Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn addressed a crowd in Dundee on Thursday morning, promising to win voters back to the party.
Once considered a Labour stronghold, Dundee has returned SNP members to Westminster exclusively since 2015.
Dundee was also one of two constituencies which voted a majority Yes in the independence referendum in 2014 – while 40% of the city voted to leave the EU in the 2016 Brexit decision.
Mr Corbyn – whose speech was interrupted by nationalist activist Bob Costello – said Labour was offering “real change” and the most transformative government since Clement Atlee’s post-war election.
The Labour leader said Dundonians voted for independence in 2014 in part brought about by a “frustration” of the austerity politics of David Cameron and Nick Clegg’s coalition government.
He reiterated it was “not our priority to have a second referendum” should he be elected as prime minister on December 12.
He said: “The people of Dundee voted in the referendum in the way they did. Some voted out of frustration of issues of poverty, injustice and the way Universal Credit now operates and the levels of de-industrialisation which have taken place across the whole of Dundee.
“A Labour government would recognise that cities like Dundee need levels of investment and our green industrial revolution will help bring that about.
“The skill levels are very high and the job opportunities do not meet the skill levels available.
“Our offer of investment, our offer of ending austerity, our offer of the kind of society we will try and create will chime with people all across Dundee however they voted in the referendum in 2014.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted in response: “Yesterday it was ‘not in the first term’. Today, it’s ‘not in the first two years’. By the end of the week, at this rate, Corbyn will be demanding #indyref2020.”
Meanwhile, former Labour minister Douglas Alexander described Mr Corbyn’s stance on the Union “ambiguous” during an interview on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland.
Responding to this, Annie Wells, Scottish Conservative Glasgow MSP said: “Douglas Alexander is the latest in a long line of Labour MPs and former ministers to criticise Jeremy Corbyn’s shambolic policy on the union.
“It’s quite clear that Mr Alexander thinks the Labour position on the union is weak and ‘ambiguous’.
“This is an obvious betrayal of the thousands of Labour unionist voters who have been abandoned by Mr Corbyn.”
