Boris Johnson granted Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon a role at the UN Climate Change Conference (Cop26) taking place in Glasgow in November during a two-day visit to Scotland.

Almost two years ago, the British Prime Minister announced at the Conservative Party conference that he had nothing against scattered Scottish flags, but he wanted to see the Union Jack and not have Sturgeon anywhere near.

Now Johnson emphasized that the climate conference was a "huge undertaking" for the whole of the United Kingdom, on which all parts of the country were now collaborating.

Gina Thomas

Features correspondent based in London.

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The change of tone came after Johnson was accused of snubbering Nicola Sturgeon by declining her invitation to a face-to-face meeting on the occasion of his visit.

When she found out about Johnson's trip to Scotland earlier this week, the Prime Minister had proposed a meeting at Bute House, her official seat in Edinburgh, to discuss “the current Covid situation and our respective recovery plans”.

Johnson referred in his response to the agreement reached with her at the last meeting to continue these constructive discussions in a forum with the Prime Ministers of the other regional governments in order to produce concrete results in the interests of the people of the whole of the United Kingdom.

Fear of angering the prime minister

Johnson denied rebuffing Sturgeon.

He was "always, always, always delighted to see her".

Nicola Sturgeon spoke of a missed opportunity.

She claimed not to have been snubbed, but said most people would find it “a little strange” that the UK Prime Minister would not meet with them face-to-face with the pandemic.

The leader of the Scottish National Party may have had a repetition of Johnson's last visit to Bute House in mind, as well as Johnson tried to avoid it.

In July 2019, shortly after his appointment as Prime Minister, he was booed on his inaugural visit to Edinburgh on the threshold of Sturgeon's official residence.

He left the building through the back door.

Since then, it has been said again and again that Johnson, perceived as the epitome of English, acts like poison on Scottish voters and almost promotes their requests for independence.

He stayed away from the country during the election campaign for the Scottish Parliament.

His visit this week was the first since the end of January.

The Scottish police are said to have renounced the original code name "Operation Bunter" for the security arrangements for his stay because they feared to upset the Prime Minister by referring to the overweight private student Billy Bunter from a series of stories that went back decades at the beginning of the twentieth century ran in a magazine for guys.

"Not the right time"

The focus of Johnson's trip, which took place against the background of falling approval in the latest opinion polls, was the preparations for the climate conference. During a visit to the Scottish Police Headquarters, the Prime Minister was briefed on the security precautions for Cop26. On Thursday he took a boat trip to a wind turbine that was still under construction off the north east coast.

Opposition leader Keir Starmer was also in Scotland at the same time. Starmer also distanced Nicola Sturgeon by affirming that he did not want to form a coalition with the Scottish National Party (SNP). The Johnson administration is betting that support for Scottish independence has fallen by six points to 48 percent since January. While the Scottish government wants to push for a second independence referendum before the end of 2023, as promised in the election manifesto, Downing Street is trying to put the request on the back burner in the hope that support for going it alone will decline further.

Michael Gove, who is in charge of the Union's cohesion strategy in the Johnson Cabinet, said recently that the British government would not stand in the way of a second referendum in the right circumstances if it was the "constant will" of the Scots. But now, when recovery from the pandemic is a priority, is not the right time.