He endorsed a poem saying Scots should be exterminated, and that's just the start of it.

Boris Johnson has a Scotland problem.

It dates back to 2004 when in his position as editor at The Spectator he chose to publish a poem calling for the “extermination” of the “verminous Scottish race” written by James Michie.

Michie, who was at the time a staff writer on The Spectator, supposedly wrote “Friendly Fire” in jest, but saying Scots are “polluting our stock” is … not exactly a joke.

And the Commission for Racial Equality in Scotland agreed, with then-director Maureen Fraser describing the poem as “very offensive” and “deeply inflammatory”.

“It does nothing to promote race relations and undermines relations between Scotland and the rest of Britain, and our relationship with other countries,” Fraser said.

Johnson’s problem is rooted in much more than past mistakes.

According to YouGov, nearly three-quarters of Scottish people think Johnson is incompetent – and it doesn’t stop there.

65 percent of people in Scotland think Boris Johnson will make a “poor” or “terrible” Prime Minister. 71 percent think the new PM is untrustworthy.

A quarter of Scots would liken BoJo to a snake

71 percent of people in Scotland think that Boris Johnson is “Britain’s Trump”

68 percent don’t trust him with the NHS

64 percent don’t trust him on the economy

71 percent think Boris Johnson is untrustworthy.

62 percent think he’s putting on an act.

76 percent say he’s out of touch.

By 2 to 1 people think he’s racist.

The numbers don’t look great for poor old BoJo, and they’ve even curbed a cabinet meeting that was set to take place in Glasgow on Monday.

Moreover, Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland, has said that a second Scottish independence referendum may be the only option for the country unless Johnson “changes course” on Brexit.

In her letter congratulating him on his new position, Sturgeon warned that Scotland must have an “alternative option” to leaving the EU without an exit deal, which she said would cause “lasting harm”.

We all knew that the incoming PM would have a lot on his plate in the lead up to October 31st, but we can’t imagine he wants to have the break-up of the United Kingdom written into his legacy.

Meka Beresford is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter.



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