AN SNP MP laughed and said he had just heard the “weakest defence of the Union yet” while discussing a potential Scottish independence referendum with a Labour MP on BBC radio today.
Speaking on Radio 5 Live earlier, Dave Doogan said Labour were a party in crisis and heading into “obscurity” in response to Keir Starmer’s speech on the future of the UK.
Starmer’s speech, in which he failed to mention Scotland or the Union even once, came as his party tries to reverse their ailing fortunes, with polls showing Boris Johnson’s popularity pulling further ahead of the Labour leader’s as the vaccine rollout continues.
The BBC programme played a full nine minutes of Starmer’s speech in which he praised the vaccine rollout, praised the United Kingdom’s efforts in the Second World War, and attacked the Tories’ record in government over the last decade.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer fails to mention Scotland at all in speech on future of the UK
Responding to the speech, Doogan said: “I’m glad we didn’t have to listen to much more of it. It’s interesting to listen to Keir Starmer, this is his big opportunity to recover the fortunes of his party, and what I heard was him appropriating the efforts of the NHS for a political identity for Labour, something he has learned off the Prime Minister himself.”
Doogan echoed critics of Starmer within his own party, who this month accused their leader of aping Tory strategy after a leaked document suggested “use of the [Union] flag, veterans [and] dressing smartly” in order to reverse Labour’s poor polling.
Doogan went on: “It is interesting he had to go back to 1945 to conjure up a Labour government that he wants to reference as somehow a reason to vote Labour again in the future. A lot of governments in between then and now and it’s quite telling that he doesn’t want to mention any of those.
“Labour, through arrogance and complacency, are completely irrelevant in Scotland and they’re heading the same way in the rest of the UK.”
Pointing to the ongoing Scottish Labour leadership election, the party’s tenth since devolution, Doogan said they were in crisis and headed to “obscurity, and Keir Starmer’s not going to stop it”.
Host Adrian Chiles asked Labour MP James Murray if his party had “given up” on Scotland as their fortunes north of the Border were a “mess”.
Murray, who represents Ealing North, denied the accusation, saying: “One really important point around building a better fairer country as we come out of the outbreak is to make sure that all parts of the UK benefit from our prosperity. It shouldn’t be all focused in one place.
“Now I say that as a London MP, and there’s a lot of wealth in London but there’s also a lot of poverty in London and there’s a lot of parts of the country that have not got the investment they need in recent years.”
The conversation turned to indyref2 and Labour’s position, which host Chiles said amounted to “a fair amount of fence sitting”.
READ MORE: Labour report calls for Union overhaul to prevent Scottish independence
Labour MP Murray said he believed "in the UK staying together. I think that we are stronger together. I think that facing the challenges of the future, we continue to go forward as the UK.”
Asked if Labour were happy to test that at the polls and if he therefore backed a referendum on independence, the London MP said: “No, I’m telling you what I believe in terms of how the UK is stronger.”
Pressed on whether a Labour Government would grant Scotland a Section 30 to hold a referendum, Murray said: “I’m not going to get into hypotheticals now.”
Chiles pointed out that “it is all hypotheticals if you’re in opposition, so you’ve got to have a position on something, but not on this apparently”.
The Labour MP then reiterated that he "believes" the UK should stay together, which led to audible laughter from SNP MP Dave Doogan.
The representative for Angus said: “As an SNP MP I have to deal with the defence of the Union all the time but I have to say that’s the weakest defence yet, the weakest I’ve ever heard: ‘I believe in the Union so that’s the thing.’
“It’s not for London MPs to dictate terms to the people of Scotland where their constitutional future lies. That’s decided like any other civilised society, at the ballot box.
“It ill behoves James Murray from his constituency in London, it ill behoves Keir Starmer, and it ill behoves whoever the next leader of the Labour party will be to deny the constitutional and electoral ambitions of the people of Scotland.”
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