Scotland '˜key to delivering Labour government' - Richard Leonard

Scotland will be the key to delivering a Labour government at Westminster in the next general election, Richard Leonard will say.

The new Scottish Labour leader is due to travel to London to address the party’s Parliamentary Labour Party for the first time since his election last month.

Left winger Mr Leonard is the fourth person to hold the post in the last three years after defeating rival candidate Anas Sarwar following the shock resignation of Kezia Dugdale in August.

Scotland is key for a Westminster government says Richard Leonard.

Polls carried out since his election have suggested that support for Scottish Labour has grown, putting the party back in second place behind the SNP.

Mr Leonard will hold a series of meetings at Westminster before addressing Labour MPs on Monday evening, telling them he can make the party a genuine alternative to the SNP and Tories in Scotland.

Speaking ahead of the visit, he said: “Scotland desperately needs a Labour government to deliver the radical change we need to see - and it will be Scotland that delivers a Labour government for the whole UK at the next general election.

Scotland is key for a Westminster government says Richard Leonard.

“Scotland has grown sick after seven years of Tory austerity and 10 years of SNP mediocrity. That is why people are coming back to Labour.

“We are winning a new generation of young people, energised by Labour’s new politics of change.

“Young people are not simply following this movement for real change, not just participating in this movement for real change, they are leading this movement for real change.

“The next election, whenever it comes, can be a turning point for Scotland and the whole of Britain. It can be a moment of decisive change in our society and our economy.

“It will show that inequality, injustice and poverty are not inevitable, and that austerity is a political choice not an economic one. It will deliver a Labour government.”