Scottish Labour leadership frontrunner's rallying call to Highlands supporters
Jim Murphy has urged Labour party members in the Highlands to unite to defeat the Tories at the next general election.
The former Scottish Secretary, widely regarded as the favourite to succeed in the party’s leadership contest, said the SNP swiped a lot of support but rallying together was the route back into power.
He told an audience at the party’s hustings the contest had to be free of any personal acrimony.
"My message to each and every one of you is no matter which one of us wins, a divided party loses. So for 24 hours a day each and every day until that general election and beyond, let’s put the past behind us and genuinely believe in this old idea that is still true today: Unity is strength."
The contest to win over the party membership came to the city’s Kingsmills Hotel on Friday evening, and leadership contenders Neil Findlay MSP, Sarah Boyack MSP and Jim Murphy MP made their case for election.
Mr Murphy, who was last in the Highlands for his ‘100 Days, 100 Towns’ tour ahead of the Scottish independence referendum, said the politics of the Highlands and Islands had always been important to him.
He said his previous role as minister for Europe saw him negotiating with 26 other nations of the EU over agriculture, fishing and many of the things that are important to Highlands and Islands communities.
He said it was experience of growing up poor with four generations of his family living under the same roof in an impoverished part of Glasgow which made him a socialist and gave him the right credentials to lead the party.
There would be no tuition fees under his watch and the country would be a fairer place to live.
But the Labour Party had to be stronger.
He added: "In 1999 we had the MP and the MSP in the Western Isles, we had the MP in Inverness. Fast forward and we’ve lost half of our list vote and we’ve got some work to do.
"But we are only 2,500 votes away from getting another member of the Scottish Parliament on the list here in the Highlands and Islands and as a minimum we must be able to find two and a half thousand votes."
He said the fact that 53 per cent of the people here voted no in the referendum was "an opportunity to be seized".
"We have to reach out to yes voters," he said. "It’s not their fault they voted yes. It’s our fault. We got something wrong. But there are a lot of voters who aren’t dyed-in-the-wool nationalists. They just want change.
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"They want a sense of radicalism and my approach to this would be an increase in the top rate of tax, new policies on mental health and prison reform, and many of the things politicians don’t talk enough about."
Neil Findlay, who has won strong backing from trade unions and spent 10 years as a bricklayer before becoming a teacher and a councillor for West Lothian, said he would continue to fight injustice and for a fairer education system - and said there would be "no privatisation of the NHS under my leadership" and he was push to bring the railways back into public ownership.
He said: "The Smith Commission says we have to come up with imaginative way to use our new powers and my plan is to use those powers to eradicate poverty. It is to all our shame than a million Scots live in poverty. My 2016 manifesto would be an anti-poverty strategy and central to that would be a commitment to eradicate youth unemployment."
Sarah Boyack, Scottish Labour MSP for the Lothian region and formerly constituency MSP for Edinburgh Central in the Scottish Parliament, said local authorities were making "incredibly hard decisions" and she would like to see communities consulted more in the process.
She also raised concerns for teachers, saying 4,000 teachers were lost in the last few years, and said stress levels were "at a level we have never seen before."
She said council tax had to be unfrozen to save services from more cuts and said she would take bold decisions too change people’s lives.
"While in cabinet I introduced free bus travel, and community transport. I invested in our railways in a way we hadn’t done for a generation. I put money into ferries and airport terminals that weren’t even on our manifesto commitment. There were things I discovered you could do with power once you were in that front door."
Deputy leadership candidates Kezia Dugdale MSP and Katy Clark MP also addressed the 60-strong audience.
SIDEBAR
Sarak Boyack called on the SNP to raise council tax to help fund services. This is in line with the hopes of Highland Council’s opposition Independent group.
Members are seeking support for a motion expected to be lodged at a meeting of the full council on December 18. It calls for a 5 per cent rise but Lib Dem leader in the council David Alston, and leader of the authority’s Labour group, said they support a rise but now is not the right time.
It would raise £5.5 million — but £3.2 million would be clawed back in penalties which the Scottish Government would impose for breaking an agreement that has kept the tax frozen for seven years.
Ms Boyack said: "We have lost 4000 teachers in the last few years and the ereason that that’s happening is because The council tax freeze, however popular it is, is underfunded and it’s a con-job.
"And the SNP have told people that you can have a freeze with no consequence.
"And our teaching staff, our classroom assistants and all the people who provide care and support know there is a consequence. we need to make sure we get it across, that the SNP have put in place a system that has broken local government finance.
"If I was our Labour leader that would be one of my top priorities."
