Independence is sole agenda
Sometimes, what you don’t say is more revealing than what you do say.
As Nicola Sturgeon addressed SNP conference last weekend we knew independence would be front and centre of her comments.
The First Minister is a nationalist. What drove her into politics was independence, not social justice.
But even then, it was astonishing for Nicola Sturgeon not to mention poverty once in her 45-minute speech.
This speech happened just days after new figures revealed that over a quarter of a million children in Scotland are living in poverty, an increase of 40,000 on her watch.
That tells you everything you need to know about her priorities. She would rather divide our country with the arguments of the past, than get on with tackling the problems Scotland faces.
Labour has a positive plan to use the new powers of the Scottish Parliament to tackle poverty. We would increase child benefit by £240 a year by 2020, helping over 9,000 families in Motherwell and Wishaw alone.
We want to ask the richest to pay their fair share, with a 50p top rate of tax so we can invest in our schools.
We want to extend the living wage to more jobs in the private sector, to where they need to be, like hospitality, retail and care work.
But rather than work with Labour to deliver these plans, the SNP want to turn our public debate towards the arguments of the past.
I don’t want to see a repeat of the divisions that caused families, friends and colleagues to fall out and saw communities split down the middle in 2014.
There wasn’t a workplace, pub or Facebook timeline that escaped that division last time. We don’t want to go back to that. But the SNP are only interested in one thing: leaving the UK.
When the UK Labour Government created the NHS and the welfare state after the Second World War, the SNP wanted Scotland to leave the UK.
When the UK Labour Government introduced ground breaking legislation to deliver greater equality in the workplace, the SNP wanted Scotland to leave the UK.
When the UK Labour Government introduced a National Minimum Wage and tax credits, the SNP wanted Scotland to leave the UK.
Brexit is the latest excuse Nationalists have been looking for, to impose yet another divisive referendum on the people of Scotland.
If there must be another referendum in the years ahead, the Labour Party will campaign with everything we have to remain in the UK.
Because the economic case for independence has fallen apart. In 2014 the SNP marched into communities in Lanarkshire offering false hope – the false hope that an independent Scotland could end austerity.
The SNP knew those claims were nonsense but they told people in Wishaw otherwise
And they have never apologised for those claims.
The real way to ensure a fairer Scotland is a strong Scottish Parliament in the UK using the vast new powers over tax and social security.
But rather than use those powers, the SNP want to divide us.
Again.