Alistair Darling claims Nicola Sturgeon does not want indyref2 and scars of 2014 vote have not healed

22 June 2022, 11:05 | Updated: 22 June 2022, 13:44

Alistair Darling has said the “scars” of the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland have not healed after eight years and claimed Nicola Sturgeon does not want to have another vote on the issue despite her launch of a new independence campaign.

The former Labour Chancellor and lead of the Better Together campaign during the referendum, said that like the Brexit result which did not go his way, nationalists had to “live with” the No vote.

Speaking on LBC’s Tonight with Andrew Marr, he said Boris Johnson was a “recruiting sergeant” for the Scottish nationalist cause, but unlike Lord Patten, who had said a second general election win by the Prime Minister would break up the UK, Mr Darling suggested that Boris Johnson’s premiership had not shifted the dial enough among Scots.

“It's interesting that you know, eight years after the referendum, despite Brexit, despite Boris Johnson, if you look at the polling, the no vote has remained consistently ahead of the yes vote. Not much, but it has, which shows that the people that you would need to win a referendum, from the nationalists’ point of view, are not shifting,” he said.

“There is no doubt that Boris Johnson is a recruiting sergeant, you know, for Scottish nationalists. And you know, there's many, many people you know, me included when I listen to the man and you know, his politics … I do not think he's fit to be Prime Minister.

“I think he's dragging us down internationally. I think you know, the fact you've got somebody you cannot rely on what he's saying - and he's been doing this for year - that to me, renders him unfit to be Prime Minister.”

Asked in the light of Nicola Sturgeon’s pledge to lay out a new way to hold a referendum without a Section 30 Order granted by the UK government what her plan might be, Mr Darling said he did not believe she had one.

He added: “I don't think she wants her referendum any more than I do. Because I think if you had it today, she'd lose.

“It's interesting she recognised the border problem - she said it was a challenge. Well, we've seen in Northern Ireland, what happens when you stick a border in the United Kingdom - it is more than a challenge, it's, you know, it's a complete disaster.

“Equally, you know, I used to go on and on and on about the currency question in 2014 and we’ve not got an answer to that yet, what currency will we have? She's got to, you know, she's got to keep her own troops going.”

Mr Darling said that the First Minister was playing the politics of distraction to detract attention from the Scottish Government’s domestic record on education, transport and the health service.

He added: “She [Nicola Sturgeon] would not want to lead an independence campaign that ended up with failure. I mean, to lose one… you know, to lose two would be a disaster.

“The majority of people in Scotland have indicated time and time again that they don't want one, you know, in the next two to five years.

“We've got a war going on in Europe, we've got a massive cost of living problem, there are huge problems and health and education and so on. You know, I think people will be more pleased if we were dealing with those rather than referendums which as you've seen in the UK with Brexit, are extremely divisive.

“And the scars in Scotland are still there you know, eight years later.

“I voted to stay in the European Union. You know, I believe in open trade, I believe in working with people, but I recognise that there was a referendum. You know, five or six years ago, my side lost with this so we have to live with it, just as the way that you know, in Scotland I wish we just lived with the result. Let's live with it.”

Responding to Alistair Darling's remarks, the SNP’s Westminster independence campaign coordinator, Stewart Hosie MP, said he should "apologise to the people of Scotland for the multiple disasters his No campaign has delivered."

He went on: “He should answer for a litany of broken promises, with Scotland now suffering the catastrophic consequences of the Brexit the No campaign said would never happen, the Prime Minister they said would never be in Downing Street and a cost of living crisis which the broken Westminster system is fuelling.

“While Lord Darling rakes in £300 a day for simply turning up in the House of Lords, millions of people across Scotland are struggling to pay for their weekly shopping, terrified to open their energy bills and subject to state pensions which lag far behind those of many of our neighbours.

“He needs to explain why a country as resource rich as Scotland is, under Westminster rule, lagging so far behind almost all of our European neighbours on a range of economic league tables."

Mr Hosie said opponents of independence were "running scared".

He added: “Many of our European neighbours are wealthier, fairer and happier than the UK, and they show what Scotland can achieve with the powers of independence.

“The people of Scotland have secured a cast-iron democratic mandate to decide their own future when they elected the biggest pro-independence majority of MSPs ever returned to Holyrood – and the Trump-like efforts of Boris Johnson, Alistair Darling and others to deny that democratic reality sound increasingly absurd.”