SCOTLAND MISSING FROM THE HEART OF LABOUR LEADERSHIP

For immediate use: Friday 24th September 2010


ONLY SNP IS WORKING WITH SCOTLAND


Labour is set to become even more remote from the Scottish people it used
to represent with the announcement tomorrow of a new leader for the Labour
party.


The SNP today said that despite the loyalty, often taken for granted, of
many Labour voters in Scotland the party was moving away from its Scottish
Labour roots.


Commenting ahead of Labour's leadership announcement tomorrow SNP
Westminster leader Angus Robertson MP said:


“Over the course of the Labour leadership campaign there has been nothing
on offer to Scotland and no appreciation of the Scottish voters Labour
continue to take for granted.


“It is difficult to see Scotland in the hearts of any of Labour’s future
leaders.


“Voters in Scotland deserve politicians who will work with them and for
them, hearing their views and putting Scotland’s needs at the top of the
priority list. That is what the SNP will continue to do locally, in
Holyrood, in Government and in Westminster.


“The new Labour leader will put the south of England and the London
economy at the top of their priority list. That is something David
Miliband freely admits.


“The contrast between this leadership contest and the days when Labour had
Scotland at the heart of its team with the likes of John Smith, Robin Cook
and Donald Dewar is stark. Iain Gray is simply no substitute.


“Not one Labour leadership candidate has accepted the simple logic that it
is their failure that has put Scotland in the hands of the Conservatives
and Scotland’s public services under the Tory and Lib Dem knife and all
would rather see Scotland’s economic policies set by a Tory government in
London than by a parliament will full financial powers in Edinburgh.


“While the Tories have been cutting their way through a budget already
slashed by the last Government Labour have refought internal battles from
the last 13 years and failed to put forward a case for Scotland. Only the
SNP has put forward an alternative to the decade of dismal cuts coming
from the Tories.”


ENDS


1. David Miliband (20th July 2010)
“In the three southern regions outside London we got 12 Labour MPs out of
210. As long as that is the case we will never have a Labour government
again.”


2. David Miliband on the need for Labour to revive Englishness
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/07/lost-english-england-labour