Sturgeon to prop up Labour if she gets referendum
‘Lock Tories out of power’
NICOLA Sturgeon yesterday confirmed she is ready to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street in return for a second Scottish independence referendum.
Launching the SNP’s election campaign in Edinburgh, the First Minister said that if next month’s General Election leads to a hung Parliament, she would ‘seek a progressive alliance to lock the Tories out of power’.
The admission was seized on by the Tories, who hope to reprise the tactics of the 2015 election campaign when fear of an SNP-Labour coalition was widely credited with driving voters in England into the arms of the Conservatives.
In 2015, the Tories deployed a highly effective poster showing then Labour leader Ed Miliband nestling in then SNP leader Alex Salmond’s jacket pocket.
Within minutes of Miss Sturgeon’s speech yesterday, Conservative Central Office updated the image to show a miniature Mr Corbyn poking out of the SNP leader’s pocket, with the message: ‘History repeats itself.’
With Labour showing no sign of revival in its former Scottish heartland, Mr Corbyn is likely to need SNP support to have any chance of gaining power.
Miss Sturgeon said the ‘reality’ is Labour will need support from the SNP and that will give her party ‘significant influence and significant power’.
She said she would table a demand for a second referendum ‘before Christmas’ if she ends up holding the balance of power. She added: ‘I would never support a Conservative government. I can’t foresee the SNP being in a formal coalition, but we would look – as we’ve said in the two previous general elections – to form alliances that can keep the Tories out of power.’
Both Mr Corbyn and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell have indicated they are open to granting a second Scottish referendum, although Labour sources insist it would not be held in the party’s first year in government, as Miss Sturgeon has demanded. Miss Sturgeon yesterday said: ‘I’m no fan of Jeremy Corbyn, but you must work with what is in front of you... we would drive a hard bargain.’
She said she believed Mr Corbyn was ready to give way on her key demand for another referendum aimed at breaking up the UK, despite Scottish Labour’s official position of opposing independence. She added: ‘Jeremy Corbyn is someone who supports self-determination for literally every other country in the world. It would be pretty strange if he didn’t support it for Scotland.
‘The comments he has made, the comments John McDonnell has made, give a fairly clear sense of the direction of Labour’s travel on this [even if] they have to sometimes perhaps couch that in a way that allows the Labour leadership in Scotland not to be too embarrassed given the completely incredible and ridiculous nature of their position.’
Miss Sturgeon also set out a string of other demands for propping up a minority Labour government, including control of policy on benefits, drug laws and immigration and more cash for Scotland’s public services. The last referendum in 2014 saw the country vote 55-45 in favour of staying in the UK. At the time, the SNP described it as a ‘once in a generation’ vote.
Boris Johnson confirmed this week that he will not authorise a second referendum, which would need Parliament’s permission to be legally binding.
But Miss Sturgeon said she was confident that a Scottish independence referendum can be held next year even if Mr Johnson wins a majority on December 12.