Politics live with Andrew Sparrow

Politics live with Andrew Sparrow

UK politics: SNP’s Swinney warns general election will be ‘the biggest challenge for years’ – as it happened

New leader tells activists in Glasgow that they must demonstrate the ‘relevance’ of independence to the cost of living crisis

SNP leader John Swinney says general election will be 'the biggest challenge for years'

John Swinney tells over 200 SNP activists and politicians in Glasgow that this general election will be “the biggest challenge for years”. He adds that “voters are right to take nothing for granted”.

He tells activists that people want the SNP to demonstrate the “relevance” of independence to the cost of living crisis – he also promises to protect Scotland’s NHS, accusing Labour of supporting creeping privatisation.

Interesting moment at the start of media questions where BBC’s James Cook is booed by audience members – Swinney immediately reprimands them and says that media question will be heard without heckling.

Closing summary

John Swinney has been taking questions from reporters at the SNP’s campaign launch event in Glasgow. We are wrapping up the blog now. Here is a summary of today’s developments:

Labour has refused to set specific targets on how it wants to reduce net migration to the UK should it win the general election on 4 July. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the party wants to see “significant changes” and is clear that net migration “must come down”. But she stopped short of setting a target. Cooper also declined to rule out offshore processing or sending asylum seekers to have their claims processed abroad. Keir Starmer’s migration plan will include passing laws to ban law-breaking employers from hiring foreign workers and to train more Britons. Last year’s net migration figure of 685,000 has “got to come down”, he told The Sun on Sunday, as he tried to encroach on traditional Conservative electoral territory.

The health secretary, Victoria Atkins, said the Tories’ pledge to build 100 new GP surgeries would bring “healthcare closer to communities” – and defended the party’s record on NHS waiting times in government. The Conservatives have also said they wanted to expand the Pharmacy First scheme, under which patients could seek help from a pharmacist instead of a GP for certain common conditions including earache, sinusitis, a sore throat, infected insect bites and shingles.

Labour saw its lead over the Tories widen to 20 points in an Opinium poll.

It showed Sir Keir’s party on 45% – up four points since last weekend – while the Conservatives were down two percentage points on 25%.

Speaking at the SNP’s Westminster campaign launch, party leader and Scottish first minister John Swinney said that this general election will be “the biggest challenge for years”. Swinney pushed for independence, celebrated his party’s record in government and accused the Labour party of giving “an awfully good impression” of the Tories.

Faiza Shaheen, the candidate blocked by Labour from standing in Chingford and Woodford Green, told LBC that she is considering standing in Chingford as an independent. She had already announced she would challenge the decision in the courts, claiming she has faced “a systematic campaign of racism, Islamophobia and bullying”.

A Conservative candidate seeking re-election has been criticised for using social media campaign adverts that appear to make it look as if he is standing for other parties. Robert Largan, the Conservative candidate for High Peak in Derbyshire, posted a picture of his face on X superimposed on to a red background along with the slogan “Labour for Largan”. Largan also posted a similar advert in the colours of Reform UK, with the slogan “Reform for Robert”. Derbyshire police said they were reviewing claims of “election fraud” they received relating to “concerns around marketing material”.

Thank you for reading and all your comments today. Martin Belam will be running the blog tomorrow. You can read all of our politics coverage here in the meantime.

SNP leader John Swinney says general election will be 'the biggest challenge for years'

The Scottish first minister, John Swinney, has started to speak at the party’s campaign launch event ahead of next month’s general election.

The SNP leader said Scots “want us to demonstrate the relevance of independence to their lives”.

Swinney said:

If we don’t then we are not likely to get much of a hearing in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and, to be frank, nor would we deserve to.

So, when we talk about independence we need to demonstrate again, and again, and again, that we are talking about people’s core concerns like raising living standards and protecting the NHS.

That laser-like focus on the daily concerns of people is our guiding star. There are some people telling me to forget about independence at this election. But you know what?

After looking at Keir Starmer’s serial U-turns in the pursuit of power, I think people are crying out for political leadership that sticks to its principles.

Swinney told the crowd at the SNP’s Westminster election campaign launch that his party has abolished tuition fees, provided free bus travel for under-22s, has created 40% more affordable homes than in England and has improved literacy and numeracy.

He said: “Your SNP government has transformed lives in Scotland. And we have a record to be proud of.”

At the SNP’s launch in Glasgow, Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has told a crowd of activists that “for decades Westminster has squandered Scotland’s energy potential”. He adds that his party will hold Labour to its green energy commitments.

Flynn was quoted as saying:

What we have in Westminster is a status quo, it’s a desire as Sir Keir Starmer says for stability. But I’ll tell you what stability means.

It means £18bn worth of cuts to our public services, it means no access to the European single market. It means watering down our net zero potential.

It means denying the people of Scotland their right to democratically decide their future. Friends, we deserve so much more.

John Swinney, who is due to speak at the event, is a political veteran and former leader of his party. He took the helm again a couple of weeks ago after Humza Yousaf resigned following the collapse of the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Greens.

British citizens living abroad have been urged by the foreign secretary, David Cameron, to register to vote before a deadline of 18 June.

An estimated five million British citizens living abroad continue to retain strong links with the UK and decisions taken towards a secure future on foreign policy, defence and trade will directly affect their lives, Cameron said.

Britons living abroad have this year regained their right to vote in parliamentary elections in the UK, after the Conservatives removed an arbitrary 15-year limit imposed by the last Labour government.

British people overseas can register at gov.uk/registertovote with their national insurance number and last UK postcode. Votes will be counted at the last UK address they were registered to vote at or lived at.

Cameron said: “With threats rising across the world, Britain needs a clear plan and bold action. We are living in a world more dangerous, more volatile, more confrontational than most of us have ever known.”

I’m here in a hotel conference hall in central Glasgow with 100s of SNP activists to “officially” launch the party’s general election campaign.

I use inverted commas because I’ve been to at least two other events advertised as launches, the first in January, with former leader Humza Yousaf, and the second two weeks ago with current leader John Swinney but which was dominated by questions about his former health secretary Michael Matheson’s astronomical iPad expenses.

Early speakers are pushing the message that independence supporters must not desert the party – polling suggests many are minded to support Labour this election because getting the Tories out of Downing Street is more important than independence right now.

Campaign director Stewart Hosie told activists that independence supporters who think they can “sit this election out or lend their vote to another party” needed to know they were jeopardising progress on independence.

And with same voters peeling off to the Scottish Greens or Alba, he emphasised that “there is no credible alternative independence vote in this election”.

Stewart Hosie, who is retiring as an MP for Dundee East at the general election, told the party’s election campaign launch in Glasgow that the SNP is “larger than all of our opponents combined”.

Hosie claimed that leader John Swinney is the SNP’s “secret weapon” and that his approval ratings have gone “through the

roof while our opponents are languishing” in the weeks since he became first minister.