General election 2024: The final-week election pitch by Scotland's four major political parties before polling day

Mairi McAllan, SNP

We are now in the last days of the general election campaign.

For six weeks, the SNP has been knocking doors across the country, carrying the message that only a vote for the SNP will put Scotland’s interests first, ensure we have an end to spending cuts, and ensure that decisions about Scotland are made in Scotland, for Scotland.

A view of Westminster, as polling day looms on Thursday

And if this summer wasn’t already busy enough, July will be an especially significant month for me and my family, as we get ready to welcome a new addition to our household.

As I begin my maternity leave, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the world my first baby will be born into, and what kind of country I want them to grow up in.

This is why this general election is so important. Only the SNP offers Scotland the hope of a better future and of real change. But we have to vote for it.

I want my child to grow up in a country that looks after its most vulnerable, and champions social justice. Not one that presides over brutal cuts to welfare and cruel policies like the two-child benefit cap and rape clause which tear apart our social fabric and alienate people and communities.

I want them to grow up in a country which is taking bold action to tackle the climate emergency, opens its doors to refugees and asylum seekers, and being a force for good on the world stage on issues of intolerable difficulty like Gaza and Ukraine.

And I want them to have the opportunities available through membership of the EU to study, work and live abroad. As a student, I benefited from study in Europe - now, as a mother, I want my child and others like them to have those chances.

Like every other parent, I want my child to have the world at their fingertips – but if this is the future that we want for them then we have a duty to vote for it.

In a week's time, a new Prime Minister will be living in 10 Downing Street. Voters in England have already decided that it will be Keir Starmer. I, for one, will be very glad to see the back of this despicable Tory government.

However, in Scotland is there a hotly contested election which will determine who will stand up for Scotland’s interests and values.

Unfortunately, the only thing we can be certain of with the incoming Labour government, is a promised £18 billion worth of cuts, further privatisation of our NHS, and the reintroduction of tuition fees.

We simply cannot trust a Labour government to put Scotland’s interests first.

On Thursday 4th July, people elsewhere in the UK will have the choice between a tired, corrupt Tory party or continued cuts and austerity with a sleekit Labour government that has U-turned on almost every pledge it’s made. Neither can be trusted to stand up for Scotland’s interests.

In Scotland, we don’t have to choose between one or other indistinguishable London leader. We can choose ourselves. We have the opportunity to vote SNP to elect SNP MPs who are uniquely dedicated to working for the people of Scotland, who stand up for Scotland’s values and are determined to build a better future that is made in Scotland – for Scotland.

Labour don’t need Scotland to enter No.10 – but Scotland will need the SNP when they do.

Mairi McAllan is the SNP net zero and energy secretary

Liz Smith, Conservatives

Throughout this election campaign, it’s been obvious that the SNP’s only priority is independence, not the priorities of the Scottish people. So, unsurprisingly, the campaign has not only drawn attention to the dismal failings of the SNP government when it comes to the NHS, schools, policing, transport, and councils, but to their dismal failings on the economy.

On July 4, Scots have the chance to reject the SNP’s constant constitutional axe-grinding, and force them to focus on the issues that matter most to the public. That must start with the economy. Independent analysts such as Audit Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission, the Fraser of Allander Institute and the Scottish Parliament’s own research department Spice have persistently warned about the consequences of the SNP’s black hole in public finances. Productivity has been stagnant for a decade, growth has been much weaker than the rest of the UK, and the SNP’s policies would destroy the oil-and-gas sector, crucial to Scotland’s future economy.

So improving economic growth is absolutely critical if we are going to be able to pay for basic services in future – as the Scottish Fiscal Commission concluded last year. Yet, despite these warnings, the SNP relied on the Greens – an explicitly anti-growth party – to deliver their damaging economic policies.

Scotland’s high taxes

As the Fraser of Allander Institute has made clear, the SNP government has been in receipt of the largest block grants in history, not counting the very substantial financial assistance provided to Scotland during Covid, and it has made Scotland the highest-taxed part of the UK. Yet essential services are being cut to the bone.

The Scottish Conservatives would therefore reverse some of the SNP’s most damaging tax rises in order to remove the tax differentials between Scotland the rest of the UK – the differentials which have created disincentives for skilled workers to move to live and work here. We would also pass on the business rates relief that other parts of the country get, rather than putting Scottish firms at a disadvantage.

Fixing Scotland’s economy is tough but we will achieve nothing if the SNP continues to obsess over independence. For example, a few months ago, we were very critical of the SNP Budget which cut the economy and enterprise budget by 8.3 per cent in real terms. That is because that part of the Budget is absolutely critical to developing much-needed skills, innovation and investment in key industries where Scotland ought to have competitive advantage, in tourism and hospitality to name just two.

We would much rather have seen money spent in these areas rather than on an expensive national care service which very few stakeholders support. We believe much more focus has to be placed on upgrading infrastructure. Our potholed roads and broadband have been shamefully neglected by the SNP, most especially in our rural areas.

In many seats, it’s neck-and-neck between the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives. l believe the issue that will make the difference in securing more Scottish Conservatives MPs is the economy. Scotland should be the best place in which to live and work but that has not been the case for far too long with this SNP government. Next Thursday is our chance to change all that.

Liz Smith is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife

Alistair Carmichael, Liberal Democrats

The wind and tides are a fact of life in the North of Scotland. You can command the waves to retreat like King Canute if you wish. They are unlikely to heed your words.

As in life, so in politics. An electoral tsunami came in for the SNP in 2015. The Tories rode their own wave over the Red Wall five years ago. Other parties tried to hold those tides back to little avail.

When the tide turns, however, it turns hard.

The wave which drove polarisation to the benefit of the SNP and Conservatives is now receding and leaving them stranded on the shore. For Scottish liberals, the wind is at our backs once again. This is the moment for those of us who believe in practical, serious government and local decision-making to make our voices heard.

There is still all to play for in every constituency. Even so it seems safe to assume at this point that the country will wake up on Friday to a change in government.

The question then is – which way the wind turns next.

Under-discussed amid the Tory-SNP collapse is the quiet shift in tack voters are making. The SNP may have decided that this election is all about independence but voters have a funny way of deciding these things for themselves. They are ignoring the grandstanding debates over nationalism to take up more practical, local questions about competence and communities.

Time and again on the doorstep I meet people who are sick of the state of our national politics. They are fed up with magical thinking from populists, whether of the Boris, Nigel or Nicola variety. Forget the flag-waving – voters want to fix NHS waiting lists and bring powers back to local people.

That is why in neglected communities in the Highlands and Islands, from Unst to Fort William and even in Inverness, where support for Angus MacDonald is surging, people are turning to the Liberal Democrats to take up their cause and fight centralisation.

It is not hard to see why. In all corners of Scotland communities feel that government is something done “to” them, rather than being accountable to their individual needs. Voters are tired of decisions over their services being taken away, and being patronised by parties which run everything from the centre. They want representation which puts local needs first. That is what liberals have always stood for.

Devolution was never supposed to start and end in Holyrood. For as long as the SNP remain holed up in Bute House, however, they will continue to dam up power in the Central Belt and away from individual communities.

There is a change coming, but that cannot mean a free hand to whatever comes next. There are many issues on which liberals could find common cause with a Labour government but there are also reasons why our parties stand apart – and perhaps the most fundamental is about the right of local communities to make decisions for themselves.

Labour has talked a good game about decentralisation but their track record is mixed at best. No one wants to replace SNP centralisation with more of the same under a red rosette.

Instead voters who want a strong local voice, whatever their politics, are coming to the Liberal Democrats. Across the Highlands and Islands and beyond, a wave is building to re-empower local communities. Woe betide anyone who tries to command that wave to halt.

Alistair Carmichael is the Liberal Democrats home affairs, Northern Ireland and justice spokesperson. He has been the MP for Orkney and Shetland since 2001.

Ian Murray, Labour

“Bloody hell, am I going to be the only one left?” I wondered as I stood at the Edinburgh count at the EICC in 2015.

On TV screens at the count, the news displayed a yellow tsunami ripping through Scotland as Scots chose to vote for SNP MPs. People were fed up and wanted change and saw the SNP as the best vehicle for that.

I held my own seat of Edinburgh South that night and became a one-man band when it came to the Scottish Labour Parliamentary Party.

At the 2017 snap election, I was joined by six other colleagues only to lose them again two years later. Last year my one-man band became a duo when Michael Shanks won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election for Labour in seismic result.

When I look back at the decade on from 2015, my overwhelming feeling is one of frustration and despair. I didn’t get into politics to shout from the sidelines with no levers to achieve anything much, I did it to improve my community and my country.

The past 14 years hasn’t delivered better results for the Scottish people, it’s delivered austerity, chaos and sleaze. It’s delivered higher mortgage payments, energy bills and food prices in the shops after the Tories crashed the economy.

It’s delivered a government that partied in private while people were forced apart during lockdown.

It’s delivered a Prime Minister who thinks an election interview was more important than D-Day commemorations. Worst of all, it’s delivered a sense that things can’t be any better than this. It has driven away hope.

But while the Labour Party has gone through a long and at times painful rebuilding process since 2015, SNP MPs have achieved nothing. A decade of SNP domination at Westminster hasn’t delivered change for people in Scotland – it’s delivered cosy jobs and perks for SNP MPs who rail against London but love the lifestyle.

Rather than fighting for change, these days they are more likely to be fighting each other. All they have offered in ten years has been stunts to ‘send a message’.

Send a message? Sod that Scotland, let’s send a government instead The Labour Party has changed. It serves working people and the country again. It can win again.

We can get this rotten Tory government out of office and replace it with a Labour government, with Scottish Labour MPs at its heart. A government that can deliver for Scotland – with a publicly owned energy company, headquartered in Scotland which will create jobs, bring down bills and deliver energy security.

A government that will make work pay and ensure a pay rise for 200,000 of the lowest paid Scots. A government that will close tax loopholes for the super-rich, and invest in the NHS to deliver funding to deliver 160,000 more appointments in Scotland.

And a government that will maximise Scotland’s influence on a global stage, with a Scotland Office, if we are given the change to serve, led by myself to promote Brand Scotland to the world to unlock jobs and investment for Scotland.