Keir Starmer hits out at Nicola Sturgeon's plan to make next general election a 'de facto' indyref

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Keir Starmer has hit out at Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to make the next general election a “de facto” indyref - claiming the move “stands in the way of common sense”.Launching Labour’s plan to reform the UK constitution yesterday, Starmer vowed to scrap the House of Lords and hand more powers to Holyrood if elected Prime Minister.But he insisted the next national vote, which is due to be held in 2024, will be about issues such as the economy, the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine - not just independence for Scotland.Nicola Sturgeon pledged to make the next general election a single issue vote on independence after the Supreme Court ruled that Holyrood does not have the power to hold a second referendum.Speaking at the launch of Gordon Brown’s Labour report on the UK’s future yesterday Starmer said: “I know Nicola Sturgeon intends to try to change it to an election on something else completely, it isn’t.

No amount of discussion by other people is going to change the terms of the General Election. That is what a General Election is all about.“What government do you want to lead on the economy, on international matters, security, defence, on the conflict in Ukraine, on the health service, on the cost of living crisis.

These are not issues that can be reduced by somebody else into a completely different constitutional question. That’s what a General Election is all about, all those issues.“The idea that all of that is as nought, nobody is interested in those questions and we’re arguing about something that Nicola Sturgeon defines in that way is just to stand in the way of common sense about what the General Election is about.”Following the Supreme Court ruling Sturgeon announced that if independence supporting parties