Labour’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell has issued a plea to voters in Scotland to “come home” to the party.
In his keynote speech to the Labour annual conference in Brighton, Mr McDonnell said he was “devastated” at the party’s collapse north of the border in May’s general election, which saw the SNP take 56 of the 59 available seats.
He accused the SNP of letting its left-of-centre voters down on issues like wages, rents and taxes and insisted that Labour was now “the only anti-austerity party” in Scotland.
“I was devastated by Labour’s losses in Scotland,” said Mr McDonnell.
“The SNP has now voted against the living wage, against capping rent levels, and just last week voted against fair taxes in Scotland to spend on schools.
“So here is my message to the people of Scotland. Labour is now the only anti-austerity party. Now’s the time to come home.”
Labour lost more than 300,000 votes and all but one of its 41 MPs in Scotland in May, as its share of the vote plummeted from 42% to 24%.
SNP depute leader Stewart Hosie said: “Mr McDonnell’s comments confirm that when it comes to Scotland Labour haven’t changed.
“Rather than learning from their mistakes and setting out a positive vision for the country, they are repeating the same negative and ill-informed rhetoric that saw them all but wiped out in Scotland at the last election. They may have changed the messengers but it’s the same tired old message.
“Labour’s economic plans are all over the place. While the SNP went into May’s election opposing austerity and campaigning for a real-terms increase in public spending, Labour ran scared of the Tories and backed their draconian cuts and welfare reforms.
“While the SNP remain firmly opposed to George Osborne’s pro-austerity fiscal charter, John McDonnell just last week mandated Labour MPs to troop through the lobbies with the Tories yet again to back the plans, just as they did when they voted for £30 billion of cuts in the last Parliament.
“Labour have now lost all credibility and no one will take these claims remotely seriously.”