LABOUR have been accused of “shamefully picking up where the Tories left off” as Keir Starmer prepares to tell the UK that “things will get worse before they get better”.
It was reported on Sunday that the Prime Minister will deliver a keynote speech on Tuesday that the Government has inherited a “societal black hole”.
He is expected to say that “things are worse than we ever imagined” and that he will make “unpopular decisions now if it’s the right thing for the country”.
Now, both the SNP and Scottish Greens have hit out at Starmer, with MP for Aberdeen North Kirsty Blackman (below) saying: “Labour spent this entire election campaign not being straight with voters about their financial plans and now Keir Starmer is being forced to admit the grim reality of what his Labour Government means for households across the country.
“After 14 years of Westminster austerity hammering households, Labour have shamefully just picked up where the Tories left off and it is ordinary households who are being forced to pay the price – people want and deserve better.
“Against a backdrop of Westminster cuts putting serious financial pressure on the Scottish Government, the SNP will continue to do everything it can to protect our public services and people across Scotland.”
The Prime Minister is also expected to say that “14 years of populism and failure” under the Tories made responding to recent far-right violence in England and Northern Ireland harder than dealing with riots in England in 2011.
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater (below) said that while Labour “promised change,” the party is “offering more of the same failed policies that have plunged hundreds of thousands of people into poverty while cutting the services to the bone”.
“That’s not what millions of people were told they were voting for. There’s nothing inevitable about falling living standards and ever-greater inequality,” she said.
Slater further urged Starmer to make an “urgent intervention” and ask the “super wealthy to pay a bit more so that we can protect people from the growing poverty and inequality that is ruining so many lives”.
She added: “Communities all across the country have had more than enough of broken promises and of being stretched to their limits.
“There is more than enough money to fund the local services we all rely on and lift people and families out of poverty for good, but it is being held by a small number of people.
“When the Scottish Greens were in government, we took some important steps, such as ensuring a living wage for all public sector contractors, ending school meal debt and free bus travel for young people.
"These were all crucially important and helped to lift people out of poverty. But we also kept coming up against brutal Westminster cuts and their failed economic approach that we could do nothing to influence.
"We need a fundamentally different approach from Westminster if we are to build an economy that works for people and planet. It's time for Labour to listen, and for them to deliver the change they promised."
