Senior Labour MP’s reported comments show party has ‘given up on Scotland’

17 Feb 2019

Labour have “given up on Scotland” in their attempts to get Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10, it was claimed today.

Following a crushing poll which shows the party’s Scottish MPs would be almost wiped out by a General Election, a senior Labour politician reportedly suggested this would be a price worth paying for a Corbyn government.

Shadow Scottish Secretary Lesley Laird is said to have been comfortable with the prospect of a minority UK Government “propped up by the SNP”.

The comments, relayed to the Sunday Times by a Labour MP, were made at a weekly meeting of MPs.

Scottish Conservative chief whip Maurice Golden described the Sunday newspaper comments as evidence of “capitulation” to the Nationalists.

He said:

“These comments show that Labour have given up on Scotland.

“What’s more, they’re ready to surrender everything to the SNP.

“It’s been suspected for some time that Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon are plotting a power grab in Westminster.

“Labour’s capitulation just confirms there is only one party who will stand up for the Scottish people in Westminster and Holyrood – the Scottish Conservatives.”

The YouGov poll showed Scottish Labour would lose five of its seven Westminster seats, were a General Election to be held now.

The Scottish Labour MP had commented:

“Colleagues were angry that the hard-won seats at last year’s elections seemed unimportant to her.

“We should be winning seats at Westminster, not losing.

“If there were to be a minority Labour government with only a few seats in Scotland, we could end up at the mercy of a Labour government propped by the SNP.

“That’s all we need.”