TORY MSP Adam Tomkins was wishing he was anywhere but Holyrood yesterday, after having his Unionist blog from 2014 quoted back to him in the Brexit deal debate.
Many Scottish Tories were desperately trying to defend a position on Brexit they once opposed so strongly, but that wasn’t the only historical anomaly on display, as Brexit Secretary Mike Russell was quick to point out in a devastating moment for Tomkins.
The vote clearly went in favour of rejecting a no-deal Brexit and Theresa May’s draft proposals – Russell had them on the ropes enough on that front.
Then he pulled out a quote from Tory MSP Tomkins’s own blog post, and it speaks volumes.
Back in 2014, on the Notes From North Britain site, Tomkins indeed had plenty to say on Scotland and the EU.
“Would an independent Scotland remain in the EU?” he asked.
Tomkins wrote: “The only way of guaranteeing that Scotland remains in the EU is to vote Yes.
“There is little real danger of the UK leaving the EU. Any Yes campaigner arguing in 2014 that the only way of securing Scotland’s membership of the EU is to vote Yes is scaremongering, plain and simple.”
He also predicted that an EU referendum was exceedingly unlikely, but a vote to remain likely.
“There’s a track record of contribution,” said Russell in the debate yesterday.
“There’s a man who said it would not happen, and that those people who said it would happen were simply to be dismissed. How could you trust that?”
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