THE SNP have pledged to put “the fight against Westminster cuts” at the heart of their General Election campaign to set them apart from the main UK parties.
They said this will show a “clear dividing line” between them and the parties of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, as they accused Labour and the Tories of copying each other on austerity cuts.
It comes after Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves told The Times her party would continue Tory plans to impose significant real terms cuts to public spending for years to come.
She suggested she had no choice but to accept the assumption that public spending will rise by just 1% overall from 2025, meaning significant cuts to unprotected departments.
Asked if she would increase public spending, she said: “An incoming government doesn’t choose its inheritance. I have been really clear we’re going to stick to our fiscal rules.”
She added that public spending could only rise if the economy grew.
In a separate interview published in The Observer, Starmer said a Labour government wouldn't redistribute wealth from the richest to the poorest.
Asked by Anushka Athana whether he will tax the super-rich and redistribute it to the poorest, Starmer said "no".
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said his party is the only one championing investment in public services.
He said: “The SNP will put the fight against Westminster cuts at the centre of our election campaign - because a choice between damaging Tory cuts or damaging Labour cuts is no choice at all. "Voting SNP is the only way to make Scotland Tory-free - and it's the best defence against another decade of Westminster cuts to public services and the economy.
The SNP launched its General Election campaign last week, where Humza Yousaf offered to work “constructively” with a Labour government to pursue progressive policies and “introduce measures for a fairer country”, but he took aim at their repeated U-turns.
He said: “We’ll do everything we can to prevent any further Labour backsliding on green investment.
“We’ll fight to protect the NHS from creeping privatisation at Westminster.
“We’ll work with Labour if they want to end the two-child cap, to lift children out of poverty.
“And if they’re open to it, we’ll share our experience of how to introduce a UK-wide equivalent of the Scottish Child Payment.”
Yousaf told an audience in Glasgow that he hoped Rishi Sunak would be the last Tory prime minister “imposed” on Scotland, as he urged voters to back the SNP and oust all of Scotland’s seven current Tory MPs.
