BORIS Johnson will today claim it would cost £155 million to hold both the referendums Nicola Sturgeon wants next year as he helps to launches the Scottish Conservative manifesto in Fife.
The Prime Minister will say the pricetags for votes on Brexit and independence would be £138m and £17m respectively, based on the cost of the first referendums.
He will also say Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to hold a second EU referendum within six months is impossible under the current legal framework and it would take at least nine months.
The First Minister has said she wants a second vote on Europe in 2020, as well as Indyref2 in the latter half of the year.
Ms Sturgeon struggled last night as she was grilled on the economics and currency of an independent Scotland in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Neil.
Mr Johnson, who yesterday labelled Mr Corbyn the “prime ditherer” because of his neutral position on Brexit, said the Labour leader would grant Ms Sturgeon “another divisive referendum on Scottish independence alongside a second vote on Brexit” to gain power.
He said: “The financial cost of this to taxpayers up and down the country will be in excess of £150m.
“But the real cost will be much, much higher: the chaos of two referendums in 2020 grinding the country to a halt and the world’s greatest political union reduced to the status of a bargaining chip.”
Mr Johnson’s second Scottish visit of the election campaign comes just ahead of the deadline for voter registration, which closes at 11.59pm tonight.
Election: Pages 4 & 5
The Electoral Commission estimates around one in six Scottish adults is unregistered, with the under 35s among the least likely to have a voice on December 12.
The Electoral Reform Society and a dozen other campaigners yesterday called for an end to the scandal of the disenfranchised “missing millions”, and urged all parties to work together on automatic voter registration after the election.
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