The Scottish elections are a chance to reject Boris Johnson, his lies and bigotry, and Tory sleaze – Angus Robertson

How can anybody vote for Boris Johnson? The answer to that question should have been obvious for some time, given he is a liar, bigot, peddler of racism, philanderer and serial embarrassment.

Now the charlatan Prime Minister has been splashed across the papers for reportedly saying “Let the bodies pile high in their thousands”. After 127,000 Covid deaths in the UK, he must resign if he said something so tasteless and unacceptable.

Johnson’s premiership is being eaten from the inside by sleaze, cronyism and Tory civil war. From the Greensill lobbying scandal, public funding to his undeclared girlfriend and Covid PPE contracts for Tory donors to the renovation of his Downing Street flat, BoJo is being exposed.

Many of the damaging revelations come from his own side. Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve says Johnson is a “vacuum of integrity” while the PM’s former sidekick Dominic Cummings is on the warpath.

The former Vote Leave strategist and Downing Street svengali appears to be telling anyone and everyone Bojo’s most damaging of secrets. The latest involve plans for donations to renovate the PM’s flat which Cummings describes as “unethical, foolish, possibly illegal", adding it “almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations if conducted in the way he intended”. In some ways, it is difficult to decide who you could or should believe.

The commentator James O’Brien hit the nail on the head: “Who do you believe? A scumbag who's spent his entire life lying to wives, mistresses, voters, employers and party leaders or a weirdo who won Brexit by sticking a massive lie on a bus and claims he drove 60 miles with his baby son in the back of the car in order to test his eyesight?”

This second-rate melodrama would be rejected as completely unbelievable as a drama script, but is actually UK maladministration. This is about people who govern our country and make life-and-death decisions.

Boris Johnson, seen feeding a lamb at Moor Farm in Stoney Middleton, England, is a serial embarrassment, says Angus Robertson (Picture: Rui Vieira/AP)

These are the very people who think they have a right to run Scotland without our democratic consent and want to block Scotland being in charge of its Covid recovery. These are the very same Tories who enjoy the tacit support of Labour and Lib Dems in governing without having won a national election in Scotland since 1955.

Where are the Scottish Tory apologists in all of this? Where is Douglas Ross? Where is Ruth Davidson? After all the macho posturing, standing on tanks, it turns out they are surrender monkeys. Desperate to embrace the ermine of the House of Lords and soon to lose the Scottish Parliament elections, they defend Tory UK misgovernment and say as little as possible about the scandal which is Boris Johnson

Scotland must resoundingly reject Johnson and all he stands for at the ballot box. Let’s use the forthcoming Scottish Parliament elections to show we choose a different future, where Scotland is in charge of Scotland’s recovery not Johnson. Let’s re-elect Nicola Sturgeon as our competent and trusted First Minister and let’s secure a choice about Scotland’s independent future in the EU.

Johnson has decided to avoid Scotland before the Holyrood elections. Let’s remind him how unpopular he and his sleaze-ridden UK government are in Scotland by using both votes for the SNP on May 6.

Angus Robertson is SNP candidate for Edinburgh Central

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