Ed Miliband will kick off the Scottish Labour spring conference in Dundee today with a twin attack on the UK and Scottish governments.
Addressing the party faithful in the Caird Hall, the Labour leader will insist neither ”old-fashioned Tory politics” nor ”the separatism of the SNP” can solve Scotland’s problems.
He will accuse Prime Minister David Cameron and First Minister Alex Salmond of sharing the blame for levels of joblessness predicted to reach 250,000 in Scotland by the end of the year.
The speech will be seen as a key test of Mr Miliband’s leadership, especially in Scotland where recent polls show he is less popular than Mr Cameron. It will also provide an insight into what role he will play in the constitutional debate to dominate the Scottish political scene in the coming years.
Mr Miliband is expected to echo the view of Scottish leader Johann Lamont, who argues the 300-year-old union is the best way to provide social justice for all residents of the United Kingdom.
”To do the right thing by the people of Scotland, you owe it to them to have a overriding, single-minded determination,” he will say. ”A determination to improve the lives, further the chances, and rekindle the hopes of ordinary working people in Scotland.
”We must start by answering one call that dwarfs all others. My case to the people of Scotland is that neither old-fashioned Tory politics nor the separatism of the SNP can possibly answer that challenge the Tories because they are wedded to the old ways that got us into the crisis; the SNP because while they award themselves the title of progressive beacon it is neither what they are doing in practice in government, nor what separatism would bring.”
He will tell delegates about a recent trip to Scotland when a father told him about his worries for his children’s future.
”And with 13,000 young people out of work for more than six months, how many parents around this country must feel the same way?” he will add.
”It is the price of Tory economic failure. It is the price of an approach to the deficit that goes too far and too fast. But it is also the price of an SNP government which blames everyone else while leaving even more Scots out of work.”
On the independence debate that has been raging in Scotland, Mr Miliband will insist ”throwing up new borders won’t make Scotland fairer”.
”If we are going to build an economy that works for working people, we have to do it together. The banks on your high street are the same as the banks on my high street. If we are going to reform them, we can only do it with stronger rules together, not weaker rules apart.
”If we are going to create a fairer tax system, we must avoid the race to the bottom on tax rates that separation would import. We’ve got to do it with stronger rules together. And if you want to create a country that is really a progressive beacon, why would you abandon the redistributive union that is the United Kingdom?
”I believe, and I believe that people across the United Kingdom believe, that we owe obligations to each other; that the successful Scottish entrepreneur owes obligations to the child born into poverty in London, and the pensioner in Wales. Right now, every nation of the UK needs not isolation but solidarity.”
But the SNP’s Dundee City West MSP Joe FitzPatrick said Mr Miliband’s poll ratings which have dropped as low as -63% in Scotland are a ”total embarrassment”.
”For a Labour leader’s approval rating among Scots to be far, far below an unpopular Tory Prime Minister reveals just how unpopular London-led Labour are in Scotland,” he said.
The three-day conference will see speeches from Ms Lamont, Shadow Defence Secretary Jim Murphy, Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander and Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran.