Corbyn blames Scotland electoral defeat on weak austerity and Trident stances
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Version 0 of 1. Jeremy Corbyn has said that Scottish Labour was wiped out by the Scottish National party (SNP) at the general election because its leadership failed to fight hard enough against austerity and the renewal of Trident. Scottish Labour under Jim Murphy “was not chiming” with voters and young people, Corbyn told the Guardian as he embarked on a series of heavily attended leadership campaign rallies in Scottish cities. Labour suffered its worst ever result in Scotland on 7 May, reduced to a single MP north of the border under Murphy’s leadership, after the SNP won nearly every constituency it contested, taking 56 of Scotland’s 59 Commons seats. Those included 40 of the 41 seats won by Labour in 2010, after the SNP successfully portrayed itself as far more vigorous opponents of the Conservatives’ austerity programme. “I think the problem was we weren’t offering an alternative to austerity, we were not chiming with the Scottish people on Trident [and] we weren’t exciting the young people of Scotland as to what their future held,” said Corbyn, as he argued against further tax devolution to Holyrood. He’s tapping in that feeling in Scotland that this is a Labour party we can believe in, this is the Labour party we want “What we’re offering in this campaign is an alternative to the austerity politics which Labour was offering both in the 2010 and 2015 elections, and all the impression I have had – this is my third visit to Scotland during this campaign – is that there’s a real connection with ordinary people with the politics of opposing austerity. “Also, Labour has in the past, at leadership level anyway, embraced Trident missiles. I have never and never would support nuclear weapons and indeed part of the [party leadership] campaign is about not renewing Trident in 2016.” Corbyn told the audience that he would safeguard jobs at the Faslane nuclear submarine base by retraining staff for more peaceful endeavours under a defence diversification agenda. Speaking to journalists in Aberdeen, he said: “My life has been one of a moral opposition to nuclear weapons. “We’ve put forward serious proposals for a defence diversification agenda for the whole of the UK to ensure that jobs are not lost, those skills are not lost, the engineering capability is not lost. “Instead, they’re not making nuclear weapons, they’re making something that is safer and more useful for the whole world.” Around 19,000 Scottish jobs are dependent on the Faslane nuclear submarine base, according to Labour analysis. Bouyed by a series of polls putting Corbyn clearly ahead in the UK party leadership election, Corbyn’s backers within Scottish Labour believe his leftwing message can help the party win back many of the 300,000 former Labour voters who switched the SNP in May. Corbyn’s final event in Scotland, which is being held in Glasgow on Friday evening, had to be moved to a bigger venue after the first event rapidly sold out, and is itself now full to capacity. It is the same case for his rally in Edinburgh scheduled for Friday lunchtime. The latest opinion polls suggest the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership is poised to increase its majority at Holyrood at next May’s Scottish parliamentary elections, winning the vast majority of Labour constituencies. Neil Findlay, the leftwing MSP who coordinates Corbyn’s campaign, and who was heavily defeated by Murphy – from the Blairite wing of the party – when he stood in last year’s Scottish Labour leadership election, said the upsurge in support for the Islington MP was truly remarkable. “He’s tapping in that feeling in Scotland that this is actually a Labour party we can believe in again; a Labour party we can be enthused about because, actually, this is the Labour party we want,” said Findlay. Corbyn’s campaign in Scotland is being supported by several of the UK’s biggest unions, including Unite and Unison, with union offices being used to house pro-Corbyn phonebanks calling up Labour voters. But his candidacy is openly opposed by key senior Scottish Labour figures. Kezia Dugdale, who is widely tipped to be elected the party’s new Scottish leader on Saturday, Ian Murray, Labour’s sole Scottish MP, and his predecessor as shadow Scottish secretary, Margaret Curran, all back Yvette Cooper. Dugdale is attending Corbyn’s rally in Edinburgh. She told the Guardian she would never dismiss the surge in support Corbyn had attracted – which had “clearly electrified the country” – but did not believe he genuinely wanted to be prime minister. “We have to be careful not to raise false hope. That’s what I saw in the yes campaign during the independence referendum: a sense of false hope,” she said. “Filling out a big hall or a big stadium doesn’t necessarily mean you have all the answers, all the ideas that we will need to have to form a UK government or promote a credible plan.” Corbyn said Labour under his leadership would cooperate with the SNP at Westminster on an issue by issue basis, but disputed Nicola Sturgeon’s claims that the SNP under her leadership was progressive and leftwing. “There are issues about spending in Scotland, issues about privatisation in Scotland, there are issues about college education in Scotland and there are issues coming up now with the new powers of welfare being administered from Edinburgh and Labour in Scotland – I hope – will be opposed to austerity,” he said. Asked on the BBC whether he would work with Sturgeon specifically to oppose the Tories, Corbyn said he would not act differently with the SNP at the Commons: he would work with all opposition parties equally. “Clearly all opposition parties have to come together to put a lot of pressure on the Conservative government and who knows what comes from that. Politics isn’t really about, as interesting as it is, the arithmetic in Holyrood, in Westminster, Cardiff or anywhere else; it’s actually about what people think and do outside,” he said. “Political change actually comes from the democratic base of our society.” Corbyn told the Guardian he would oppose Sturgeon’s call for the UK government to hand powers over business taxes to the Scottish parliament, as that would allow the SNP to cut corporation tax to compete with England’s rates. The Scottish parliament will be able to set its own income tax rates from April 2016 and is taking control over air passenger duty – a levy the SNP plans to cut by at least 50%. Corbyn insisted that raising business taxes at UK level would be a crucial tool in increasing public spending. Confirming that he would expect a future Labour administration in Edinburgh to keep any Scottish income tax rates closely pegged to the UK rates, Corbyn set out a firmly pro-UK financial agenda. “I do think that there has to be a UK sharing of resources and a UK-wide policy, certainly on corporation tax and if there’s a huge difference between other taxation levels between different parts of the UK then that’s a recipe for economic imbalance,” he said. “So while I recognise the powers are there, the question has to be how are they going to be used, in who’s interests are they going to be used, and fundamentally back to the basic one that the UK as a whole is being pushed through an austerity agenda which is forcing the poorest and most vulnerable in any part of the UK for the banking crisis.” |