Willie Rennie labels SNP an 'arrogant and increasingly incompetent government'

The SNP are an “illiberal, centralising, arrogant and increasingly incompetent government”, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie has claimed.

Rennie, who was delivering a speech at the party’s UK conference in Bournemouth, said the SNP’s “eye has been off the ball for years”.

The Mid Scotland and Fife MSP claimed mental health services have been “neglected”, GP services are “under threat” and a “once proud education system has since been slipping with falling literacy and numeracy standards”.

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However, he reserved his strongest criticism for the Scottish Government’s reform of policing as he claimed Police Scotland’s failure to find a couple who had crashed on the M9 motorway for three days “repulsed a nation”.

An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of John Yuill and Lamara Bell is being conducted by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland is carrying out a separate review into the handling of calls by the single service. 

Rennie said: “We must never forget the SNP forced through the centralisation of the police, at a break-neck speed, with no costed business plan, imposing a top down, target driven culture on a police service that had served Scotland well for decades.

“They were warned of the consequences, not just by us but, by rank and file officers - repeatedly. It is shameful that it took the deaths of John Yuill and Lamara Bell to force them to act.

“This shows more than any other single issue that there is something wrong at the heart of the SNP Government. They were warned. They should have known. They should be ashamed.

“There is no hyperbole in what I now say. If it were not for the small team of determined Liberal Democrats in Holyrood the SNP would go unchallenged on the police, on justice and on the protection of our civil liberties.

“The SNP are an illiberal, centralising, arrogant and increasingly incompetent government who have put their party before my country for far too long.”

His comments come ahead of a local policing summit in Edinburgh this week to explore how local scrutiny of the single police force can be strengthened.

Rennie told activisits the SNP had “declared an unofficial war on the BBC” and compiled a “list of excuses” for a second referendum on independence. 

“The SNP want the lights to be turned off on scrutiny of their domestic record. We must not let them get away with it,” he added.