John Swinney has been condemned for appearing to tell victims of IRA terrorism to ‘move on’ as he works with Sinn Fein to break up the Union.
The First Minister said he had looked ‘very closely’ at the Troubles because he wrote an essay about Northern Ireland as a politics student 40 years ago.
The Scottish Tories called his remarks ‘grossly offensive’ to those who lost loved ones in the decades of violence.
Mr Swinney made the comments as he discussed working with fellow Nationalists in Sinn Fein and Plaid Cymru on Scottish independence.
Scottish Conservative deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: ‘John Swinney’s self-serving justification for teaming up with Sinn Fein will rightly anger many Scots.
‘No one is beyond the pale to the SNP, provided they share their goal of breaking up the UK - even the erstwhile political wing of the IRA.
‘It’s easy for Swinney to tell people to move on. But it’s grossly offensive to those who lost loved ones during the Troubles.’
John Swinney has caused controversy with his bid to work with Sinn Fein
Despite Sinn Fein’s historic links to the IRA and decades of mass murder and bombings in Ulster and the UK mainland, Mr Swinney said in the election he would ‘enjoy’ working with the party to ‘change the dynamics’ of the UK ‘irreversibly’.
He spoke to Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein FM Michelle O’Neill within hours of the Holyrood election about working with Welsh FM Rhun ap Iorweth.
In an interview with Wednesday’s Herald newspaper, Mr Swinney was asked about Northern Ireland’s bloody history.
He said: ‘I did a dissertation about the politics of Northern Ireland, and I looked at it very closely.
‘If you had said to me in 1986, when I was doing that, that Northern Ireland would be able to deliver the [1998] Good Friday Agreement, signed off by Ian Paisley as the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party and Gerry Adams as the president of Sinn Fein, supported by the British and Irish governments, I would have been pretty sceptical about that, but it happened.
‘So the world’s moved on. I know that my dialogue with Sinn Fein caused a media consternation in Scotland. I really do think people have got to move on.’
Scottish Labour deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said: ‘It is disrespectful of John Swinney to tell people to simply “move on” from the historic links between Sinn Fein and the IRA.
‘The Troubles saw communities in Northern Ireland deeply divided and families mourning loved ones.
‘Of course, it is vital that politicians are able to continue the constructive dialogue in the years after the monumental Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
‘John Swinney should take far more care in acknowledging those deep divisions of the past when he speaks about the future, instead of dismissing the concerns many people still have.’
On Saturday, Mr Swinney said the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all being led by Nationalist first ministers ‘committed to fundamental constitutional change’.
He said: ‘If Westminster has not yet grasped the significance of this moment, then it certainly will come to appreciate it in the weeks and the months ahead, believe me.
‘Because the direction of travel is clear. What people in London like to refer to rather patronisingly as the Celtic fringe is very much about to become centre stage.’
The First Minister also admitted in his interview he lacks a plan to ‘break the logjam’ and secure another independence referendum - but will spend public money on the issue regardless.
He said he had yet to ‘find another way’ after failing to win the SNP majority he claimed in the election would be a game-changer.
Despite the missing factor, he will hold a Holyrood vote on referendum powers next week, publish a legally meaningless draft referendum Bill, and set up a cross-party convention on separation at the taxpayers’ expense.
He said: ‘My mechanism was to break the logjam.
‘But what I’ve now got to do is to find another way of breaking the logjam, because winning independence is part of the whole reasoning of my politics and what drives me.
‘As I look at the situation we face, the hardship that members of the public are facing just now, a lot of that has been caused because of Brexit, which is an issue inextricably linked to the decisions of the United Kingdom against the will of the people of Scotland. Independence sorts that out.
‘It addresses that and enables Scotland to be a part of the European Union.’
The SNP Government declined to respond to the criticism of Mr Swinney’s ‘move on’ call.