Scottish election 2021: Scottish Labour says 'we are not rewriting our manifesto'

Scottish Labour is not rewriting its manifesto in a last-minute change to key policies, leader Anas Sarwar has insisted.

The party – now the last to launch its manifesto ahead of the May election – was forced to reschedule its planned manifesto launch from last Monday, after all campaigning was paused following the death of Prince Philip. The launch was rescheduled for tomorrow, either side of the Scottish Cnservative manifesto launch today and Alex Salmond’s Alba Party on Wednesday.

However, due to a planned Scottish Government briefing on lockdown easing tomorrow – Mr Sarwar said his party had been forced to delay the publication of the document a second time. It will now be launched on Thursday.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar in Edinburgh.

Mr Sarwar said: “Any kind of suggestion that it’s because we're rewriting it or anything else is wrong. I have printed copies in front of me. It's been good to go since last week. Understandably, sadly, due to the passing of the Duke we were delayed. Our manifesto was due to be launched it last Monday: we were meant to be the first to launch our manifesto and then the campaign was suspended, so we obviously had to cancel.”

He said that the party had already revealed the vast majority of the points which will be laid out in the document.

He added: “The reason why it's been less of all, a problem for, for us, that perhaps it may have been in previous elections, or indeed for other political parties is that I made it really clear right at the start that we weren't publishing a manifesto, we were going to be publishing a national recovery plan.”

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