Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon should step down if an inquiry finds that she breached the ministerial code, U.K. Labour leader Keir Starmer said.
Speaking during a visit to Glasgow, Starmer said that “the code is explicit and the expectation has to be – if there is a breach of the code — then there should be a resignation.”
According to media reports on Thursday, a Holyrood inquiry concluded that Sturgeon misled the Scottish parliament over the Alex Salmond issue. Those reports said the committee ruled, by five votes to four, that Sturgeon gave an “inaccurate” account of her meetings with Salmond in 2018 during evidence given under oath earlier this month, when she was grilled about sexual harassment claims leveled at Scotland’s former leader (for which he was subsequently acquitted in court).
Details of the inquiry are expected to be published Tuesday and the committee has yet to decide whether Sturgeon’s behavior constitutes a breach of the ministerial code.
Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, told the Herald that Sturgeon must resign: “We cannot set a precedent that a First Minister of Scotland can mislead the Scottish Parliament and get away with it,” he said, adding that, “we have to trust that the First Minister will be truthful. We no longer can.”
Sturgeon said she “stands by” her evidence to the inquiry, telling Sky News that “opposition members … made up their minds before [she] uttered a single word of evidence.”
