CORRIDORS OF POWELL

Left-winger urges party to unite against hate to restore confidence of electorate before vote at Holyrood

- JOHN FERGUSON

LABOUR'S newly elected deputy leader has insisted her party can win the Scottish election next year by uniting against the politics of hate and division.

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mail Lucy Powell also warned Prime Minister Keir Starmer not to allow the government at Westminster to "stand in the way" of victory at Holyrood.

She vowed to help rebuild support for her party after a humiliating by-election defeat to Plaid Cymru in Wales, and with Labour trailing far behind the SNP in polls.

Powell said: "We need to convey a much stronger and clearer sense of purpose and values and whose side we are on. We are doing some really good things to help people and we need to beat that drum every single day.

"What I am sure about is that there can't be anything we do as a UK Labour Government that stands in the way of Anas Sarwar winning in Scotland next May.

"Obviously it was a bad result for us in Wales, there is no sugar coating it but I don't think you can translate that across to Scotland completely.

"We had a similar by-election in Hamilton and we came through there by being a progressive alliance against the politics of hate and division espoused by Nigel Farage.

"That is how we have won in Scotland in the recent past and that is what we have to now do and one of the first conversations that I will be having is with Anas Sarwar." Powell will be free to speak out against her government's policies from the back benches rather than being bound by collective responsibility like her defeated deputy leadership rival, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.