Nicola Sturgeon’s character has been called into question after she revealed details of a 12-month-old private conversation with Kezia Dugdale, apparently for party political advantage.
The first minister claimed during a televised leaders’ debate this week that the Scottish Labour leader had admitted she might back the calling of an independence referendum.
The conversation, a private one between the two leaders, took place on mobile phones the day after last year’s Brexit vote.
Ms Sturgeon said that Ms Dugdale had conceded that the Leave vote “changed everything” and “Labour should stop opposing a referendum”.
But yesterday at Holyrood the revelation sparked a backlash, with Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, calling Ms Sturgeon a “clype” and warning that no one should now expect private conversations with the first minister to stay private.
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Ms Dugdale also intervened to call the claim a “categoric lie”, accusing the SNP leader of “driving voters towards the Conservatives” on the eve of the general election.
The issue of Ms Dugdale’s apparent wobble over independence after the Brexit vote, and Ms Sturgeon’s decision to disclose it, overshadowed the final day of campaigning yesterday and dominated first minister’s questions in the chamber.
Ms Davidson told the chamber: “Everybody now knows, don’t have a private chat with this first minister, because if it suits her purposes, everybody will get to hear about it.”
“Everybody now knows, don’t have a private chat with this first minister, because everybody will get to hear about it
She also used a rally outside Holyrood to deride the first minister, calling her a “clype” and adding: “I’ve thought an awful lot of things about Nicola Sturgeon in the past few years but I never thought she was a clype. I never thought she was a woman you couldn’t have a private conversation with, but I know now.”
Asked what the intervention said about Ms Sturgeon’s character, Ms Davidson said: “People will make a decision themselves if it talks to character, that if someone will tell a private conversation that happened at a really important time of Scotland’s political history a year later to score a cheap political point, people will make their own mind up.”
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When pressed in the chamber, Ms Sturgeon refused to back down or retreat over the phone call or her claims.
She declared: “I stand by 100 per cent what I said last night. In fact, if anybody reads what Labour and Kezia Dugdale were saying in public around that time they will see the ring of truth about it. Labour themselves were saying that all options including an independence referendum were under consideration. That is the reality.” Ms Sturgeon said that Ms Dugdale had already gone public with her version of the conversation earlier this year — in a piece in The Times which did not mention anything about changing the party’s position on a new referendum — so the first minister felt she was perfectly entitled to give her side of the story.
In the chamber, Ms Dugdale refused to be drawn over who said what. Instead, she said: “If the last 24 hours show us anything, it is that the first minister will say anything to deflect from the SNP’s appalling record in office.”
Ms Sturgeon replied: “I know what I said in that conversation and so does she. I am standing here in the chamber of the Scottish parliament and I am certain about what was said.”
Outside parliament, Ms Dugdale said: “This does demean her office.
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“This is gutter politics at its very worst, and you’ve got to question her motivations for it.”