Kezia Dugdale launches national campaign against indyref2

A new website for people to pledge their opposition to a possible second Scottish independence referendum has been launched by Labour.

Kezia Dugdale was speaking at the Scottis Labour conference. Picture: John Devlin

The party’s Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale unveiled the move as she vowed she would “work tirelessly” to keep the country in the UK if there is a second vote on the future of the Union.

By entering their details on the website TogetherStronger.scot, the party said people could pledge their opposition to a second independence referendum and “join the fight for a stronger Scotland inside a reformed UK”.

With Scottish Labour having now endorsed Ms Dugdale’s vision for a federal UK, she also announced she will join forces with former prime minister Gordon Brown and others to look at how Labour can take forward plans for a People’s

Ms Dugdale also proposed using the Scottish Parliament’s new powers to increase child benefit by an extra £240 per year by 2021.

She urged the Scottish Government to include the plan in the Child Poverty Bill which is going through Holyrood.

On Labour’s welfare plans, Ms Dugdale said: “Using the new welfare powers in the Scottish Parliament, we will campaign to create a new Scottish Child Benefit.

“Our plan would see child benefit increase by £240 per year by the end of this Parliament, increasing by £13 a month next year, before rising to £20 per month in 2020.

“The Child Poverty Bill – now in the Scottish Parliament – should take meaningful action to combat poverty, as well as setting targets.

“That is why in the coming weeks, we will push the Government to include this action in the Child Poverty Bill and if they won’t do it we will seek to amend the law ourselves.”

Underlining her opposition to a second independence referendum, Dugdale also revealed that she will join a summit with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Labour representatives from the UK party, Wales and the regions of England to set out how the party will take forward plans for a People’s Constitutional Convention.

But her plans were criticised by John Lamont, Conservative chief whip, who said: “Kezia Dugdale’s big idea of a petition against a second referendum is laughable. It comes seven months after Ruth Davidson launched our own. What’s more, this is the same Kezia Dugdale who, only a year ago, was saying her MSPs could vote for independence if they wished.”