PERTH, SCOTLAND, July 7 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – A former Labour Government Minister has told RIA Novosti that he backs Scottish independence and claims it would return his party to its membership and core values.
Leslie Huckfield, a Labour MP for 16 years who served in UK Prime Minister Jim Callaghan’s Labour Government in the late 1970s as a junior Minister, told RIA Novosti, “It’s not just a question of reinvigorating the Labour Party, it’s about returning the Labour Party to its members – to its core values.
“I’ve never been a very active supporter of the Union,” Huckfield added. “It’s not a matter of moving from the No camp to the Yes camp, I’ve never fully been in the No camp.”
“Ever since moving to Scotland in 2004 I’ve always favoured more powers being given to the Scottish Government and obviously complete independence would be the best outcome of all,” Huckfield told RIA Novosti.
“It isn’t a matter of moving my position, it is something I’ve always believed,” Huckfield added.
The former UK Minister said he believed there would be others in the Labour Party who also backed Scottish independence.
“There is a fair list of prominent Labour people supporting independence, so I am not by myself,” Huckfield said, adding that the Labour leadership’s undermining of the Party’s grassroots was to blame.
“Effectively the Party is getting more and more distant from its members,” Huckfield told RIA Novosti. “Constituency parties don’t meet and the Trade Union representation in the Labour party has been watered down.”
Huckfield, who is an Englishman and represented an English constituency throughout his political career, added that the political agenda in England had diverged considerably.
“The agenda in England represents the disintegration of many principles and policies to which Scots hold dear,” Huckfield said. “We can lay new foundations in an independent Scotland, to implement the policies and causes that the Labour Party has traditionally supported.”
A spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party dismissed Huckfield’s support for independence, describing it as “desperate”.
Scottish voters go to the polls on 18th September and will be asked one question - "Should Scotland become an independent country?"
