\n<\/p>\n
John Swinney has said the Scottish government will help hundreds of overseas care workers stay in the UK as he attacked Westminster for its rising hostility to migrants.<\/p>\n
The first minister said it was unfair Scotland\u2019s older people had to \u201cpay the price for Westminster\u2019s prejudice\u201d, and that his devolved government would sponsor visa applications for migrant workers needed to staff care homes, at a cost of about \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n
Swinney described the UK government\u2019s decision to greatly restrict access to visas for those jobs, in an effort to respond to rising tensions over mass migration, as deeply damaging.<\/p>\n
\u201cThousands of care workers here in the UK entirely legally have been left high and dry, unable to work, while care homes are crying out for staff,\u201d he told the Scottish National party\u2019s annual conference in Aberdeen. \u201cIn what world does that make any sense?\u201d<\/p>\n
Swinney told delegates the measure was further evidence Scotland\u2019s interests were being damaged by continued membership of the UK, as he confirmed he would make a fresh bid for independence central to Scottish parliament elections next year.<\/p>\n
Sketching out some of the key themes for that election campaign, he said Scotland could thrive with \u201ca golden combination\u201d of independence, rejoining the EU and the economic advantages from Scotland \u201cvast, low-cost, renewable energy\u201d.<\/p>\n
In an effort to energise delegates, he said: \u201cWe are going to break the logjam in Scottish politics \u2026 it\u2019s time to be more assertive.\u201d<\/p>\n
He cited the fact Scottish council tax and water bills were the UK\u2019s lowest, as were Scotland\u2019s child poverty rates; free university tuition and prescriptions; free bus travel for under 22s and the scrapping of peak rail fares.<\/p>\n
This was delivered by \u201ca government wholly owned by \u2013 and wholly serving \u2013 the people of Scotland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swinney claimed the SNP was within reach of an overall majority at Holyrood by winning 65 seats, a figure he argued would form a mandate for the Scottish government to demand a new independence referendum.<\/p>\n
That approach has been repeatedly rejected by Keir Starmer, the prime minister, who has said the UK Labour government will not grant Scotland the legal powers to stage one. The first vote, in 2014, was won decisively by anti-independence campaigners, by 55% to 45%.<\/p>\n
Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, said on Sunday he and other Labour MPs, who won a majority of Scotland\u2019s seats at Westminster last year, had been elected on a manifesto pledge not to approve a second independence vote.<\/p>\n
Nicola Sturgeon, who quit as first minister in 2023 after failing several times to deliver a new referendum, told reporters on Sunday she knew from experience it would be an \u201cexceptionally hard task\u201d for the SNP to win that majority.<\/p>\n
Holyrood\u2019s proportional voting system makes it very hard to win an overall majority for one party but Swinney\u2019s goal has resonance for the SNP for several reasons.<\/p>\n
It has only happened once since the devolved parliament was set up in 1999, when Alex Salmond, the former SNP leader, won the 2011 Holyrood election with 69 of Holyrood\u2019s 129 seats.<\/p>\n
That triggered talks between his government and the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in London on Scotland being given the temporary legal power to hold an independence referendum.<\/p>\n
But that was a voluntary, political decision by the UK government; there is no legal or constitutional requirement to do so. Swinney hinted on Sunday he believed that could form the basis for a legal challenge if the SNP were to win a majority and Starmer continuedto block him.<\/p>\n
Despite Sturgeon\u2019s warnings, SNP strategists argue privately the independence strategy is necessary to win over hundreds of thousands of pro-independence voters who no longer back the SNP, many of whom voted Labour in last year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Swinney has said the Scottish government will help hundreds of overseas care workers stay in the UK as he attacked Westminster for its rising hostility to migrants. The first minister said it was unfair Scotland\u2019s older people had to \u201cpay the price for Westminster\u2019s prejudice\u201d, and that his devolved government would sponsor visa applications<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[165,258,558,120,2651,5764,10671,16563,5760,9233,1438],"class_list":{"0":"post-27805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-care","9":"tag-foreign","10":"tag-government","11":"tag-national","12":"tag-party","13":"tag-scottish","14":"tag-snp","15":"tag-sponsor","16":"tag-swinney","17":"tag-visas","18":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}