Ian Blackford said he has no regrets over being thrown out of the Commons for accusing Boris Johnson of having “wilfully misled Parliament”.
The SNP Westminster leader said that accusing the Prime Minister of lying, against the rules of the Commons, was something he would do again as he repeated the accusation outside the chamber.
Blackford said: “I mean, at the end of the day, this is a Prime Minister that we know has misled parliament. And all I did was stand up and speak truth to power and apparently in the House of Commons, that’s not permissible.”
Blackford, who has risked being thrown out of the Commmons several times for repeatedly branding the Prime Minister a liar, denied he had pushed Speaker Lindsay Holye into ejecting him during the fiery debate on the Sue Gray report.
He said: “It was no stunt. I wanted to show the exasperation and the anger that people feel so in Scotland and the rest of the UK, that here is a man who seems to be twisting and turning and not accepting his responsibilities.”
He added: “ When you look at the Gray report, what we have of it, you’ve got 12 different dates, 16 events some of which the PM attended. And so many people are angry at what they see as as a Prime Minister and his administration that couldn’t follow their own rules on a systematic basis.”
Blackford now faces the prospect of being banned for the rest of the parliamentary day.
He said: “I have a job to do to stand up as leader of the SNP have no desire to be thrown out of Parliament. I’d rather be in Parliament. But as a consequence of speaking the truth that I’m to be excluded then. So be it.”
Blackford added: “I did say I honour the previous Prime Minister as someone of integrity and decency and in any other set of circumstances any other Prime Minister would have gone by now.”
It is the second time that Blackford has caused chaos in the Commons with a walk out.
In June 2018 he led the SNP MPs in a mass walk-out from Prime Minister’s Questions as he protested over the lack of time given to the debate on devolution issues connected to Brexit.
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