Visiting Edinburgh for the
first time as UK prime minister,
Boris Johnson was
met by a booing
crowd of Scottish
independence supporters.
Mr Johnson has doubters across
Scotland's political spectrum.
Many members of his own Scottish
Conservative and Unionist party
fear that his unpopularity
north of the border
and his apparent willingness
to leave the EU without a deal
could prove disastrous for the
unity of the United Kingdom.
Leaving the EU on any terms
is unpopular in Scotland,
which in 2016 voted by 62 per
cent to 38 per cent to Remain.
Nicola Sturgeon, first
minister and leader
of the Scottish National party
says that a no-deal Brexit
could plunge the
country into recession
and cost 100,000 Scottish jobs.
That kind of economic
damage, created by a leader
that many Scots see as
an upper class Englishman
unsympathetic to
their interests,
would be likely to boost support
for Scottish independence.
Amid such worries,
Ruth Davidson,
the Scottish
Conservative leader,
has publicly set herself
against Mr Johnson and no-deal,
saying that she could
not support leaving
the EU without an agreement.
Ms Davidson and the new prime
minister made a show of unity
during his visit, but
the obvious differences
between them could
be a major handicap
for the party in an early
UK general election.
And any loss of the
party's 13 Scottish seats
would make it much harder to
win an overall UK majority
and would embolden the
pro-independence S&P.
After his meeting
with Ms Sturgeon,
Mr Johnson was able to
avoid the booing crowds
by the highly unusual method
of leaving the first minister's
official residence
by the back door.
But the political and
constitutional tensions
created by his Brexit policies
could prove harder to escape.
