They are trying to turn socialists into separatists

This morning I took a break from my tour of 100 street meetings to travel to London to vote again on the Bedroom Tax.

An unfair policy that applied across the whole of the UK is another reminder that poverty and injustice are blind to nationality and don’t ask about passport before being visited upon families. But to listen to the SNP during the referendum campaign it’s as if hardship is inflicted upon Scots because we are also British. In truth it’s because we have a Tory government not a British one that so many families still suffer.

Having failed to turn patriots into nationalists they are trying to turn socialists into separatists. Nationalists are saying ‘Vote for independence and save the Labour Party.’ This from a group of politicians who have never voted Labour in their lives. Spare us the mock concern for Labour’s wellbeing, Mr Salmond, after all it was you who has been merrily predicting “Labour no more.”

They care nothing for the Labour Party and do little for the poor. Despite their social-democratic rhetoric their only redistribution is from the poor to the more prosperous. They talk Left and act Right.

When Labour was introducing the National Minimum Wage in the House of Commons not one single SNP MP turned up to vote for it. More recently in the Scottish Parliament when Labour was trying to introduce a national living wage every single SNP MSP turned up to block it. And when I challenged SNP Deputy Leader Nicola Sturgeon on TV about this week she blamed the European Union rules. It’s astonishing that the SNP transform themselves into a parody of UKIP in their demonisation of the EU to defend the indefensible.

And for readers in other parts of the UK who think that an independent Scotland is destined to be an egalitarian beacon for what was then left of the UK you should think again. The only redistributive proposal the SNP have is a 3% cut in Corporation Tax. Now we can always look at ways of reducing business taxes but the SNP proposal is a race to the bottom in which working people will pay the price because it’s not a one off cut. Instead it’s a promise that in an independent Scotland Corporation Tax would be 3% below the level in what is left of the UK.

There’s no logic or economics in that, it’s just a straightforward race to the bottom in which Scottish workers would pay the price.

Failing elsewhere the SNP are now having a go with the NHS. So for any Nationalists reading, let’s have a little history lesson.

The NHS was founded by the great reforming Labour government of Clement Attlee and drawn up by the brilliant Welsh socialist Nye Bevan. 50 years on, it was Tony Blair’s landslide victory that allowed Labour to reverse years of Tory neglect, treble investment in the National Health Service and devolved health policy to the newly created Scottish Parliament and get the world’s best healthcare system back on its feet.

The Labour Party is, was, and will always be the party of the NHS.

Labour changed Scotland and the UK for the better. I’m fiercely proud to have been part of the last Labour government because I got into politics to build a more just and fairer and society, and that’s what we did. That’s what Labour is for.

The SNP and the Yes campaign are about separation. Whether we were recovering from war or building the welfare state, in the austere 50s or the swinging sixties, the days of punk or the birth of Britpop they called for one thing first and last: separation, separation, separation.

Whilst Labour searches for new ways to help working people, the SNP looks for ways to get working people to help the SNP in their dream of separation.

The best way – the only way – to ensure that there is a government committed to social justice is by electing a Labour government.

In May next year, there’s a general election – under a year and earlier than the SNP’s 2016 Independence day.

And in the face of all the negative predictions, all the expectation of infighting and brutal factional warfare that we had at the start of this parliament, the truth is Labour and Ed Miliband are on course to win it – and the Tories are falling apart.

Just when they all told us the ruthless Tory election machine was going to crank into gear, they’re not just banging on about Europe – they’re smashing each other over the head.

So there is no quicker or more sure-fire way of building a fairer Scotland than getting behind the Labour Party and delivering a government that will change Britain for the better.

The yes campaign have lost on the pound, pensions and public services, and now their last remaining argument seems to be that the path to a Labour government is a vote for separation.

You can’t build a respectful, educated and healthy independent Scotland on tax rates that are guaranteed to be 3% lower than even George Osborne would dare…

And Scottish Labour voters know it.