal.
They also used their letter to Mr Johnson to argue that a “significant shift” is needed in relations between Westminster and the devolved administrations – calling for their governments in Edinburgh and Cardiff to be given “proper respect”.
Almost immediately after Mr Johnson entered Downing Street on Wednesday, SNP leader Ms Sturgeon stepped up calls for a second independence vote, telling him it was “essential” that Scotland has “an alternative option”.
Now she and Mark Drakeford, the Labour leader in Wales, have written to him to make plain their opposition to a no-deal Brexit.
They stated: “It would be unconscionable for a UK Government to contemplate a chaotic no-deal exit, and we urge you to reject this possibility clearly and unambiguously as soon as possible.
“We are also clear that the decision on EU exit must now be put back to the people.”
Mr Blackford pushed the message home in the Commons yesterday, asking the prime minister if he truly understood the impact of a no-deal.
He said: “Scottish Government analysis has shown that a no-deal Brexit will hit the economy hard, with a predicted 8% hit to GDP, threatening up to 100,000 Scottish jobs.
“He wants to drive us off the cliff edge and he does not even know the impact of the damage that will cause.
“This is the height of irresponsibility — economic madness driven by ideology — from the prime minister, supported by his new right-wing ideologues on the front bench.”
Mr Johnson responded that Mr Blackford was “completely wrong in his analysis and his defeatism and pessimism about our wonderful United Kingdom, which he seeks to break up”.
He added: “If we can deliver a fantastic, sensible and progressive Brexit, which I believe we can, and the whole United Kingdom comes out, as I know that it will, what happens then to the arguments of the Scottish nationalist party?
“Will they seriously continue to say that Scotland must join the euro independently?
“Will they seriously suggest that Scotland must submit to the entire panoply of EU law? Will they join Schengen?
“Is it really their commitment to hand back control of Scottish fisheries to Brussels, just after this country — this great United Kingdom — has taken back that fantastic resource?
“Is that really the policy of the Scottish Nationalist Party? I respectfully suggest that that is not the basis on which to seek election in Scotland.
“We will win on a manifesto for the whole United Kingdom.”
