Labour's big guns lay into the SNP with dire £13bn warning

"If the SNP are elected, the uncertainty, risk and instability begins from day one. From day one, Scotland is moving down a track towards separation. The people in the driving seat of the train are the SNP, who want separation and will use every opportunity in the years before the referendum to try and create the maximum conflict with Westminster." - TONY BLAIR

Story in full TONY Blair and Gordon Brown yesterday turned the new Labour mantra of "hope over fear" on its head with a series of grim warnings to voters over what they claimed were the dangers of voting for the Scottish National Party in May's Holyrood election.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor joined Jack McConnell, the First Minister, in launching an unprecedented assault on the Nationalists which Labour insiders privately admit is intended to scare the electorate over the consequences of independence.

At a press conference in Glasgow, the trio launched a Labour Party document which claimed that the SNP's economic plans would result in Scotland running a 12.9 billion budget deficit - equivalent to more than 5,000 a year for every household north of the Border.

The document, Economic stability at risk: The SNP's sums don't add up, claimed that the combination of the party's spending commitments and plans for independence would put Scotland's economic stability at risk from the first day of an SNP-led Executive.

Although Mr Brown and Mr Blair had appeared together in the UK election in Scotland in 2005, their appearance with Mr McConnell is a sign of the threat they believe that the SNP - 5 per cent ahead in the constituency vote and 4 per cent in the regionals, according to yesterday's Scotsman poll - poses.

Labour claimed that the SNP's tax and spending pledges would amount to 1.8 billion in reserved areas and 2 billion in devolved areas.

An independent Scotland would lose economies of scale worth 1.5 billion, it said, and there would be net borrowing of 11.2 billion, a Scottish Executive figure, only offset by just 3.6 billion in oil and gas revenues, Labour claimed - a net deficit of 12.9 billion. Mr Brown commented: "Independence is a dangerous risk and the SNP's policies are a disastrous risk for Scotland."

The Chancellor said he had been at every Scottish election since 1979, and each time it had been thought that the SNP were heading for a breakthrough. He added: "And you know what happens? As the argument takes place, the SNP are always exposed. This time they are more vulnerable than at any time."

The Prime Minister added his weight to the attack. He said: "If the SNP are elected, the uncertainty, risk and instability begins from day one. From day one, Scotland is moving down a track towards separation. The people in the driving seat of the train are the SNP, who want separation and will use every opportunity in the years before the referendum to try and create the maximum conflict with Westminster."

And Mr McConnell argued that the SNP had no monopoly on patriotism. In a further gibe aimed at Alex Salmond's decision to go back to Westminster from Holyrood, Mr McConnell said: "It is patriotic to stay and to build Scotland, not to leave when the going gets tough. It's not anti-Scottish to be anti-independence - but it is patriotic to do the hard graft of leading, doing, and getting results."

Mr McConnell also defended Labour's refusal to contemplate taking more powers for the parliament. He said that the Scotland Act, which established Holyrood, had allowed for power over transport to come north from Westminster. He said his priority was to concentrate on modernising Scotland's education system, rather than take on more powers for Holyrood as other parties wanted.

Mr McConnell added: "It's now a clear choice between me and all the other parties and, frankly, that pleases me. I think I am more in touch with the people of Scotland with those priorities then they are."

Last night, Labour strategists were unapologetic over the tone of their attack on the SNP. One told The Scotsman: "In this campaign, after ten years in government, it is fear, not hope, that will win."

However, the SNP fiercely rejected the Labour claims and contrasted Labour's electoral approach in Scotland and its stance in earlier UK general elections. During the 1997 election Mr Blair responded to a particularly bitter attack on him by the then Prime Minister John Major by saying that Labour "had a stronger weapon than fear: hope".

Angus Robertson MP, the SNP's campaign manager, said: "What a difference a decade makes. The appalling irony for the Labour Party is that their campaign against the SNP is even more negative than the Tories' campaign against Labour in 1997. And the polls suggest that they will suffer the same fate."

Mr Robertson added: "The Tories were past their sell-by date in 1997, and Labour look increasingly out of time in Scotland now. That is why they are so desperate, and why the SNP's positive campaign is doing so well. In many ways, the Labour Party exists in name only - the reality is that they are just the 'anti-SNP party', and people don't want to vote for a negative."

Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP depute leader, said the attacks on the SNP were "pathetic". They were "the same tired old arguments that have caused the Labour campaign to crash in the polls".

Ms Sturgeon cited a recent article in The Scotsman by Professor Andrew Hughes Hallett, who has advised the World Bank and the IMF, which she said "totally demolished Labour's absurd claims about the SNP and independence". Prof Hughes Hallett described the Labour arguments as "ridiculous" and "dangerous", Ms Sturgeon said. She added that the experience of every small European nation - such as Ireland and Finland - was that tax revenues increased as economic activity grows.

EU BLOCK BROWN

GORDON Brown has backed down in a battle to claw back billions of pounds from the European Union.

The Chancellor has been over-ruled by other member states in his attempt to change the way the UK pays into the bloc's budget. Europe's finance ministers are now set to rubber stamp a less generous deal which was agreed by Tony Blair, the Prime Minister.

The move, to be formally adopted on 23 April, will cost Britain more than 7 billion a year.

Yesterday's development means that Britain will after all lose most of its historic rebate, which the rest of the bloc says is better spent on the new poorer EU nations.

This came as an unwelcome second blow for Mr Brown, who has already come under fire this week for a decade-old decision to scrap tax relief on pension funds.

But in his first public remarks on the pensions row, Mr Brown said he would do it again as it was in the best interests of the economy.

He said: "I will continue to make the right long-term decisions for the British economy, no matter how difficult that is."

GERRI PEEV