How Sarwar plans to woo SNP voters
There will be a UK general election this year and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is more than likely going to get the keys to Number 10 – potentially with the help of seats in Scotland won from the SNP.
As the party kicked off its 2024 campaigning, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar was in Rutherglen yesterday to make his New Year speech, and appeal directly to SNP and proindependence supporters. The Scots man has taken a look at five key Labour ideas.
Making work pay
Mrs ar war says scottish labour is“once again the party of working people” and will make wages better. He criticised the SNP’S decision to increase income tax in Scotland, saying this cannot be a substitute for economic growth – but didn’t go into detail on income tax. There will be a new deal for working people within the first 100 days of a Labour government and he said: “We will scrap exploitative zero hours contracts, ban the scandal of fire and rehire, and tackle the scourge of inwork poverty by introducing a genuine living wage.”
Talking up devolution
It’s not the independence that many SNP voters want, but Mr Sarwar is trying to rebrand Scottish Labour as the party of devolution. He said: “Devolution was never meant to be about two governments fighting with each other. devolution was always meant to be about Scottish solutions to Scottish problems,and our two governments working together. Labour is the only party of devolution. but, for it to work, it means ending the childish squabbles between two bad governments, and not treatingpeople like they are pawns in a constitutional game.”
Investing in green energy
Mr Starmer previously has been criticised for saying he would not grant new oil and gas exploration licences but would not reverse any licences approved by the current government. However, Mr Sarwar is pledging to deliver green energy by 2030 and says a Labour government will create a publicly-owned energy generation company, headquartered in Scotland.
The party hopes this will create tens of thousands of jobs, bring down people’s bills and provide greater energy security. Mr Sarwar said: “That means investing in offshore wind, onshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage. It doesn’t mean we turn off the taps on our oil and gas industry, which will play a major role.”
Scrapping non-dom status
Non-doms, or non-domiciled residents, are individuals who live in the UK but don’t pay UK tax on their foreign income.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty, for example, yields over £11 million a year from her family’s IT company Infosys, which is based in India. If she didn’t have nondom status, she would have to pay almost 40 percent tot heuk Treasury on this income.
Bringing integrity back to Westminster
Labour says it wants to bring back “honesty, decency and integrity” to politics. Mr Sarwar said: “We’ll end the corruption and cronyism that the Tories have let fester, because while the Tories wasted billions on dodgy PPE contracts, Labour will end corruption at the heart of our government.”
Devolution was never meant to be about two governments fighting with each other