Nicola Sturgeon: SNP could change direction of minority government
|
Version 0 of 1. Nicola Sturgeon has predicted that the Scottish National party would have a “huge ability to change the direction” of the government in the event of a hung parliament, on the eve of launching a manifesto aimed at reassuring voters across the UK who are “scared” of her party. What you can do is build alliances to change the direction of a government on particular issues In her only newspaper interview before the manifesto’s launch on Monday, she dismissed Labour leader Ed Miliband’s rebuff of her offer of support last week as “pre-election talk” and insisted that the SNP had “a vested interest in being a constructive participant” in supporting a Labour government. Scotland’s first minister and leader of the SNP told the Guardian: “With fixed-term parliaments, it gives parties in a minority-government situation – [where] hopefully the SNP will be in a position of influence – huge ability to change the direction of a government without bringing a government down. “There are very limited circumstances in that act where you can trigger a general election, but what you can do is build alliances to change the direction of a government on particular issues and that is what the SNP would seek to do.” Related: Conservatives pledge annual report on Scottish government impact on UK Her remarks follow repeated efforts by the Conservatives to highlight the influence Sturgeon’s party could exert at a time when her party is projected to win 50 or more MPs while both Labour and the Conservatives fall short of an overall majority. Earlier on Sunday, David Cameron argued that a minority Labour administration supported by the SNP would be calamitous for Britain. In a combative interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr, the prime minister said: “This would be the first time in our history that a group of nationalists from one part of our country would be involved in altering the direction of our country, and I think that is a frightening prospect.” At one point, Cameron appeared to question whether the SNP had any right to influence policy at Westminster, saying: “The SNP do not want to come to Westminster to contribute to a government. They want to come to Westminster to break up our country.” The SNP manifesto, launched on Monday, commits the party’s MPs to participate in votes on major issues south of the border, including a bill to reverse the 2012 Health and Social Care Act. Sturgeon responded: “To now hear David Cameron question the legitimacy of MPs that Scotland would democratically elect will infuriate lots of people across Scotland. On the NHS, these votes have a knock-on effect to Scotland’s budgets so it’s not just legitimate that we vote, I think it’s absolutely essential.” The manifesto will consciously cast the SNP as a party of government for the whole of the UK, with plans to reverse cuts to disability benefits and the roll-out of universal credit, as well as pushing formal recognition of a Palestinian State. The party leader dismissed as “just election talk” Miliband’s assertion during the BBC challengers debate last week that he would not work with the SNP. She said: “If we’re in a situation where Ed Miliband doesn’t have a majority but we have more anti-Tory MPs than Tory MPs, he’ll have to make the decision whether he wants to work with the SNP to keep the Tories out or let the Tories in. “I think he will understand the reality of that position if that’s what he wakes up to on 8 May.” Sturgeon said voters outside Scotland had “a right to know how the SNP would use its influence”. She added: “I absolutely understand why voters in other parts of the UK might have a suspicion about SNP motives in Westminster and I’ve got a responsibility to reassure them about that. “The way I do that is very simple. I’ve not hidden and I’ll never hide the fact that I want Scotland to be an independent country. But as long as we’re part of the Westminster system, it’s really important to people in Scotland that we get good decisions coming out of Westminster. So we’ve got a vested interest in being a constructive participant. “It’s saying to voters in other parts of the UK: you don’t have to be scared of the SNP having a big influence because there is a vested interest on our part in helping to make politics at Westminster better.” She denied that her consistent failure to rule out another referendum on independence put at risk the progressive alliance that she seeks at Westminster, with Labour and other parties, saying it would be “undemocratic” of her to rule out another referendum. “Democratically, I don’t believe it’s right for me or any other politician to say, regardless of the circumstances and regardless of public opinion, I rule it out,” she said. Sturgeon argued that there was no contradiction in her deputy, Stewart Hosie, telling the Sunday Politics Scotland programme earlier in the day that SNP MPs could vote against Treasury estimates on specific issues such as Trident. “Our opposition to Trident is very clear, very firm, very long-standing, very principled and we would seek to build an alliance to prevent the renewal of Trident. Ian Murray [the current Labour MP for Edinburgh South] said last week that he would never vote for the renewal of Trident so there are people within Labour ranks who we could build alliances with as well as from the Greens and Plaid Cymru.” |