The UK is heading for a Tory "winter of discontent" with one million jobless, a £30 billion hard Brexit deal and queues of thousands of lorries at Channel ports, Ian Blackford has warned.
Highlighting the potential disaster facing the country this winter, the SNP Westminster leader made a renewed plea for an extension of the furlough job retention scheme at Prime Minister's Questions.
Blackford said: "If those numbers become a reality the PM is leading us into another winter of discontent".
The term, borrowed from Shakespeare, refers to the winter of 1978-79 when widespread strikes in the public and private sector across the UK heralded the demise of the Labour government and the election of Margaret Thatcher.
In the Commons, Blackford demanded an extension to the furlough scheme, "no half measures" and said that even the governor of the Bank of England was telling the Prime Minister to think again.
Blackford said: "The solution for millions of people right now is an extension of the furlough scheme beyond October, the alternative is putting 61,000 jobs in Scotland under risk.
"Yesterday, the only reassurance to Prime Minister those Scottish workers were saying that he would ‘throw his arms around them’.
"Prime Minister, I can tell you, the last thing 61,000 Scots are looking for is a hug from you. They need the security of knowing that they can hold onto their jobs and incomes, for themselves and their families."
Labour's Grahame Morris and the SNP's Neil Gray joined in the calls for more jobs support.
Morris said: "Make no mistake, there's a tsunami of job losses in the pipeline within 38 days. So will the Prime Minister please listen to that advice and take urgent action?"
Johnson replied: "what I can tell the House is that in addition to the package that I set out yesterday, as I’ve said earlier on, there will be creative and imaginative measures from the Chancellor to help people through this crisis."
As MP after MP asked what the government's plan for the economy was Labour leader Keir Starmer asked angrily why business support was not announced at the same time as greater Covid-19 restrictions on Tuesday.
Johnson replied: "Let’s be in absolutely no doubt that the work that this Government has done to protect the economy of this country, to support the jobs of 12 million people through the furlough scheme, and I think he should pay tribute to the Chancellor and his work and we will go forward with further creative and imaginative schemes to keep our economy moving."
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is reported to be drawing up plans for new programme to subsidise workers’ wages as pressure mounts to avert mass unemployment when the £39 billion furlough scheme ends in October.
