Labour, SNP plotting to oust Johnson
Britain
Britain’s Labour Party and the Scottish National Party are moving towards a pact that would seek to oust Boris Johnson as prime minister, as the parties prepare for an autumn election.
John Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, said yesterday that Labour would not block a second referendum on Scottish independence, in a significant shift of policy.
Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister and SNP leader, opened the door to a ‘‘progressive alliance’’ with Labour if the two parties were able to form a majority after a general election.
Sturgeon said she was ‘‘no great fan’’ of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, especially on Brexit, but she would sign up to a pact that ‘‘could lock the Tories out of government’’.
Westminster is on high alert for Labour to table a vote of no confidence in Johnson when MPS return from their summer recess next month.
Mcdonnell, who is Corbyn’s closest ally, said the question of another independence poll should not be decided by the ‘‘English parliament’’.
This went further than Corbyn, who has previously said he will decide what to do once Sturgeon has requested a referendum. Mcdonnell’s move led to a backlash from his colleagues, especially on the Scottish wing of the party. Ian Murray, Labour MP for Edinburgh South, accused him of being ‘‘willing to destroy our United Kingdom’’. Richard Leonard, the Scottish Labour leader, has said that if a Labour government took power in Westminster, it would refuse to grant a Section 30 order, which gives the Scottish assembly at Holyrood the power to hold another independence vote. The ‘‘no’’ campaign won the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014 by 55 to 45 per cent.
Murray said: ‘‘We were promised that the 2014 referendum was once in a generation, and we have a duty to hold the nationalists to their promise by firmly opposing a divisive second independence referendum.’’
After Sturgeon’s party wiped out all but one of Labour’s MPS in Scotland – Murray – at the 2015 election, one of Labour’s most viable paths to a majority at Westminster involves an alliance with the SNP.
If a vote of no confidence were passed, some in Downing Street believe that Johnson could refuse to quit. – The Times