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General Election 2015: Gordon Brown claims no seat in north is off-limits to Labour

Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has claimed it was possible for Labour to win Westminster seats across the north and north-east.

He said he did not accept successive poll results which suggest constituencies like Gordon in Aberdeenshire and Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey were a two-horse race between the Liberal Democrats and the SNP.

The Lib Dems are encouraging tactical voting to stop former First Minister Alex Salmond winning the north-east seat and to ensure Danny Alexander is re-elected.

But Mr Brown, who delivered an intense, passionate and fiery speech in Glasgow yesterday, said no seat was off limits to Labour which had represented the Highlands and islands in the past.

Asked about the two-horse race scenario, Mr Brown said: “I just do not accept this, we have had the Western Isles for 40 years at one point, Caithness and Sutherland for many years and we have held, with Anne Begg and Frank Doran, seats in Aberdeen

“Labour writes off no part of Scotland – we are a party of the industrial areas, the rural areas, the cities, the towns and the villages.”

Mr Brown claimed Labour could do more for people in minutes than would be achieved if Scotland elected 59 SNP MPs.

He claimed it was “perverse logic” and “confusing” for people to be told that a vote for the nationalists would result in a Labour government.

Mr Brown, who was accompanied at the rally by Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran, said a team of SNP MPs would not be “anything other than a group of protestors”.

“You could have 59 SNP MPs but you would probably have a Conservative government,” he added.

“We can achieve more in a few short minutes with Labour ministers and a Labour cabinet than we could ever achieve in five long years under the Conservatives, with all the SNP MPs in opposition.”

Mr Brown said Labour would not do a deal with Nicola Sturgeon’s party because it did not share the same principles of UK-wide solidarity.

“I say to people in Scotland today, if you voted Yes in the referendum and you want change, you want social justice, then Labour is your party,” he added.

“Come to Labour and join us in Labour in Scotland’s fight for social justice.”

Mr Brown admitted that the party was facing a tough fight to ascend to the “mountaintop of social justice” but claimed Labour was “born against the odds”.