Change? Keir Starmer’s Labour are taking Scotland for granted

by the SNP
Posted on
9 months ago
3 min read

Keir Starmer’s Labour claim they’ll bring ‘change’. What change?

As recent news headlines show he and his Labour colleagues have been falling over themselves to make u-turns and say how they won’t really upset things.

It’s already being reported that his “u-turns don’t sit well with Scotland“.

He’s taking Scotland for granted. Believing people are so desperate to be rid of the Tories that people in Scotland will not see how their promise of ‘change’ is just the band members and not the tunes.

Just as Rishi Sunak took his own party colleagues for granted to become Tory leader, Keir Starmer has taken his own party members for granted. In the 2020 leadership contest he made 10 promises to get elected as Labour leader; but after constantly abandoning one after another they’ve now disappeared from Labour’s website.

The UK is the poor man of North West Europe and has been for decades. Poverty and inequality are rife and Westminster government spending decisions play a significant part in this.

So, what do Labour offer in terms of spending to tackle the cost of living crisis and years of economic mismanagement? More of the same:

How can there be any meaningful change for Scotland if we continue on the same Westminster controlled spending path?

And what about the NHS? In England it’s under threat from creeping privatisation and this can affect spending levels in Scotland through the UK government’s grant to the Scottish Parliament.

So, does Keir Starmer’s Labour plan to move the NHS away from creeping privatisation and underfunding? You be the judge:

But there is also a privatisation threat to Scotland’s NHS – from Brexit.

In January 2021 the Tory government blocked legislation that would have protected the NHS from future trade deals involving US-style private health companies. They also stopped legislation that would have given the Scottish Parliament power to opt out of any trade deals that affected devolved institutions, like NHS Scotland.

Reversing Brexit would, not only, be the best way to protect Scotland’s NHS it would help our economy.

Brexit has already seen a 25% slump in Scottish exports to EU and the government’s own independent economists said it will take five years for incomes to recover from the impact of Brexit.

Scotland didn’t vote for Brexit. It strongly voted against.

 

Yet what is Keir Starmer’s solution to this act of self-harm by Westminster? Again, he takes Scotland for granted and thinks people won’t notice how he now supports the Tory position:

And when it comes to a range of other issues Keir Starmer’s Labour has dumped them to appeal to Tory voters in England:

Whether it’s public spending and the economy, the NHS or Brexit, Keir Starmer isn’t offering Scotland the change it needs.

And there’s one thing about Labour governments that never changes. The one guaranteed result of every Westminster Labour government is the Tory government that follows it. Tory governments Scotland hasn’t voted for in nearly a lifetime.

Scotland does need change but real change not warm words and more Tory policies.

Westminster isn’t working for Scotland and real change can only come with independence. Only with independence will decisions for Scotland be made by the people of Scotland.

And the only way to achieve that is to vote SNP and escape the false promise of Westminster.