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London:
Scottish independence campaigners have seized on feedback by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during which he mentioned the creation of a devolved parliament in Edinburgh had been “a disaster”.
Scottish National Party chief Nicola Sturgeon, who’s First Minister within the devolved parliament, tweeted late Monday that it was “worth bookmarking these PM comments for the next time Tories say they’re not a threat to the powers of the Scottish Parliament.
“The solely approach to defend & strengthen @ScotParl is with independence,” she added.
PM Johnson told MPs during an online meeting on Monday that “devolution has been a catastrophe north of the border” and it was former leader “Tony Blair’s largest mistake”, according to the Sun newspaper.
The prime minister’s Downing Street office later said in a statement that Johnson had “at all times supported devolution however Tony Blair didn’t foresee the rise of separatists in Scotland.”
“Devolution is nice — however not when it is utilized by separatists and nationalists to interrupt up the UK,” added the statement.
Douglas Ross, who leads the Conservatives in Scotland, responded that “devolution has not been a catastrophe” and that “the SNP’s continuous obsession with one other referendum – above jobs, colleges and every thing else – has been a catastrophe.”
Scotland was promised a referendum on devolution by the Labour Party earlier than the 1997 election, and the promise was carried out later that yr, resulting in the creation of a Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Scotland rejected independence in a 2014 referendum, however strain for a brand new one has grown since Britain voted to go away the European Union in 2016, a choice opposed by most voters north of the border.
Johnson known as the MPs from Downing Street, the place he’s self-isolating after coming into contact with an MP who later examined constructive for coronavirus.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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