Following Jim Murphy's apology today for Labour’s failure to listen to people in Scotland in the run-up to the 2007 and 2011 Holyrood elections, the SNP has today called on the Labour leadership candidate to apologise for the greatest failing of his party.
Jim Murphy voted with Mr Blair in the House of Commons in 2003 in favour of the disastrous war in Iraq - despite the principled opposition of other Scottish Labour MPs, such as Robin Cook, and despite 100,000 people marching against it in Scotland and over a million taking to the streets in London. The war resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, including 179 British service personnel.
The move today by Jim Murphy to apologise for Labour’s failure to listen in Scotland comes despite a speech he made in 2011 calling on Labour to “avoid the quicksand of continual apology”.
Commenting, SNP MSP for Glasgow Kelvin Sandra White said: “Jim Murphy’s decision to apologise for Labour’s failure to listen to people in Scotland is somewhat opportunistic, given his previous distaste for apologising for his party’s record. And of course he bears his own responsibility for Labour's failings, as Secretary of State for Scotland from 2008-10. “But if Mr Murphy has now changed his mind on that, surely he must also apologise for voting in favour of his party's biggest failing of all, the disastrous war in Iraq?
“Iraq is a much more significant matter than Labour's poor record in Scotland, given the appalling loss of life and damage it has done to the region and wider international system. People in Scotland time and again made clear their opposition to the illegal Iraq war that Jim Murphy's vote helped to usher in. The Iraq invasion was New Labour’s war - driven by Tony Blair and underpinned by a dodgy dossier and the false prospectus of weapons of mass destruction. Can Jim Murphy at long last apologise for his support for the Iraq war?
“If Mr Murphy cannot bring himself to apologise for his party’s biggest failing, then any apology he makes for lesser matters will ring hollow."
