Scottish Labour reiterates IndyRef2 opposition at manifesto launch
Ms Dugdale told voters only her party is strong enough to defeat Nicola Sturgeon's SNP
Kezia Dugdale offered Scots a “cast-iron guarantee” that Labour will oppose a second independence referendum as she made a pitch to supporters of other pro-UK parties in a bid to break the SNP's “stranglehold” on politics north of the border.
Ms Dugdale told voters only Labour can oust the Tories from power on June 8 and that in Scotland only her party is strong enough to defeat Nicola Sturgeon's SNP.
In the last general election in 2015, Labour lost 40 seats in Scotland, with just one MP voted back to Westminster, as the nationalists swept the board.
Scottish Labour leader Ms Dugdale said her party had “lost out because people who wanted to stop the nationalists voted for different parties”.
She said: “Places across the country which voted to stay in the UK ended up with SNP MPs who spent their entire time campaigning to rip our country apart.”
Ms Dugdale continued: “Today, I'm asking people in those communities to think before they vote.
“If, like me, you want to break the hold that nationalism has on our politics, vote for the only party that can defeat the SNP in most places in Scotland - the Labour Party.”
Both Labour's Scottish and UK manifestos include a commitment to oppose a second independence referendum for Scotland.
Ms Dugdale insisted the “tide has turned against the SNP” - citing a moment in the Scottish leaders' TV debate on Sunday night where the First Minister came under fire from a nurse who told how she had been forced to resort to going to food banks.
The response of the nationalists was to use “dirty tricks” and start a “smear campaign” against that woman, she said.
Ms Dugdale added: “Here's an idea for Nicola Sturgeon: Stop the muck-raking. Stop the excuses
“Listen to what the people of Scotland are telling you - scrap your plan for another divisive independence referendum.”
While Scottish Labour is opposed to Trident, the Scottish manifesto includes a commitment to support the renewal of the UK's nuclear deterrent, explaining this is because defence “is a reserved issue”.
Ms Dugdale hailed the manifesto as a “bold agenda for change”, telling an audience of supporters in Edinburgh: “It is radical, it is ambitious for Scotland and for the UK.”
She singled out Labour's commitment to introduce a £10 per hour living wage by 2020 as the policy with the most potential to transform the country.
There are 467,000 Scots in work who earn less than the living wage at the moment, Ms Dugdale said, two-thirds of whom are female.
She stated: “Labour introduced the minimum wage in 1998 despite the predictions of the Tories and others that it would wreck our economy.
“Some are saying the same now but the truth is our businesses can afford to pay a little more so that workers aren't paid a poverty wage.”
She contrast her party's package of policies with the “miserable and mean manifesto” put forward by the Conservatives, which she said would take Britain “backwards”.
She said the election on June 8 would give voters a “clear choice” against the “twin evils of SNP and Tory cuts”.
Ms Dugdale urged voters to “reject the politics of division that both the SNP and the Tories represent” as she argued the two parties “are the two sides of the same coin, both are intent on distraction and diversions, ducking the real issues in this election campaign”.
She continued: “It suits them both to only talk about independence or Brexit. For one to blame London and the other Brussels.
“I stand where the majority of Scots stand. Against independence and for a close relationship with Europe.”
She criticised the Tories, saying seven years of a Conservative government at Westminster had “hurt our country” with “cuts to disabled people, the bedroom tax and the rape clause”.
Ms Dugdale said: “On all counts they have failed - in protecting our union of nations, in protecting our most vulnerable, in growing our economy.”
She was also strongly critical of the SNP, accusing ministers of having focused on independence “at the expense of everything else”.
Ms Dugdale said: “That's why our schools, our hospitals and our economy have under-performed. They're running a campaign, not a government.
“It's not good enough for Nicola Sturgeon to say she is trying her hardest when she has been a member of the government for a decade.
“That's why across Scotland, people are angry about the push for a second referendum.
“They know it means more wasted years where the things that really matter are sacrificed on the altar of a dogmatic, nationalist agenda.”
With Labour supporting an increase in some taxes - including 1p on the basic rate of income tax in Scotland - SNP depute leader Angus Robertson criticised “Kezia Dugdale's desire to hit the poorest in our society with a bumper tax bill”.
Mr Robertson said: “Labour cannot pretend to support ordinary workers when at the same time they want to hit them with a fresh tax bombshell - something even the UK Labour party have avoided.”
He added: “Polling over the weekend has shown that Labour can't win the election in Scotland - and if Labour voters want to keep the Tories out of Scotland, only a vote for the SNP can achieve this.
“As always on tax, on Trident and on Brexit, Labour are at sixes and sevens.
“This election is about who can best stand up for Scotland's schools, hospitals and pensions from unnecessary Tory cuts and an extreme Brexit deal which will put Scottish jobs at risk.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “The big problem for Labour is that they voted with the Conservatives for an extreme hard Brexit.
“They have joined Ukip in giving up on the single market. They would be devastating for Scottish jobs.
“The SNP risk leaving Scotland outside the UK as well as outside the EU. That is bad for business, security and the NHS.
“If you want Scotland in the UK and the UK at the heart of Europe you're only choice is to vote for the Liberal Democrats.”