SHADOW Chancellor John McDonnell was dismissed as having the “same tired old message”, after he urged voters in Scotland who are against austerity to “come home to Labour”.
The veteran left-winger’s address to delegates came four months after the General Election that saw his party virtually wiped out by the SNP, losing 40 of its 41 seats. He said he was “devastated” by the result.
McDonnell said Labour’s plans for economic growth would reach “all regions and all nations of our country”.
He then turned on the SNP, and told conference: “Let’s be clear the SNP has now voted against the living wage, against capping rent levels and just last week voted against fair taxes in Scotland to spend on schools.
“So, here is my message to the people of Scotland – Labour is now the only anti-austerity party. For those in Scotland who want to campaign against austerity, now is the time to come home – come home to Labour.”
However, the SNP hit back and said McDonnell had offered Scotland nothing new from Labour, and had continued to commit the party to voting for Chancellor George Osborne’s austerity plans.
Deputy leader Stewart Hosie said: “Mr McDonnell’s comments confirm that when it comes to Scotland Labour haven’t changed.
“Rather than learning from their mistakes and setting out a positive vision for the country, they are repeating the same negative and ill-informed rhetoric that saw them all but wiped out in Scotland at the last election. They may have changed the messengers but it’s the same tired old message.
“Labour’s economic plans are all over the place. While the SNP went into May’s election opposing austerity and campaigning for a real terms increase in public spending, Labour ran scared of the Tories and backed their draconian cuts and welfare reforms.”
He added: “While the SNP remain firmly opposed to George Osborne’s pro-austerity fiscal charter, John McDonnell just last week mandated Labour MPs to troop through the lobbies with the Tories yet again to back the plans, just as they did when they voted for £30bn of cuts in the last parliament.
“Labour have now lost all credibility and no one will take these claims remotely seriously.”
The Shadow Chancellor told delegates in Brighton that Labour would launch an “aggressive” drive to ensure that multinational corporations like Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon and Google paid “their fair share of taxes” as part of a bid to balance the nation’s books fairly.
And he set the scene for tax rises on the rich, by saying that when a Labour government needed to raise money it would do so by “fairer, more progressive taxation” which did not impose a burden on middle and low-earners.
McDonnell accused the Tories of trying to make middle-earners and the poor bear the burden of eliminating Britain’s deficit, while protecting the richest from the consequences of the economic crisis.
He said the party would not be “deficit deniers”, but rather than following the Tory route of austerity, Labour would target corporate tax avoidance and subsidies for companies and stimulate economic growth.
“Austerity is not an economic necessity, it’s a political choice,” he said.
“The leadership of the Conservative Party made a conscious decision six years ago that the very richest would be protected and it wouldn’t be those who caused the economic crisis who would pay for it. Although they said they were One Nation Tories, they’ve demonstrated time and time again, they don’t represent one nation, they represent the one per cent.”
McDonnell said Labour’s strategy would be based on growing the economy by strategically investing in key industries and sectors.
He added: “There will be cuts to tackle the deficit but our cuts will not be the number of police officers on our streets or nurses in our hospitals or teachers in our classrooms.
“They will be cuts to the corporate welfare system.”
Vodafone rejected McDonnell’s allegations about its tax affairs, claiming there was “no truth” in the claims.
A statement from the firm said: “It is disappointing that this has been raised again. There was no truth in the allegations in the past and there are none now.”
Director general of the CBI John Cridland added: “Most companies pay the right amount of tax and in the last financial year business paid £174bn into the Treasury – singling out individual companies from the podium is not the best way of signalling a partnership approach with business.”
The National View: Disunited Labour continues to shoot itself in the foot
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