Henry McLeish says Boris Johnson has 'lost the plot' over the Union

He said: “The stark warning is that unless Boris Johnson can move away from gimmicks and symbolism and useless safaris into Scotland and get down to the real business then he will only exacerbate the problems facing the Union.”

Referring to the infamous words of the French queen Marie Antoinette to her country’s starving people about to mount the 1789 revolution – in which she would lose her head at the guillotine – McLeish said: “It’s a let Scots eat cake visit. He’s not taking the issue seriously.”

“It seems an unusual time to be visiting Scotland to give us a pandemic pep talk and talk about the benefits of working together,” the former Scottish Labour leader told The National.

READ MORE: Scottish independence: Better Together chief calls on Boris Johnson to stay out of Scottish independence debate

“During Johnson’s first year in office he has heaped much contempt on Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland ... What worries me is that Johnson and his government have not grasped the seriousness of the plight of the Union at the present time.

“There is a pending crisis, it is high noon for his government in relation to the Union and there is no sense of urgency ... What we’ve got [with his visit] is symbolism triumphing substance.”

He added: “It doesn’t wash with the Scottish people, they are immersed in the pandemic, picking up the pieces of Brexit and we now have a Prime Minister who emotionally, ­intellectually and politically has no idea how to tackle the crisis facing the Union.”

The Prime Minister visited Glasgow, ­Edinburgh and Livingston on ­Thursday in a bid to show support to the Union, despite recent polls showing growing support for Scottish independence.

During the visit he said the people of Scotland don’t want to “spend more time on constitutional wrangling” as he criticised the SNP for unanswered questions about what independence would mean in reality.

McLeish said Johnson’s behaviour and policies would push “more and more people to independence”.

He also hit out at the PM’s plans to directly fund infrastructure and other large scale projects in Scotland despite such spending schemes being devolved to Holyrood.

The former Labour First Minister, who as a Scotland Office minister helped steer the legislation which set up the Scottish Parliament, through Westminster, criticised the PM’s “fanciful’ idea of building a tunnel between Scotland and Northern ­Ireland.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson in bizarre Scottish independence spoon analogy

“He seems to have lost the plot,” said McLeish. “I urge Johnson to reconsider what he is doing. He wants to pick a fight. He wants to pick many fights. He wants to pretend that Scotland as a nation and as a devolved nation doesn’t exist.”

McLeish, who is an advocate of a more federal UK, added that the only way for Johnson to “save the Union” was to “change the Union”.

Downing Street intended that ­Johnson’s trip to Scotland would ­demonstrate the benefits of the ­Union as he toured a vaccine ­laboratory and virus test centre in Scotland ­supported by his government.

During his visit, he went to the ­Lighthouse Laboratory at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital ­campus in Glasgow, where coronavirus tests are processed.

He then met troops setting up a ­vaccination centre in the Castlemilk area of the city, bumping elbows to greet some of the soldiers.

The Prime Minister also visited the Valneva laboratory in Livingston, West Lothian, where experts are working on a coronavirus vaccine.

On the subject of Scottish independence during his visit, the PM said: “My strong feeling is that the whole country needs to work together. I want to work together with the devolved administration to get through the pandemic and bounce back strongly on the other side – that's the focus that people have.

“Talking about another referendum is really not a priority of people either in Scotland or any other part of the UK by comparison with this pandemic. Recovery is what we all want to see.”