RUTH Davidson has been accused of “shamelessly” rewriting history after dropping her demand to stay in the EU single market as she set five Brexit tests for the SNP to meet.
The Scottish Tory leader told the BBC in July that even after the Brexit vote her preference remained membership of the single market.
She said: “I want to stay in the single market.. even if a consequence of that is maintaining free movement of Labour.”
However the single market was missing from five tests Ms Davidson issued to the SNP ahead of the party unveiling its plan for a bespoke Brexit deal for Scotland later this month.
Ms Davidson said the priority must be to “maintain the integrity of the UK domestic market”, followed by a lack of trade barriers within the UK, making the UK a beacon for free trade, practicality, and respecting the results of the 2014 and 2016 referendums.
She said: “I voted Remain in the referendum and wanted a different result. But the task now is not to mope about what might have been, but to work out what comes next.
"For a Scottish Government, that means making the best of Brexit, not using it to crank up support for yet another independence referendum. The SNP does not have the right to launder the votes of Remain voters in Scotland into tokens of separatist support.”
SNP MSP Joan McAlpine replied: “Even after the referendum, Ms Davidson said, unequivocally, that she wanted to remain in the single market – something the Scottish Tories have since sold out on.
"Now she is demanding that the Scottish Government signs up for whatever hard-right Tory Brexit Theresa May decides on.
“Talking vaguely of ‘free trade’ in services outside the single market is pure weasel words. European leaders have made it clear that the UK can’t have its cake and eat it. Either Ruth Davidson is ignoring reality or she simply doesn’t understand how the single market works.
“Instead of trying to rewrite history, Ruth Davidson should explain why she’s turned her back on her promise to support single market membership – and what changed her mind.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel