Stephen Flynn’s attacks on Labour show ‘desperation’ with SNP fears over losing seats, Michael Shanks claims

Stephen Flynn’s attacks on Labour show ‘desperation’ with SNP fears over losing seats, Michael Shanks claims

Michael Shanks was critical of the SNP's approach to PMQs.

The SNP’s renewed focus on attacking Labour under Stephen Flynn shows their “desperation” and fears over losing seats, Michael Shanks has claimed.

Labour’s newest Scottish MP, Mr Shanks criticised SNP Westminster leader Flynn and accused him of attacking Labour rather than a “divisive Prime Minister”.

The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP also suggested the SNP was deeply divided, but pretending everything was fine.

Speaking to The Scotsman, he compared how Tory MPs hold their own party to account, compared to SNP MSPs in Holyrood.

He said: “I’ve been really interested coming down here that some of the fiercest critics of Government policies are from the Government benches.

“You see that in committees, you see that in questions, there’s much more challenging of the Government, and that’s healthy in a democracy.

“Increasingly that’s not what’s happening in Holyrood, and I think that does a disservice to the Scottish Parliament, but it also leads to poorer Governments.

“You see that with the Michael Matheson scandal, the SNP down here are absolutely livid about that, but the SNP in Holyrood just seem to be going along with this month after month, rolling scandal into the Health Secretary. They’re letting it roll on, when we all know he’s going to have to resign anyway.

“A strength of Government should be the ability to accept challenge, and they don’t seem to have that in in Holyrood.”

He added that there are divisions which the SNP don’t talk about, suggesting it was due to their fears ahead of the election, expected next year.

Former teacher Shanks explained: “There are huge divisions between the SNP group here and in Holyrood, and within the Westminster group. Probably because they know they’re going into a general election where a lot of them are going to lose seats.”

Mr Shanks suggested this panic over the election was what guided Mr Flynn’s approach to PMQs, where he focuses more on Labour than his predecessor, Ian Blackford did.

He said: “I think Stephen Flynn’s approach is desperation. I think if you’ve got an opportunity every week to hold Rishi Sunak to account, one of the most divisive Prime Minister’s we’ve had, one of the most divisive Government’s we’ve had, and you choose to use national prominence to attack the Labour party, it’s desperation.

“They are worried, and that’s really really obvious. We are not complacent at all, we want to regain the trust of the people of Scotland, and are offering real change, and the SNP are offering more of the same.

Mr Shanks took his Westminster seat in October of this year, after a by-election was called due to the former SNP MP, Margaret Ferrier, being ousted. Almost 12,000 of her constituents signed a recall petition over her breach of Covid rules.

Now a member of the front bench, Mr Shanks claimed entering Westminster through a by-election gave him a “lot of urgency” to deliver for his constituents.He said: “There are people, particularly in Rutherglen and Hamilton West who didn’t feel represented for a very long time. I’ve got nearly 500 cases that we picked up during the by-election of people who just wanted support, and if you run as a change candidate, rightly there’s a pressure on you to try and demonstrate some change before the general election.

“There is more pressure than I think if you win in a general election, when you know you’ve got a few years to find your way and influence things, you don’t have that luxury here.

“I’ve tried to get stuck into debates, and have as much influence as I possibly can.”Discussing where his focus would be, Mr Shanks explained Scotland was fundamental to his thinking. He said: “I think that’s really important, because for too long the only voices coming from Scotland down here have been SNP voices, and it’s given the impression that everything in Westminster has to be fundamentally broken.

“I’m not for a second going to defend the Conservative Government, but genuinely I think Westminster has an opportunity to deliver real change so the focus is on Scotland.

“Personally my big interest is around disability, I ran a disability charity for 15 years and know a lot of people who are struggling with benefits changes and systems that don’t work for them. That’s why my first question was on work capability assessments, that’s the sort of stuff I want to push.

“The Speaker gave me a bit of advice the first day I met him, I think you’re probably not supposed to share what the Speaker tells you, but I don’t think he’d mind me sharing this.

“New MPs have a tendency to try to do everything all at once, and actually you can turn around after five years and changed absolutely nothing. Sometimes those seemingly niche issues, you can actually affect real change.”

Asked about what a Labour Government could deliver, the University of Glasgow graduate insisted it could be “transformational change”.

He said: “The SNP are going to say there’s no change with Labour because they actually quite like the status quo down here, that helps their argument. After 16 years people want change from the SNP as much as anything else. For me, transformational change is what the Labour party has always been about.

“You’ve already seen that kind of detail coming from Keir [Starmer], such as the new deal for working people, which will be one of the biggest single radical changes to workers rights that we’ve had in a generation. Around Scotland, thinks like GB Energy and genuinely changing the narrative around the future of our energy needs is going to benefit everybody across the UK, and keep bringing people’s bills down.

“Beyond that, I think the country needs a leader who is focused on actually delivering, particularly with devolution”.