Corbyn rules out Labour-SNP coalition pact

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has ruled out any post-election coalition with the Scottish National Party.

Corbyn rules out Labour-SNP coalition pact

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has ruled out any post-election coalition with the Scottish National Party.

In a repeat of an election tactic successfully wielded against Ed Miliband in 2015, Theresa May has sought to cast the upcoming election as a choice between "strong leadership" from the Conservatives or a "coalition of chaos" with Labour propped up by the SNP and other smaller parties.

But Mr Corbyn insisted that he would not do a deal with Nicola Sturgeon's party to forge a so-called "progressive alliance", as the SNP was not a progressive party.

Speaking after a meeting of Labour's governing National Executive Committee, Mr Corbyn said: "There will be no coalition deal with the SNP and a Labour government.

"The SNP may talk left at Westminster, but in government in Scotland it acts right. A genuinely progressive party would not refuse to introduce a 50p top rate of income tax on the richest.

"The SNP wants to break up the UK; it has no interest in making it work better. Independence would lead to turbo-charged austerity in Scotland - not progressive politics."

Urging Scottish voters who handed the SNP 56 out of 59 seats north of the border in 2015 to return to Labour, Mr Corbyn said: "Nicola Sturgeon is trying to convince people in Scotland that you can get rid of the Tories by voting SNP.

"She couldn't be more wrong. Only Labour or the Tories can win this election and voting Labour is the only way to remove Theresa May from office.

"If you want progressive policies that deliver social justice, fairness and equality then you should vote for the Labour Party.

"Why vote for a poor imitation, that has overseen an increase in child poverty and the biggest increase in the working poor since devolution, when you can have the real thing in the progressive Labour Party?"

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