Voters to unite behind Labour

been eclipsed by the Conservatives’ antireferendum stance and held back by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the UK party.

Dugdale was forced onto the defensive as she faced tough questions on Corbyn’s lessthan-outright condemnation of IRA terrorism at her manifesto launch.

She insisted Corbyn had been misrepresented on the topic. She said: “Can I just remind you it was the Labour party who delivered the Good Friday Agreement? That transformed Northern Ireland.”

Dugdale described Labour’s manifesto as a “bold agenda for change”, telling an audience of supporters in Edinburgh: “It is radical, it is ambitious for Scotland and for the UK.”

She singled out Labour’s commitment to introduce a £10 per hour living wage by 2020 as the policy with the most potential to transform the country. Some 467,000 Scots earn less than the living wage at the moment, Dugdale said, two-thirds of whom are female.

She said: “Labour introduced the minimum wage in 1998 despite the predictions of the Tories and others that it would wreck our economy.”

While Scottish Labour are opposed to Trident, the Scottish manifesto includes a commitment to support the renewal of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, explaining this is because defence “is a reserved issue”.

SNP depute leader Angus Robertson criticised Dugdale’s “desire to hit the poorest with a bumper tax bill” because of Scottish Labour’s support of a 1p rise in basic income tax.

Robertson said: “As always on tax, on Trident and on Brexit, Labour are at sixes and sevens.”