Kemi Badenoch hits out at both Andy Burnham and John Swinney as she demands end to 'endless' referendums

Kemi Badenoch has demanded John Swinney and Andy Burnham stop talking about 'endless' referendums as she backed a review of Holyrood powers. The Conservative Party leader described Mr Swinney as a 'broken record' after the First Minister’s announcement of the launch of another independence campaign. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has suggested a future Labour manifesto could promise another in-out referendum on Brexit . On a visit to meet entrepreneurs in Edinburgh on Thursday, Mrs Badenoch said: ‘I cannot believe that Andy Burnham is reopening this can of worms, when we saw how much chaos there was last time with an extremely divisive referendum. ‘I understand that not everybody got the result that they wanted. But just as we had people who thought that leaving the EU would solve every problem, that the EU was the cause of every problem, we now have the reverse of people believing that we need to rejoin and every problem will go away. This is not serious. ‘We need to stop talking about having endless referendums, whether it’s on Scotland leaving or whether it’s on the EU. This has been a distraction for our country. Kemi Badenoch has called John Swinney a 'broken record' on independence ‘It’s time for us to start using the powers that we have now and the opportunities to start generating growth for the whole of the United Kingdom.’ A new Scottish independence campaign is being launched during the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen this weekend. Mrs Badenoch said: ‘John Swinney, like the rest of the SNP, has run out of ideas. They don’t know what Scotland needs. ‘All he talks about is independence. He doesn’t know how to make people healthier. He can’t improve their education. We have more people than ever dying from drug deaths. 'What’s John Swinney doing about that? Nothing except independence, independence. He is a broken record. He has run out of ideas. 'Quite frankly, he and his party need to take a good look at themselves and ask, “What is the point of us?” Because there is no point.’ We told last week that Mrs Badenoch is considering a review of devolution that could see powers withdrawn from the Scottish Parliament. The move is part of a strategy to switch away from the ‘devolve and forget’ approach of previous Conservative governments. Her shadow ministers are increasingly alarmed about SNP policy failings on health, education, energy and the economy. The Tories have also demanded that the SNP government lift its ban on nuclear energy north of the Border. Mrs Badenoch said: ‘If they are using devolved planning policy to stop reserved energy policy, that is a problem. ‘We need to look at how we fix those problems rather than just shrug our shoulders and say, “Oh well, it’s devolved, we can’t do anything.” I don’t think it’s good enough. We should find a way.’ She added: ‘This is why we said maybe we need a review and it’s something that we wanted our MSPs to be looking at. ‘Devolution is a process. It’s not a religion which we should worship. This is a process. If a process isn’t working, how can you improve the process rather than just say the process is there, there’s nothing we can do. We are about solutions.’