Gordon Brown's emotional rally against the SNP's healthcare 'lie' unveiled - Express

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched a new campaign to keep the Union together by appealing to the voters of “Middle Scotland”. Mr Brown said his two-year-old thinktank "Our Scottish Future" was being converted into a “campaigning movement”. He said it would put “the positive, progressive and patriotic case for Scotland in Britain”, and urged people to join it.

The group will make the case for a "reformed" UK, Mr Brown said, and target the 40 percent of Scots who he believes are not strongly committed to either the Union or independence.

Mr Brown’s comments come in the wake of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon leading the SNP to a landslide fourth term in office on a manifesto pledge to hold another independence referendum.

It is not a surprise the former Prime Minister would intervene in the debate.

Mr Brown played a prominent role in the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, campaigning for Scotland to stay in the UK.

Seven years ago, in a surprisingly personal address to Labour activists in Glasgow, Mr Brown used his NHS connections to dismiss the idea that Scotland's health service was slipping towards privatisation under Westminster rule.

He said former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond's party was not "telling people the truth" on the subject and urged Scots across the country to "nail the SNP lie" on the NHS.

The speech, branded by some commentators as the most emotional of the referendum campaign, was delivered at the Labour Party's Glaswegian HQ.

During his time in the media spotlight, Mr Brown rarely discussed his children, choosing instead to keep his private life away from the cameras.

In 2002, while Mr Brown was Chancellor, his baby daughter Jennifer Jane died in an Edinburgh hospital.

She was just 10 days old.

Discussing a new timetable for extra powers that would have been delivered to the Scottish Parliament after a No vote, the former Labour leader explained why the NHS would have been protected if Scotland stayed in the UK.

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The former Prime Minister said: "I love Scotland. I love the National Health Service. I was born into the National Health Service. I grew up in the National Health Service.

"When I lost the sight of my eye and faced the prospect of going blind, my sight was saved by the National Health Service.

"When my daughter died, it was a result of not being able to do anything to save her life and my respect for the National Health Service grew as a result of the experience that Sarah and I had.

"Do you think that I or anybody else who cares about the National Health Service would stand by and do nothing if we thought the National Health Service was going to be privatised in Scotland and its funds were going to be cut? Would we stand back and do nothing without a fight? Of course not!"

Mr Brown said Labour had "built", "developed" and "funded" the NHS, unlike the SNP, and added that only Mr Salmond's party could have privatised Scotland's health service.

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He said independence would mean Scotland walking away from the £1billion health funding boost it enjoyed thanks to Westminster's system of funnelling money to where it is most needed.

The intervention came with many on the pro-UK side furious at the SNP's "scaremongering" on the NHS, especially the suggestion Scotland's health service was under threat from Westminster privatisation.

Mr Brown also defended the new devolution timetable, saying it had cross-party support and would reassure Scots that "change" was coming after a No vote.

Mr Salmond had dismissed the new timetable as a "panicked" move by Westminster and pledged to protect the NHS's "free at the point of use" principle in an independent Scotland's written constitution.

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2021-05-14 19:05:00Z
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