I’m staying put, Corbyn tells Scottish Labour conference
● Labour leader says he won’t quit and can win next election ● SNP under attack in keynote speech to Perth conference
Jeremy Corbyn with Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale after telling the party’s Scottish spring conference that he will not quit and can win the next election. Mr Corybn also delivered a message to Nicola Sturgeon to forget a second independence referendum and concentrate on governing Scotland.
Embattled Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has told Nicola Sturgeon to forget a second independence referendum and clear up the “shameful” mess she has made in governing Scotland.
The party’s UK leader insisted he will not quit and can win the next election as pressure mounts on his own position following the disastrous defeat in the Copeland by-election last week to the Conservatives.
Mr Corbyn made the keynote speech to the party’s Scottish spring conference in Perth yesterday and launched a stinging attack on the SNP’S decade in power at Holyrood over its performance in education, health and transport.
“That’s a record to be ashamed of,” Mr Corbyn said.
The Labour leader insisted that “regular polling” indicates that support for independence is falling.
He said: “There is no appetite for yet another referendum.
“To the SNP I say this. ‘Listen to the people and respect democracy.
“The Scottish people are telling you to get on with your day job and start fixing the mess you have made’.
“But maybe that’s too much like hard work for the SNP. Far better for them to call for another referendum to divert attention away from their appalling record on colleges, social care, the NHS and transport.”
He also attacked the Nationalists’ “bizarre” plans for independence which would include keeping the pound while leaving the UK to become an independent member of the EU – which the rest of the UK has left.
He said: “I am not saying, and have never said, that Scotland couldn’t run its own affairs. Or that it does not have the talent and ability to do so. But I do think it wouldn’t be in the interests of working people.
“The links between Scotland and the rest of the UK are far deeper and stronger than those between the UK and the EU.”
Mr Corbyn also warned independence would lead to a “hard border” with the rest of the UK.
He added: “People don’t like the fact that an independent Scotland that stays in the EU would mean joining the euro and having a hard border with the rest of Britain.”
Cuts to teachers and colleges, as well as a £1.5 billion reduction in the budgets for local councils in Scotland in recent years all came under fire from the Labour leader yesterday.
And recent problems in train punctuality, after the franchise was handed to Dutch operator Abellio, was criticised.
But SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson hit back by saying that Labour’s commitment to taking the UK out of Europe after the Brexit vote flew in the face of the “democratic will” of Scotland where 62 per cent of those who voted in the EU referendum backed Remain.
Mr Robertson said: “Jeremy Corbyn’s message is a stark and depressing surrender on a hard Brexit. There is a clear democratic mandate from the people of Scotland not to be dragged out of the EU. To deny that mandate is to deny reality.
“But instead of standing up for Scotland’s democratic will, Labour’s answer is to cave in to right-wing Tory Brexiteers who are threatening Scotland with the economic cliff edge of a hard Brexit – that is simply unforgiveable.”
Mr Corbyn, who has already seen off one leadership challenge since replacing Ed Miliband in 2015, is again under pressure after the Tories seized the Copeland seat from Labour in a dramatic victory on Thursday, with the result marking the first gain for a governing party in a by-election since 1982.
Mr Corbyn told his party they must “remain united” if they are to win.
He said: “The result in Copeland was deeply disappointing and of course I take my share of responsibility for it.
“We haven’t done enough yet to rebuilt trust with people who have been ripped off and sold out for decades and don’t feel Labour represents them.
“But now is not the time to retreat, to run away or to give up.”
Several seats in the conference hall were empty yesterday as Mr Corbyn delivered his speech and a Comres poll in the aftermath of the Copeland by-election result found a fifth of Labour voters feel the party is too left wing.
“There is no appetite for yet another referendum. To the SNP I say this. ‘Listen to the people and respect democracy”
JEREMY CORBYN
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn came to speak in Scotland yesterday and to rally his party. But is anyone listening?
He lambasted the Conservatives, the SNP, the calls for ‘indyref 2’, welfare cuts, Westminster austerity, the Liberal Democrats, poverty, health inequality, multinationals, big business, tax cuts and slowrunning trains. He urged supporters to unite, stand together, fight for social justice and “get the message across”. But who outside the diehard faithful are paying any attention?
Mr Corbyn is putting on as brave a face he can in the midst of a deepening crisis for Labour. It suffered a humiliating defeat in the Copeland byelection in Cumbria. And while it saw off a Ukip challenge in Stoke, there was still a swing against Labour and precious little sign of any revival here in Scotland.
Despite some valid criticism of the performance of the SNP on its stewardship of health, education and social welfare, the party would do well to hold on to shrunken Labour territory in the local elections in May.
The party is deeply divided. Senior figures are troubled by the party’s prospects, its stance on major issues such as Brexit, the economy, defence and nuclear power is confused where not openly divided.
But the most serious issue of all is the leadership. Mr Corbyn has fought and won – resoundingly – two leadership challenges. His base in the party seems secure. He has personal qualities and a disarming style which has won acknowledgement across Westmin ster. But the incontrovertible truth is that he is not seen as a winning Labour leader, still less a UK prime minister. A dramatic poll at the weekend showed 77 per cent of voters believe Labour has the wrong leader.
Mr Corbyn admitted yesterday the result in Copeland “was deeply disappointing and of course I take my share of responsibility for it”. That one line was far as his personal acknowledgment went. The fallout might have been cushioned by a more inspiring and enlightened speech yesterday. But it barely rose above repetitive slogans, wornout rhetoric and tired cliché. “Remain united”; don’t “give up”; “conference, together we are stronger”; “unity is still our strength”.
A speech by Jeremy Corbyn is akin to hearing a cascade of noisy pebbles falling down a well and waiting in vain for any sound of a landing. Not least of his problems – and why people are not listening – is that he has little new to say other than wearisome appeals for energetic revival – this to a body that can barely register a pulse. A fresher approach by his speechwriters might have helped. But even this would struggle to disguise the absence of any positive suggestions as to how a government under his leadership would meet all his implied spending implications.
It is hard to know how Labour might begin the task of pulling out of this epochal decline. But begin it must, because both Holyrood and Westminster need a spirited, positive, creative – and inspiring – opposition.
The speech yesterday was less a rallying cry than a death rattle.