Shadow chancellor will tell party conference that Labour wants to be the party of building and infrastructure
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is due to claim the Scottish National party has “failed to put the people of Scotland first” later today, effectively stealing and reversing one of the SNP’s main attacks lines on Labour.
Sarwar and Ian Murray, the shadow Scottish secretary, will be addressing Labour conference on Monday afternoon after the party’s “seismic” byelection victory in Rutherglen and Hamilton West last week, taking 58% of the vote.
That victorious new MP, Michael Shanks, a modern studies teacher, is likely to be introduced officially to delegates during Sarwar’s speech. Labour estimates it could win 28 Scottish Westminster seats, based on the Rutherglen result.
Labour sources say their confidence has been strengthened after repeatedly hearing from SNP members during the byelection campaign they were sad and disillusioned about the party’s current plight, the infighting and the police investigation into the SNP and its inability to deliver a second independence referendum.
Critics of Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader and first minister, believe he has failed to properly address the cost of living crisis, which amplified the scale of its byelection defeat.
According to advance extracts of Sarwar’s speech, he will say:
The cracks in the foundations of the SNP are deeper and wider than they’ve ever recognised and while senior nationalists have lined up in TV studios to blame the voters – they have missed the point.
Politics is about changing lives. It is about delivering a future where everyone can live up to their potential.
It is about serving the people of Scotland. That is what the SNP have forgotten. It’s that failure to stand up for Scotland, that failure to put country before party that has seen people turn their backs on them.
I’m not convinced that either a Labour or a Conservative government could do that. The most recent budget red book suggests extremely tight spending plans after the next election, even though taxes are at quite a high, or very high, level …
I think it’s going to be tough for either party. But clearly one’s presumption is that Labour is more inclined to want to do something to improve public services, and possibly the welfare system, and that’s going to be very hard indeed without some tax rises, at least in the short run, until and unless growth really does change.
The markets might well allow some more borrowing. One thing that the markets are really keen on is seeing a stable government and I think on both sides we see more stability in recent years.
But Labour have also said they want debt to be falling over the period of the parliament. That is actually the big constraint here. Debt is not really on course to fall over the next five years or so. That’s what really tied Jeremy Hunt’s hands back in March [in the budget] and … if the Labour party stick to that sume rule rule, that will also tie their hands.
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