Brown blasts SNP Doomsday agenda

AUSTERITY will be ‘here until Doomsday’ under Nicola Sturgeon’s plan for independence, according to Gordon Brown.

The former Prime Minister yesterday launched a scathing attack on the SNP over its stewardship of the NHS and other public services.

He said Nationalist plans to break up the UK would lead to significant spending cuts lasting up to two decades.

Speaking at a Labour rally for the NHS in Glasgow, Mr Brown made a passionate speech opposing independence and the financial implications it would have for Scotland.

Referencing the SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission report, he said: ‘You look now at the Scottish National Party’s proposals for independence, they will not be spending money on the health service this decade, they wouldn’t be spending it in the next decade and they wouldn’t be spending in the decade after.

‘Austerity is here until Doomsday if the Scottish National Party is all that is going to confront it.’

Mr Brown has returned to the public arena this week in a series of appearances and interviews in the lead-up to the 70th anniversary of the NHS this year.

He said that, under the Tory Government in Westminster and the SNP at Holyrood, the NHS has seen its worst decade for spending growth since its creation.

Mr Brown claimed the NHS was being ‘starved of resources’ by both the Scottish and UK Governments. He added: ‘The health service needs to be rejuvenated by an injection of new cash that would lead to greater morale among staff who have been sadly disillusioned by the promises of both the SNP and the Conservatives that have not been met.’

Nationalist MP Kate Forbes said: ‘It speaks volumes that Gordon Brown, who ushered in austerity, should – this week of all weeks – decide to attack the SNP rather than the Tories, whose power grab threatens devolution and whose shambolic Brexit plans are far and away the biggest threat to Scotland’s public services, jobs and economic wellbeing.’