A senior Labour MP has insisted that Keir Starmer will not strike an election deal with SNP to defeat Boris Johnson.
David Lammy, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, spelled out Labour’s Scottish mantra again after tactical voting saw a Tory wipe out in two by-elections in Tiverton and Honiton and Wakefield as Labour and Lib Dem supporters banded together against Conservative majorities.
Sky News host Trevor Phillips told Lammy on Sunday morning that Labour was “never going to go back to where Labour was in Scotland” and asked if the party was ready for an alliance with the SNP.
Lammy was initially taken aback and said: “That is quite a categorical statement and I’ve got to say that’s a matter for the electorate.”
He added: ”We’re not striking deals with the SNP or the Lib Dems, we want to win outright, we will be fighting for every single vote in every single constituency right across the country”
Lammy said: “I’m not going to prejudge the outcome of an election that’s likely in two years’ time.”
“Let’s see where we get to but on that result in Wakefield, and indeed in Tiverton, we would be forming the next government with a comfortable majority. That’s what that result tells us.”
Any potential deal with the nationalists would come with a demand for a second independence referendum. Nicola Sturgeon will lay out further details next week of the Scottish Government's plans for a second independence referendum on Tuesday in a statement to MSPs.
Lammy also signalled a hardening of the Labour leadership’s stance on MP supporting stikers after several shadow cabinet members defied Starmer’s instruction not to attend picket lines.
Asked what the repercussions will be for those MPs, the Shadow Foreign Secretary told BBC News: “I suspect the chief whip will be speaking to them next week and making it very clear that a serious party of government does not join picket lines.”
Lammy said he “categorically” does not support GMB and Unite staging a strike of BA check-in staff.
He said: “It’s absolutely would not be right, it would not be responsible opposition, if I suggested yes to every strike.”
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