SNP in crisis: Desperate Nicola Sturgeon scrambles to shut down Scottish border backlash

Nicola Sturgeon: No one in SNP wants to see a hard border

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SNP policies were branded “half-witted nonsense” after one candidate appeared to promote a hard border between Scotland and England. SNP candidate Emma Harper sparked uproar after she remarked that “jobs can be created if a border is created”. Nicola Sturgeon has since scrambled to backtrack on these remarks, insisting that “no-one in the SNP wants to see a border between Scotland and England”.

Ms Sturgeon responded: “I have not seen Emma’s comments directly.

“This is only being talked about because the UK Government has decided to leave the EU and rip Scotland out of the EU.

“I want Scotland to trade freely across the Uk and to trade freely within the world’s biggest single market, which is the European Single Market.

“It is the Tories that are about borders, it is the SNP that is about Scotland being an independent country and then operating economically and socially on the basis of equality.”

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On Thursday, Ms Harper suggested a border between Scotland and England could “create jobs”.

Speaking to ITV, the SNP candidate for Galloway and West Dumfries said: “If a border will work, we can show that a border will work.

“There are issues that have been brought to my attention that show that jobs can be created if a border is created.

“And again, we want the softest of borders.”

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Tory MSP Oliver Mundell lashed out, saying Ms Harper’s remarks “shows how dangerously out of touch the SNP really are”.

He added: “This half-witted nonsense would be laughable if it wasn’t so irresponsible. A harder border would risk the hundreds of thousands of Scottish jobs that rely on the UK market.”

Scottish Liberal Democrat campaign chairman, Alistair Carmichael, rebuked Ms Sturgeon’s denial, saying: “Wanting a border between Scotland and England is literally the foundational policy of the SNP.”

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He added: “Nicola Sturgeon must think the Scottish public are complete mugs, especially just one day after one of her MSPs was talking up the prospect of a hard border.”

“No amount of tall tales from the First Minister will change the reality that independence would throw up a hard border, dividing families and decimating trade with our partners to the south.

“Boris Johnson promised there would be no new barriers in Northern Ireland, only to renege on what he had pledged further down the line.

“It’s disappointing to see Nicola Sturgeon taking a leaf out of the Tory Brexiteer playbook.”

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