LABOUR HAS THROWN UK UNDER A BUS
As Sturgeon claims Corbyn would grant new independence vote, Tory minister’s warning:
SCOTS have been warned that Jeremy Corbyn will throw the UK ‘under a bus’ by granting Nicola Sturgeon another chance to break up the Union.
Senior Tory Cabinet Minister Michael Gove said she would be in the ‘driving seat’ and ‘wearing the trousers’ if the SNP propped up a minority Labour government after next month’s General Election.
His comments came after the SNP leader yesterday said she believes Mr Corbyn would cave in and grant her the power to hold a Scexit vote within days of entering Downing Street.
Miss Sturgeon confirmed that she aims to make a formal demand for the legal power to hold another referendum before Christmas – and is confident the Labour leader would let Indyref 2 go ahead by the end of next year if he becomes Prime Minister.
It sparked renewed concerns that Mr Corbyn entering No 10 would be a major threat to the 312-year-old Union – with the Conservatives saying there is ‘no doubt’ that he would cave in to Miss Sturgeon’s demands.
Earlier this week, the Labour leader confirmed that he would not ‘seek to block’ another Scexit referendum if
the Scottish parliament demands it. Mr Gove, who is leading the UK Government’s Brexit planning, said: ‘It has been coming for some time, but Labour have now thrown the United Kingdom under a bus.
‘At the Edinburgh Festival, [Shadow Chancellor] John McDonnell said they would allow a referendum to take place and some people thought it was a gaffe but it clearly wasn’t a gaffe. That was clearly the first fluttering of their eyelashes at the SNP and now they are in bed together.
‘Corbyn and his team have made it perfectly clear that they will offer the SNP a referendum. And the SNP exist for only one reason – to smash up the United Kingdom, to separate friends and families, to make sure that my children think that their grandma and grandad are foreigners, to break up our NHS, to break up the BBC, to create a situation where you’ve got border posts at Berwick and where you can’t even use the pound sterling in Stirling.’
He said that Scottish Labour was no longer a ‘Unionist party’ and only the Tories would fight to save the Union.
Insisting that Miss Sturgeon would get what she wanted from Mr Corbyn, he said: ‘The truth is in that relationship it would be Nicola Sturgeon who would have the whip hand. She’s a smarter and more focused politician, she would be wearing the trousers in that relationship, she would be in the driving seat. And it wouldn’t go well for the future of our United Kingdom.
‘I don’t think that for any of us, having Jeremy Corbyn as Nicola Sturgeon’s glove puppet is going to work.’
At a campaign event in Edinburgh yesterday, Miss Sturgeon confirmed that she will seek the legal power to hold another Scexit vote, saying: ‘I’ve made clear – and I’m sticking to this – that the Section 30 demand will be delivered to Downing Street, whoever happens to be in it, by Christmas.’
It was revealed on Thursday that Miss Sturgeon held private talks with Mr Corbyn in London last week. Yesterday, she insisted they discussed Brexit rather than independence – but said she does not think he is ‘under any illusions about my position around independence and a referendum and the transfer of power’.
Asked if she believes he would grant a Section 30 order, she said: ‘Yes’, adding: ‘I am a believer in the power of democracy. Time will tell but I am confident that is the case – that they would see the power of democracy.’
Miss Sturgeon said it would ‘depend on the circumstances’ whether a second EU referendum or a Scottish referendum would come first in the event of Labour winning the General Election.
On Wednesday, Mr Corbyn was accused of plotting to break up Britain when he confirmed that, although he is not in favour of an independence referendum ‘any time soon’, he could allow it at ‘a much later stage’ if the Scottish parliament demanded it.
Mr Corbyn’s position on another vote has caused anger within sections of his party in Scotland.
Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly said: ‘We all know Labour would sell out their Scottish candidates, do a deal with the SNP and split up the UK.’
Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw said Miss Sturgeon’s entire election campaign was based on a rerun of the 2014 referendum, when Scots overwhelmingly rejected separation.
He added: ‘The only person she is listening to is Jeremy Corbyn.
‘And Nicola Sturgeon and I can finally agree on one thing: there’s little doubt now that, as prime minister, Jeremy Corbyn would cave in to the SNP on another referendum immediately.
‘It’s little wonder Nicola Sturgeon is already having private chats with him. She is rolling out the red carpet for him because she knows he’ll give her what she craves – another referendum.’
Speaking on the campaign trail yesterday in the Edinburgh North and Leith constituency, where Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are fighting to oust Nationalist Deidre Brock, Miss Sturgeon also warned of a future where ‘you’ll have Nigel Farage and Donald Trump pulling Boris Johnson’s strings’.
She said: ‘A Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson coalition would be scary. I know Halloween was yesterday but it’s the kind of Halloween monster that no one in Scotland wants to see.
‘But whether there’s a formal deal between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage or not, everybody knows the Tory Party is morphing into the Brexit Party and that’s the future unless Scotland chooses an alternative, votes to escape the Brexit horror show and puts our future into our own hands.’
Yesterday, the Tories attempted to capitalise on opposition to Miss Sturgeon by featuring her in their first major campaign advert.
A billboard advert launched in Aberdeen features the SNP leader with her fingers in her ears alongside the message: ‘She still won’t listen so tell her again.’
The party said it had targeted the First Minister because she is seen as ‘deeply divisive’.
A Scottish Conservative source said: ‘What we are finding is that people have had enough of her using every single opportunity to push ahead with another independence referendum when they said five years ago that they didn’t want independence.
‘There’s a lot of people that have had enough of her continually focusing on this.
‘Only two years ago, after the last election, she said she would pause it when she lost 21 seats.’
At the launch of the advert, Mr Carlaw said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon is not listening – she is obsessed with independence and we must send her a message at this General Election. People have had enough of all the division and we just want to move on.’
In response to Miss Sturgeon’s comments yesterday, Mr Corbyn said: ‘Labour does not support independence for Scotland and we do not think another independence referendum is either desirable or necessary.
‘We are running the most radical, people-focused election campaign the UK has ever seen and if we win we will invest £70billion in Scotland over the next decade.
‘Our promise to the people of Scotland, and people across the UK, is that a Labour government will end austerity, tackle the climate emergency and invest in our communities to truly transform society.’
‘She would be in the driving seat’
AT the end of the first week of the General Election campaign, the battle lines have already been drawn in Scotland.
In one corner are the Conservatives, who are prepared to finally deliver on the votes of the British public and leave the European Union with a deal that could allow the country to move on from the endless division of recent years.
In the other is Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon, an unholy alliance who will do anything they can to get what they want.
There can now be no question that the outcome of this election could have major ramifications for the future of our proud Union of nations, which has endured for 312 years but would be in peril if a Marxist/ Nationalist pact runs the country.
It was on day one of election campaigning this week that Jeremy Corbyn first let the cat out the bag. He would, he confirmed, be prepared to allow an independence referendum to take place if the Scottish parliament demanded it.
While he claimed he would have other priorities in the early days of a Labour government and would not allow it ‘any time soon’, his own spokesman only ruled it out happening in 2020.
Details about the shady backroom deal in the offing between Labour and the SNP continued to emerge, with Mr Corbyn admitting on Thursday that he had held talks with Miss Sturgeon and wanted a closer relationship with her.
Unsurprisingly, Miss Sturgeon yesterday asserted her confidence that Mr Corbyn would cave in and agree to her plans to hold another independence vote in the latter part of next year – and confirmed her desire to demand the power to hold it within days of the result of the election.
As Michael Gove rightly warns, there can be no doubt that if a Corbyn government was propped up by the SNP, Miss Sturgeon would be in the driving seat.
That should startle anyone who values the Union and wants it to survive.
Miss Sturgeon is undoubtedly gambling by making her demand for another referendum such a prominent part of her campaign. After all, when the 2017 General Election took place just months after she demanded the power to hold another vote, her party lost 21 seats and nearly half a million votes.
Mr Corbyn, too, is playing with fire by attempting to woo the SNP since Labour’s decision to ramp up its pro-Union stance was so critical to the limited gains it made in Scotland in 2017. It looks like he is prepared to sell out some of his own Scottish MPs to help secure an alliance that could allow him to sneak into Downing Street by the back door.
While this is fundamentally a Brexit election, even hardened Remainers must surely not want to add to the chaos and delay of recent years with more of the same in the form of an independence referendum.
Of course, some in the SNP have sought to downplay the fact that their sole objective is to hold another separation vote. Alyn Smith in Stirling, and John Nicolson in Ochil and South Perthshire, are among the candidates who have failed to make a single mention of independence in their campaign literature.
They are unlikely to succeed in their bid to pull the wool over the eyes of voters, especially given their leader’s daily attempts to step up her independence crusade. No Scot should be in any doubt that their vote would be hijacked in an attempt to demand a rerun of the 2014 referendum.
At the end of the first three days of campaigning, it is already crystal clear that a vote for the SNP is a vote for more constitutional grievance, and that Labour is prepared to sacrifice the Union in order to ensure its Marxist leader gets the keys to Number 10.