Johnson wants to exclude Nicola Sturgeon from Glasgow climate summit

Boris Johnson has said he does not want Nicola Sturgeon “anywhere near” a global climate summit being held in Glasgow next year.

The UN COP26 meeting, taking place in December 2020, will gather world leaders in Glasgow to discuss action towards tackling climate change.

The prime minister, speaking at a Scottish reception at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on 29 September, said the first minister should not be included.

He also insisted that a union flag should be added to every policy and investment that the UK government makes in Scotland.

“I tell you what we do – we make sure that with every policy we pursue, with every investment that we make in Scotland, we put a union flag on it,” Johnson told Tory party supporters at the conference.

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“Whether it’s investing in defence or whether it is, for instance, the COP 26 climate change summit which is going to be held next year.

“It’s going to be a great global summit, the leaders of the entire world will come to Glasgow and I don’t mind seeing a saltire or two on that summit, but I want to see the union flag.

“I don’t want to see Nicola Sturgeon anywhere near it because the Scottish nationalist party didn’t secure that summit in Glasgow, it was the United Kingdom Government.”

Johnson also criticised the SNP over its record in government and said his party would “expose” its failures.

He said “Let’s expose the frauds of the SNP who go on, who bleat endlessly on, about their desire to smash up the oldest and most successful political union, political partnership, anywhere in the world simply to cover up their domestic failures – their high taxes, their inability to run a successful health or education system.

“Let’s expose them for the failures they are and, by the way, when we’ve got Brexit done, let’s remind them of the sheer incoherence of their policies to join the European Union.”

First minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted on 30 September: “In supporting a catastrophic ‘no-deal’ Brexit the Scottish Tories are putting the demands of Boris Johnson ahead of the interests of the Scottish people … who voted overwhelmingly against any kind of Brexit.”