Murphy: Labour Needs Scottish Votes

Labour will not win next month's General Election without the backing of voters in Scotland, Jim Murphy has warned. The Scottish Labour leader said that while votes in Scotland alone would not be enough to eject the Conservatives from power "the rest of the UK can't do it without us''. Mr Murphy launched his party's Scottish General Election campaign at a time when Labour is trailing behind the SNP in support north of the border. While some polls suggest that Labour could be left with just a handful of Scottish MPs after May 7, Mr Murphy insisted: "The polls are there to be confounded.'' He spoke out as he addressed a campaign rally in Neilston, East Renfrewshire, part of the constituency he has held at Westminster since 1997. When he was first elected there, it was the safest Tory seat in Scotland. Mr Murphy said that when he stood for election then "no-one gave us any chance whatsoever''. Prior to him winning the seat in 1997 - when Tony Blair's Labour routed the Tories in Scotland - there had only ever been one Labour MP for the area, who was elected "way back in the 1920s''. But Mr Murphy said: "Because we had the ideas, the energy, the team work, we won that election back then and we've won ever since'' He told activists that "people across Britain need a Labour government'' but added that it was support for Nicola Sturgeon's SNP that put this at risk. The Scottish Labour leader said: "For years we heard the SNP argue that it was people in England who voted to give Scotland a Tory government. "Now Labour is ahead in Wales, in all the cities of the north of England, and the polls suggest we are far ahead in London. It would be deeply ironic, would it not, if the only people in the UK that stood in the way of a Labour government were SNP MPs here in Scotland?'' He urged Scots to "vote for Labour and make Scotland a partner with London and Liverpool and Cardiff in kicking out the Tories''. Mr Murphy insisted there is a "world of difference'' between his party's plans for change and the continued austerity that another Conservative government would bring. He told the rally: "The change we need is too big, the choice between our parties is too large that we can not take a chance on change this time. "The way to guarantee change, the way to guarantee that this failed Tory government is sent packing, is only with a vote for Labour.'' He continued: "We can be part of a really progressive alliance, a coalition of Labour MPs elected in the cities of the north, in the industrial heartlands of the Midlands, in the valleys of Wales, in inner city London, and the cities, towns and villages all across Scotland. "In Scotland we can't beat the Tories alone, but the rest of the UK can't do it without us. "We have to vote for the only party that is big enough, the only party that is strong enough, to defeat the Tories and end their crushing austerity.'' Ms Sturgeon had yesterday called on Labour to work with the SNP in "locking David Cameron out of Downing Street'' even if Ed Miliband's party failed to return the largest number of MPs. The Scottish First Minister said her challenge to Mr Miliband was: "If together our parties have the parliamentary numbers required after May 7, and regardless of which is the biggest party, will he and Labour join with us in locking David Cameron out of Downing Street?'' But Mr Murphy said today that the "political reality'' was that the largest party in Westminster would be in the "strongest position'' to form the government. He stated: "The SNP counter that by arguing that nowhere in any rule book is it written that the biggest party has to form the government. "It might not be written in the rule book, but it's written in the history books.

"Never in our history as a modern democracy in more than 20 elections has anyone other than the biggest party gone on to form the government after the election. "It's a huge gamble to vote in this election in the expectation it will be any different.''