Keir Starmer has pledged that his bid for the Labour leadership will be about defending the party’s “radical values” and winning seats in Scotland in the next election.
As the frontrunner for the leadership prepared to launch his campaign, he said: “Labour has got to win in Scotland. No Labour government has ever been formed without having significant numbers of seat in Scotland.”
With other candidates such as suggesting a pact with the SNP, Starmer steered clear of direct references to a second
But he made it clear that under his leadership he would prioritise reviving Scottish Labour in time for next year’s Holyrood elections.
He said: “In the coming weeks, I will be travelling to Scotland to talk about how Labour can rebuild in these communities ahead of the Parliament elections in 2021.”
Speaking ahead of his official campaign launch, Starmer said: “We have to rebuild people’s trust in Labour as a force for good and real change. We have to take the fight to the Tories and make the case for how our values and ideas can deliver the change Britain so desperately needs.”
Starmer’s campaign launch will take place today in Manchester at the Mechanics Institute, the birthplace of the Trades Union Congress, where he is due to be introduced by Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered schoolboy Stephen Lawrence.
Starmer said: “The challenge for Labour today is to defend our values, retain our ]radicalism and to make that relevant to people’s everyday lives.
"People desperately need and want us to win. Our sights will be on every person in the UK whose support we need to win back. England, Scotland and Wales, in towns and cities alike.
“And in fighting this internal election we must not lose our focus on the elections this spring. If elected leader, I will pursue Boris Johnson relentlessly in Parliament. We will connect our opposition in Parliament to Labour’s mass movement and to the wider forces in our country who do not want five more years of Tory misrule.
“And we will bind that together with an electoral strategy that focuses tirelessly on getting Labour back into government.
“My campaign will be about defending Labour’s radical values and winning for the majority in 2024 – not either one without the other.”
