EDINBURGH, July 24 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – A cross left party group in Scotland are to target Labour voters in the run up to the Scottish independence referendum to be held on September 18.
“With the latest polls showing Yes within touching distance of success it is working class people in communities that will determine the result of this referendum,” Jim Sillars, who was a Labour party member for 25 years, told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) leader, Colin Fox, along with Jim Sillars, a former Labour MP and Councillor Maggie Chapman, co-Convenor of the Scottish Green Party, will jointly tour Scotland holding a series of public meetings hoping to persuade Labour voters to back a Yes vote.
“It is important they realise that a Yes vote is not a vote for [pro-independence Scottish National Party leader] Alex Salmond,” Sillars added. “The Yes campaign is much broader than that. It includes the SNP of course but it also has the backing of the Scottish Socialist Party, the Greens, and perhaps most crucially of all, many Labour voters.”
Sillars comments were echoed by SSP leader Colin Fox.
“Supporting Scotland's democratic right to self-determination doesn't make you a Scottish nationalist. It makes you a democrat,” Fox told RIA Novosti.
“We support an independent socialist Scotland, a modern democratic republic and we are confident that goal will be enormously advanced by voting Yes in September,” he added.
Two former Labour Ministers, Peter Kilfoyle and Leslie Huckfield, have already given their public backing for a Yes vote, but officially the Labour Party remain opposed to Scottish independence.
Last month former Scottish Labour leader and MP, Henry McLeish, told RIA Novosti, “Many people feel that a union in decline is not the best idea for investing your future.”
In a statement the Scottish Labour Party responded, “Everyone knows the overwhelming majority of Labour supporters want Scotland to stay strong in the UK and will be voting 'No' in September to stop Alex Salmond breaking up the country.”
Scots go to the polls on 18 September and will be asked one question: “Should Scotland become an independent country?”
