THE Scotland Office has refused to retract a statement made by Scotland Secretary Alister Jack in the House of Commons where he claimed that there was “no desire” in Scotland to rejoin the European Union.
Jack was asked during Scotland Questions whether he was surprised at a recent poll which showed that 69% of Scottish voters wanted to rejoin the EU.
He replied by stating that “there’s no desire in Scotland to have membership of the EU".
"I believe Scots when they stop and look at the detail, whether it’s on their pensions, whether it’s on trade, whether it’s on currency, they stop, they think about it and they know that their home is the UK.”
The National gave the Scotland Office the opportunity to retract this statement and provided evidence of 28 polls conducted since 2016, which showed that a majority of Scots would still vote to remain in the EU.
However, a spokesperson for the Scotland Office refused to retract Jack’s statement.
They said: "The Secretary of State was very clear the people of Scotland do not support abandoning Sterling in order to invent a new currency as a precursor to joining the Euro; or the painful austerity that would be required to reduce Scotland’s deficit from 12.3% of GDP, according to the Scottish Government’s latest figures, to the 3% of GDP EU membership criterion; or - on that basis - leaving the UK and attempting to join the EU.”
It comes as another Tory MP, Andrew Bridgen, had the whip removed after he shared misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines on social media.
