JEREMY Corbyn was yesterday accused of “not getting Scotland” after he suggested, in an interview full of inaccuracies, that independence would not tackle poverty north of the Border.
The Labour leader told Andrew Marr that the SNP had privatised Scotrail, were doing the same to Calmac, and had cut local government funding – all of which is untrue. Stewart Hosie, the SNP Deputy Leader, accused the new man in charge of using the “same old lines”.
“I think the issue is, do the Labour Party leadership in London yet understand what drives the passions for political change in Scotland, and I suspect they don’t, because many of the lines that Mr Corbyn used in his interview on television this morning were the same old lines we have heard for years,” he said.
“I am just not sure that they really get Scotland yet in the way that they really ought to.”
Corbyn had also attacked the SNP’s support for full fiscal autonomy, arguing the policy would mean greater austerity.
He said the SNP had a “headline of being opposed to austerity”, but asked: “Where is the economic strategy behind it which doesn’t either continue the austerity that is happening now, or, if they go for fiscal devolution, is going to be even worse in Scotland because of the price of oil at the present time?”
“If you are poor in Glasgow or you are poor in Birmingham –you are poor. If you need a house in Glasgow or you need a house in London – you need a house, and so there is the class politics issue of it. That is the message I am taking when I am campaigning in Scotland just as much as I am campaigning anywhere else. Flags don’t build houses.”
Pressed on Sky News as to whether Scottish voters might view Labour as the vehicle for UK-wide change, Hosie drew attention to the splits within the Labour party over disagreements about Trident renewal and on countering the Conservative’s welfare cuts.
“That was the argument before the 2015 election and we were very clear: we can’t work with the Conservatives. But we could have done a deal with Ed Miliband, and indeed we potentially at some point in the future [will] deal with Mr Corbyn,” said Hosie. “But it has got to be the right deal, where we don’t just have a Labour leader saying no to Trident, we actually have a Labour Party and a shadow defence secretary who say no Trident as well.
“And we don’t just have a Labour leader who says no to austerity, but we actually have a Labour Party which doesn’t sign up to Tory spending cuts.
“Now this is years into the future – we’ve got the [Scottish] elections of 2016 to come first and I think the credibility of Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish Government compared to the shambles of the Scottish Labour Party will be night and day when the people come to choose next spring.”
During the Marr interview Corbyn inaccurately accused the SNP of privatising ScotRail – a move that was undertaken by the Conservative Government between 1994 and 1997 using the Railways Act 1993.
Corbyn has pledged to renationalise the railways if Labour are re-elected.
The SNP has said it supports allowing public-sector organisations being able to bid for rail services contracts – a development that will be possible under the Scotland Bill giving more powers to Holyrood.
The Scottish Government is responsible for franchises being awarded on the ScotRail service as well as the Caledonian Sleeper service route between London and Inverness.
Corbyn made the remark when he claimed that the SNP wore an anti-austerity “badge” but were “privatising CalMac”, “behind the privatisation of ScotRail” and, he claimed “also cutting college places, also privatising services, also cutting local government funding”.
Corbyn was also inaccurate to say the SNP Government was privatising the ferry operator Caledonian MacBrayne. The current CalMac contract to run Clyde and Hebrides ferry services comes to an end next year and the contract was put out to tender by the Scottish Government in June in line with European rules.
The RMT union has concerns that, regardless of who wins, the new contract will see changes in employees’ current terms and conditions. Serco, an international service provider and private company, is competing against Cal Mac for the new deal.
No deal has yet been awarded.
The National View: Jeremy Corbyn disappoints with tired old lines about SNP
Instead of “new politics”, Corbyn's anti-SNP dogma continues a decades-old tradition
No Trident debate for Labour Party conference
Out of ideas and in step with Osborne: SNP MSP takes aim after Kezia Dugdale’s speech
Letters to The National, September 28: Trident vote will test Corbyn’s credibility
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