ALISTER Jack is being urged to explain when the UK Government will deliver on key promises made by Vote Leave after he appointed the campaign’s Scottish chief as a senior adviser.
Former Labour MP Tom Harris was hired as the Scotland Office’s lead non-executive director in October. The former Glasgow South MP also led Vote Leave’s campaign in Scotland ahead of the Brexit vote.
The SNP have published a list of unfulfilled promises made by the campaign, which was headed up by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. Among the broken promises listed by the SNP is Vote Leave’s claim that Brexit would allow £350 million extra a week to be spent on the NHS, that a trade deal with the EU would involve minimal bureaucracy and that there would be no changes to the Northern Irish border.
The SNP also listed claims that farmers would be fully compensated for lost EU funds, wages would increase and a VAT cut on energy bills would save the average household £64 a year.
READ MORE: Scottish food bank boss on his letter from 'viceroy' Alister Jack
MP Mhairi Black said: “Alister Jack was appointed to be the current Scots Secretary by the figureheads of the Vote Leave campaign – Johnson and Gove. Now he has returned the favour by hiring the Vote Leave campaign’s Scottish director.
“Having made all these promises of post-Brexit sunlit uplands, the people of Scotland are entitled to expect the Scots Secretary to deliver all of the many Brexit benefits Tom Harris promised – along with Johnson and Gove – rather than the costly catastrophe we are now suffering despite Scotland having voted against Brexit.”
She added: “Mr Harris will surely be invaluable in unlocking the glorious future he promised but has so far spectacularly failed to deliver. We can only assume that is why the Tories have hired the former Labour MP.
“Or could it be that everything Vote Leave promised was a lie and Mr Harris being hired for the Scotland Office is simply Brexit payback and another example of cronyism from a corrupt Tory Government?”
A UK Government spokesperson said: “Our focus is on tackling the pandemic and ensuring our economy and public services recover strongly.”
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