Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw says Dominic Cummings 'should consider position'

Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw has said Boris Johnson’s special advisor, Dominic Cummings, should “consider his position” after coming under pressure from his own MSPs following the protest resignation of a Scottish Office minister.

Jackson Carlaw

Just days after saying the matter was one for Mr Johnson to decide, Mr Carlaw said the actions of Mr Cummings were now “a distraction” in the government’s fight against coronavirus.

He spoke out after the resignation of Scottish MP Douglas Ross, who quit as a government minister following the confusion surrounding Dominic Cummings’ lockdown trips to Durham.

Adam Tomkins, a member of the Tories' frontbench team at Holyrood, earlier suggested other resignations may follow in the wake of Mr Ross's departure as a junior minister at the Scotland Office. He said Mr Ross’s decision to quit showed why Dominic Cummings should be sacked.

Other Tory MSPs, including Donald Cameron, Murdo Fraser and Liz Smith, have all also said the believe Mr Cummings should go, after being inundated with complaints from constituents.

A new poll today also showed that 71% of the UK public believed Mr Cummings had broken lockdown rules, and 59% that he should now resign.

Speaking to STV News, Mr Carlaw paid tribute to Douglas Ross, and said he understood why he had decided to leave his government post.

He said that he had tried to come to a view on the row “in the absence of the facts” but since Mr Cummings statement in the No10 Rose Garden that had changed.

He said: “I think the reality is this is now consuming the entire debate, distracting away from the principal message and the virus and if I were in his position, if it were me, I would be considering my position.”

Asked if the Prime Minister should sack Mr Cummings, he said: “I'm not going to issue instructions to the Prime Minister. It is absolutely a matter for the Prime Minister himself who serves him and for how long they serve but given the furore, given the distraction we are now in, given the distraction to the Prime Minister on this issue, if I were Mr Cummings I would be considering my position.

“It is a distraction for the Prime Minister, I think it is diluting the message, I think all across the country the focus has to be on tackling the virus. Here in Scotland my job as opposition leader is to hold the Scottish Government to account, to point out where there are shortcomings, not for the sake of that, but to ensure that we then get the right policy in place.

“That's what my energy and attention should be on. We want to see the whole country defeat this virus and we can't do it if the debate is being distracted by other things.”

He said he had made his “view clear to Downing Street.”

However Mr Carlaw also said he had found Mr Cumming’s explanation of his trip to Durham “quite sincere and heartfelt.”

“I'm saying that I have heard his version of events. Some people will have found them credible, other people… I think that his position as he articulated it was an understandable one but there clearly is a concern that irrespective of whether or not he acted legally or otherwise, people have to know that everybody is acting without fear or favour with respect to obeying the rules.

“And I think the continuing debate about that is what's creating the distraction.”

Pushed on whether he believed Mr Cummings should go because remaining was damaging to the government, rather than because he had broken lockdown, Mr Carlaw said: “No, I haven't said that at all. I absolutely understand that point. I understand that all of my colleagues, absolutely everybody is making huge sacrifices. I think that was the point Douglas Ross quite fairly made today.

“That ongoing debate is what is proving to be a huge distraction and that's why if it were me, I would be considering my position.”

He said next year’s Holyrood elections were not a “consideration” in his changing his stance. “This is a national fight to overcome the coronavirus. We cannot have that message becoming diluted, we cannot have that fight becoming a distraction against our collective efforts to overcome the virus.”

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