Gordon Brown: SNP and Tories harming Scotland with non-stop Punch and Judy Show

Gordon Brown will today warn that the SNP and the Conservatives are locked in a “non-stop Punch and Judy Show” that is wreaking havoc and could lead to 50 years of division in Scotland.

Gordon Brown has warned of 50 years of division ahead. Picture: John Devlin

In a speech in Glasgow, the former prime minister will urge voters to rally behind Labour to protect the Scottish economy and public services.

Mr Brown will say: “I fear for the future of Scotland unless it can break free from this non-stop, never-ending, constitution- obsessed SNP/Conservative Punch and Judy show.

“Both parties bang on day after day about independence, continuously ratcheting up the decibel levels with their ever-more hard-line policy stances: the SNP for all-out independence, nothing less – that now has become even more extreme with their plans to abandon the British pound and exit the UK customs union and single market, which would not now count as a soft independence but a hard independence.

“Meanwhile, the Conservatives increasingly reveal their hand as hostile to devolution – and because in Scotland they can’t talk about Europe or about their policy for austerity, they talk about nothing else than the constitutional issues.”

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard will say: “At this critical point political leaders must do more than just talk about healing division. There needs to be action to demonstrate this.”