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John Sweeney described July’s general election as “the biggest challenge the SNP has had for years” as he used the official launch of his party’s campaign to repeatedly attack Labor, which is threatening the Nationalists in dozens of seats in Scotland.
Sweeney, who told a rally of more than 200 campaigners and former MPs in Glasgow that it was a “surprise” to be leading the SNP in an election campaign, added that “voters are right to remind us to never take anything for granted”.
Keir Starmer has already traveled to Scotland twice since the election was called, pledging to make the nation “mission central” to a Labor government.
Sweeney said Starmer’s spending plans amounted to “austerity on steroids” and warned that “people don’t know exactly what Labor the party is promising, but I will see to it that they do it”.
With polls suggesting the SNP will pay a heavy election cost as it struggles to regroup under its third leader in 18 months, Mr Sweeney accused Labor of doing an “awfully good impression” of the Tories, highlighting recent comments by their health spokesman Wes Ulitsa, as favoring the creeping privatization of the NHIF.
Sweeney, who was elected leader without opposition last month, after his predecessor Humza Yusuf resigned amid the chaos that followed his severance of a governing partnership with the Greens, told supporters on Sunday that “people want us to demonstrate the importance of independence to their lives”.
He added: “If we don’t then we’re not likely to get much of a hearing in the midst of the cost of living crisis and, frankly, we don’t deserve it either.”
“So when we talk about independence we need to demonstrate again and again and again that we are talking about people’s core concerns such as raising living standards and protecting the NHS.”
Attacking the Tories and Labour, he said decision-making at Westminster had meant “austerity, Brexit and a cost-of-living crisis imposed on Scotland”.
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With polls suggesting constitutional preferences will play less of a role than in any election since 2015, with many independence supporters prioritizing the removal of the Conservatives from Downing Street, the rally focused on convincing those voters to returned to SNP.
The party’s election campaign director, Stuart Howsey, told campaigners it was their job to ensure every independence supporter knew that “sitting out this election or giving your vote to another party” risks jeopardizing progress on independence.
Sweeney was also forced to rebuke activists who booed and booed the BBC’s Scotland editor when he asked a question at a media Q&A.
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