Page 10 Daily Mail, Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Labour gets in
By Daniel Martin Policy Editor
Guardian
of the
constitution:
The Queen
yesterdayThey won’t block
new independence
poll – and Sturgeon
hints she’d help
Corbyn get to No
Getting close: Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn and SNP leader Nicola SturgeonLABOUR last night declared it would
not block a second Scottish independ-
ence referendum – just hours after
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hinted
she would help prop up a future Jer-
emy Corbyn government.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said
any decision about holding another vote to
potentially break up the Union would be up
to the Scottish Parliament.
His comments came shortly after Miss Stur-
geon, the Scottish National Party leader, said
while she would not enter into a coalition with
Labour if it won a general election, she would be
interested in some sort of ‘progressive alliance’
to ‘lock the Tories out of government’.
In an interview at the Edinburgh Fringe Festi-
Boris ‘delusional’ over US trade deal
val, Mr McDonnell said: ‘It will
be for the Scottish Parliament
and the Scottish people to
decide that. They will take a
view about whether they want
another referendum.
‘Nicola Sturgeon said by late
next year or the beginning of
- We would not block some-
thing like that. We would let
the Scottish people decide.
That’s democracy.’
Mr McDonnell’s position
appears to be in opposition to
the leader of the Scottish
Labour Party.
In March, Richard Leonard
told the BBC’s Sunday Politics
Scotland show that if Labour
took power in Westminster the
party would refuse to grant
another referendum. He added:
‘What we said in the manifesto
at the 2017 election was that
there is no case for, and we
would not support, a second
independence referendum.’
Earlier this week, the first poll
since Boris Johnson became
Prime Minister found that sup-
port for Scottish independence
was ahead – by 52 per cent to
48 per cent. Critics of Mr John-
son claimed he is so unpopular
in Scotland that he could end
up as the last prime minister of
the Union.
A second vote on secession –before any deal could be struck- something he has been reluc-
tant to do.
The Conservatives made
great play in the 2015 general
election campaign of the dan-
gers of a Labour government
led by Ed Miliband propped up
by the SNP, then led by Alex
Salmond. Last night, Conserva-
tive chairman James Cleverly
said a Sturgeon-Corbyn alli-
ance would be a ‘nightmare
prospect for Britain’.
Miss Sturgeon’s latest com-
ments are likely to be seized
upon by Mr Johnson as he pre-
pares for a possible general
election later this year.
Speaking to the Guardian,
the Scottish First Minister con-
demned Mr Corbyn’s approach
to Brexit since the 2016 EU
referendum.
‘I have fought two general
elections now as SNP leader
and, in both of them, I have
been pretty candid,’ she said.
‘We would always want to be
part of a progressive alterna-
tive to a Tory government. That
remains the case.’
Pressed on whether she would
rule in a deal with Labour, Miss
Sturgeon said: ‘In politics you’ve
got to be careful. But it would
not be my intention, to go into
a formal coalition. I said that in
2015 and 2017 – that’s not a newthe SNP leader said that she
was ‘no great fan of Jeremy
Corbyn’. She added: ‘I think
his lack of leadership on Brexit
in particular... well, if we do
crash out without a deal, he
will bear almost as much
responsibility as Theresa May
or Boris Johnson.’
A Labour spokesman said:
‘Labour will not countenance a
coalition or pact with other
parties. We are campaigning to
form a Labour government that
will invest in communities and
public services in all the regions
and nations of the UK.’
Mr Cleverly said: ‘This Stur-
geon-Corbyn alliance would be
a nightmare prospect for Brit-
ain. From refusing to respect
the referendum result to huge
tax hikes and measures that
would wreck our economy,
Labour and the SNP in cahoots
would hammer working people
across the country.’
[email protected]‘Lock the Tories out
of government’By Policy Editor
Domino’s
stockpiles
toppings
for No Deal
DOMINO’S has spent £7million on
stockpiling pizza toppings to pre-
pare for a No Deal Brexit.
The takeaway chain is buying in
extra supplies of tomato sauce
from Portugal and other prod-
ucts, such as frozen chicken and
tinned tuna and pineapple, which
it imports from overseas.
Domino’s sources most ingredi-
ents from the UK, such as mozza-
rella cheese, which is made using
milk from Welsh farmers.
The company, which has more
than 1,000 UK branches. said the
likelihood of a shortage of ingre-
dients has increased since it last
reported in March.
It added that a No Deal depar-
ture also risked pushing up the
price of food.
Supermarkets including Tesco,
Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spen-
cer are also stockpiling items.BORIS Johnson is ‘delusional’ to
expect a favourable trade deal with
the US, Bill Clinton’s former treas-
ury secretary warned yesterday.
Larry Summers, who was also director
of the National Economic Council under
President Barack Obama, said the ‘des-
perate’ UK has ‘no leverage’ in any trade
negotiations as it ‘needs an agreement
very soon’.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today
programme, Mr Summers said: ‘I’m not
sure what Britain wants from the United
States that it can plausibly imagine the
United States will give.
‘If Britain thinks that American finan-
cial regulators, who have great difficulty
coming together on anything, are going to
come together to give greater permissions
and less regulation of UK firms, I would
call that belief close to delusional.’
He added: ‘Look at it from America’s
point of view. Britain has much less to
give than Europe as a whole did, there-fore less reason for the United States to
make concessions. You make more con-
cessions dealing with a wealthy man
than you do dealing with a poor man.
‘Second, Britain has no leverage. Brit-ain is desperate. Britain has nothing
else. It needs an agreement very soon.
When you have a desperate partner, that’s
when you strike the hardest bargain.
‘The last thing you do is quit a job
before you look for your new one. In the
same way, establishing absolutely that,
as a matter of sacred principle, you’re
leaving Europe, has to be the worst way
to give you leverage with any new poten-
tial partners.’
US Senator Tom Cotton, however, said
Britain should be at the ‘front of the
queue’ for a trade deal with the US.
Mr Cotton told Today: ‘Many of my
colleagues in the Congress would say
that Great Britain should be in the front
of the queue, given everything our
nations have gone through together.
‘Obviously it wouldn’t be a matter of
days or weeks for such negotiations, it
might be months, but I would suspect
it would be months not years.’‘A nightmare
prospect’THE Prime Minister sparked further
speculation he is preparing to call a
general election by hiring a key
player in the Tories’ 2015 victory.
Boris Johnson has employed Isaac
Levido as politics and campaigning
director. He was a former deputy to
Australian election guru Lynton
Crosby, who masterminded David
Cameron’s win four years ago. Healso worked on Zac Goldsmith’s
failed London mayoral bid in 2016
and Theresa May’s disastrous gen-
eral election the following year.
Mr Levido worked for Australia’s
Liberal Party which surprisingly
won this year. He will answer to
Mr Johnson’s new chief of staff and
Vote Leave mastermind Dominic
Cummings, Politico reported.PM hires key election guru
the first was held in 2014 –
would likely be a key condition
of any Labour-SNP deal to put
Mr Corbyn in No 10 if his party
did not secure a majority.
Labour has always said it
would not be interested in any
coalition deals, and would
instead try to survive as a
minority government.
And Miss Sturgeon said Mr
Corbyn would need to take ‘a
very firm anti-Brexit position’thing. But some kind of pro-
gressive alliance that could lock
the Tories out of government.’
She added: ‘It wouldn’t be a
blank-cheque type scenario. We
would want Jeremy Corbyn to
take a very firm anti-Brexit
position. We would look to do
what was right for Scotland.’
Despite being open to the
possibility of an electoral pact,РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS