Labour has a “mountain to climb” to overcome support among young Scots for independence, the party’s only Scottish MP has admitted.
Ian Murray, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, said that without a Labour alternative the constitutional debate was being “paralysed by the question of do you like Nicola or do you hate Boris.”
With polls showing that as many as 71 per cent of Scots under 34 back independence, the Edinburgh South MP said he was surprised the figures were not higher because of the polarised nature of the debate.
He said: “The framing of the debate at the moment is Scotland versus the Tories, Nicola versus Boris and Scotland versus those evil people at Westminster.”
Murray added: “All the debate is at the moment is, do you think the UK Government is horrendous, the answer from young people becomes yes. What shall we do about it? Let’s vote for independence they say. That is the only real solution that is being offered at the moment.”
Speaking at an online seminar on future of the Union, Murray said he did not accept that independence was inevitable and that the biggest factor driving support for separation was Boris Johnson.
Murray said: “The single biggest impediment to the Union staying together at the moment is the current incumbent of Number 10, that’s just a fact. The Conservatives know that, the Scottish people for obvious reasons are repelled by the current Prime Minister, mainly driven by Brexit and the way in which he’s dealt with the process of trying to heal the Union.”
Murray said that a radical devolution settlement to get power out of Holyrood and Westminster was on the cards for Labour and he suggested a confirmatory referendum, like that demanded on the Brexit vote, would be needed if another referendum goes ahead.
He said: “I think the principle of a confirmatory referendum has been established in Scotland, because all the parties in Scotland apart from the Conservatives agreed with it as part of the People’s vote Brexit process.”
“I fundamentally believe that because we don’t have an answer to the big questions about how people would maintain their livelihoods and maintain an economy in Scotland and also on the big issue of succession to the European Union, then people should be entitled to decide whether or not that was what they were promised to start.”
