General election 2024: Five ways Anas Sarwar and Scottish Labour will appeal to SNP and pro-independence voters

Voters know there will be a general election at some point this year, and the polling looks good for Labour.

Sir Keir Starmer is more than likely going to get the keys to Number 10, and one way he will do that is by taking seats off of the SNP here in Scotland.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar was in Rutherglen on Monday to make his New Year speech, and to directly appeal to SNP and pro-independence supporters to give him their votes. But how exactly are they going to do that?

Unfortunately, the specific details won’t be made clear until their party conference later this year. However, The Scotsman has taken a look at five key areas Labour want to focus on to woo SNP voters.

Making work pay

Everyone is feeling the pinch right now because of the cost-of-living crisis and the impact of sky-high inflation. However, Mr Sarwar says Scottish Labour is “once again the party of working people” and will make wages better for people.

He criticised the SNP’s decision to increase income tax in Scotland, saying this cannot be a substitute for economic growth – but didn’t go into detail as to what he would do with income tax. Instead he said there would be a new deal for working people within the first 100 days of a Labour government.

In his speech, Mr Sarwar said: “We will scrap exploitative zero hours contracts, ban the scandal of fire and rehire, and tackle the scourge of in-work poverty by introducing a genuine living wage.” He said not only would this lift people out of poverty, but it would give the government more money to spend on public services.

Talking up devolution

It’s not the independence that many SNP voters want, but Mr Sarwar is trying to rebrand Scottish Labour as the party of devolution. He said the general election was a change to “reset devolution” and bring it back to its founding principles.

Mr Sarwar said: “Devolution was never meant to be about two governments fighting with each other and ultimately failing Scots. Devolution was always meant to be about Scottish solutions to Scottish problems, and our two governments working together in our national interest to actually deliver for Scotland.

“Labour is the only party of devolution. But for it to work to its maximum effect it means ending the childish squabbles between two bad governments, and not treating people like they are pawns in a constitutional game.”

Investing in green energy

Sir Keir Starmer previously came under fire for saying while he would not grant any new oil and gas exploration licences, he would not reverse any licences approved by the current Conservative government.

However, Mr Sarwar said this does not mean his party cannot deliver the “green energy of the future”. He is pledging to deliver green energy by 2030, and says a Labour government will create a publicly-owned energy generation company called GB Energy, which will be headquartered in Scotland.

The party hopes this will create tens of thousands of jobs, bring down people’s bills and provide greater energy security.

Mr Sarwar said: “That means investing in offshore wind, onshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and all other forms of energy as well. It doesn’t mean we turn off the taps on our oil and gas industry, which will play a major role in our energy infrastructure for decades to come, but it means working in partnership to protect jobs and provide prosperity for future generations.”

Scrapping non-dom status

Non-doms, or non-domiciled residents, are individuals who live in the UK, but claim tax on their permanent place of residence abroad. In other words, they don’t pay UK tax on their foreign income.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been plagued with bad press on this policy, as his wife Akshata Murty saves millions of pounds in tax on dividends from her family’s IT company Infosys. The company is based in India, and although Ms Murty owns less than 1 per cent of the firm, she yields over £11 million a year from this.

If she didn’t have non-dom status, she would have to pay almost 40 per cent to the UK Treasury on this income. Mr Sarwar said Labour will scrap the non-dom tax loophole, which will mean more money can be spent on the NHS.

Bringing integrity back to Westminster

The UK Government has been mired in scandal, not least because of partygate and fast-track protective personal equipment (PPE) contracts.

Labour says it wants to bring back “honesty, decency and integrity” to politics. In his speech, Mr Sarwar said: “I can understand why people in Scotland want to run a million miles from this rotten Tory government.

“We will bring honesty, decency and integrity back into our politics and make politics about public service again.

“We’ll end the corruption and cronyism that the Tories have let fester, because while the Tories wasted billions on dodgy PPE contracts, Labour will end corruption at the heart of our government and get our money back.

“We’ll claw that money back that was stolen from the taxpayer and put it back into our public services.”

He also warned the Conservatives and the SNP “won’t hesitate to get nasty” in the election campaign, and told his supporters to “expect a lot of dirty tricks and attacks”.