Starmer: Joint effort needed for Labour to regain trust with Scottish voters

LABOUR leader Sir Keir Starmer has said it will be a “joint effort” to regain trust in his party with the Scottish electorate.

Speaking to The Herald, Mr Starmer acknowledged it was not solely up to Scottish Labour to win back lost Scottish votes.

The former director of public prosecutions, speaking after an online listening event in the constituency of Covid-19 row MP Margaret Ferrier, also said he had learned Scots needed to feel as if they mattered to his party again.

Sir Keir said: “I’d say certainly the strong themes for me as leader the Labour Party... people come to me wanting a reassurance that Scotland matters to the Labour Party.

“It’s pretty important stuff about emotional connection. Does Scotland really matter to you?

“The answer is yes, absolutely.

It’s central to everything I want to achieve as the Labour Party.”

He said he was also hearing that people in Scotland wanted to be listened to, and not “listening to what Westminster, is saying [to us].”

He said: “[That is] very very strongly coming through. There is a genuine sense that I feel people have of wanting power, control, influence to be closer to them [which] I think can be achieved, that should be achieved, but without breaking up the Union.”

When asked whether he had been concerned about the recent attempts to oust Richard Leonard as leader of Scottish Labour, Sir Keir said: “We’ve indulged in too much factionalism in the Labour Party across the United Kingdom and we have to unite and pull together.

“Divided parties don’t win elections and it’s our responsibility to come together as one team and to set out our strategic objectives for going into that May election.”

He said it was a “joint responsibility”, adding: “I was in Scotland a few weeks ago with Richard planning how we’re going to run into the May election, which obviously matters hugely to us. Richard and I, Scottish Labour and Labour, know we have got to rebuild trust in Scotland.

“We’ve got to rebuild trust across the UK, particularly in Scotland. There’s a job of work to do and it’s very much a joint responsibility.”

During the online Call Keir session yesterday, the Labour leader said he was “not impressed” by the handling of the pandemic in Scotland, or of the conduct of Ms Ferrier, who has refused to resign as an MP after it was revealed she had gone to the Commons and travelled back to Glasgow by train after being tested positive for Covid-19,.

He told participants: “Margaret Ferrier has let her constituents down badly because the person that they put their trust in as their MP has behaved in the way they have. “

He added: “When I looked at what’s happened in Scotland in relation to dealing with Covid-19. I’m not impressed, I don’t think it’s been handled well. The infection rate is high in Scotland. Obviously the few restrictions now that are coming, I don’t think they were inevitable. I don’t think we should ever accept they were inevitable.”