A TWEET from the Brexit secretary indicating that Scotland is a region of England prompting a storm of protest from SNP's House of Commons leader, is a fake.
Dominic Raab moved to confirm the fakery after Ian Blackford, called for him to make an apology to the people of Scotland for the social media message.
But it ended up being Mr Blackford who said sorry, after it emerged that the tweet was actually a work of fiction.
Mr Blackford initially responded to a screen shot of the tweet, which appeared to be from Mr Raab's verified account, posted by a brand strategist, who later deleted it fearing that it was bogus.
The tweet said: "SNP need to stop playing constitutional politics with Brexit. If we work together the Conservatives will deliver a successful deal for all England's regions, including Scotland."
Mr Blackford responded: "Well, we new that David Mundell [the Scottish Secretary] had failed to stand up for Scotland over the withdrawal bill, now Dominic Raab thinks Scotland is a region of England.
"No wonder he has been downgraded in the Brexit negotiations. Perhaps an apology to the people of Scotland would be in order."
When the tweet vanished he added: "Deleting this tweet is not good enough, he needs to explain himself."
After one Twitter user said he suspected it was a fake tweet, he added: "I do not believe it is."
He added: "For those saying Raab's tweet was fake, here is the link to it." It became unavailable.
An hour and a half later, as suspicions of skullduggery became more intense, Mr Blackford responded: "If it fake, it is despicable anyone would do that and I am sorry that Dominic Raab has been targeted in such a way and that myself and others took this at face value. I withdraw my comments on the remark."
He then sent a tweet to Mr Raab saying: "Sorry to see you were targeted in this way Dominic, appreciate you confirming it is a fake and of course I withdraw my response to this fake tweet."
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