SCOTTISH Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie has said it was “wrong” for her party to be involved with Better Together.
The Dumbarton MSP was speaking at a fringe event at the Scottish Labour conference when she suggested that Labour should not have been involved in a single campaign with the Conservatives.
Better Together, which campaigned for a No vote in 2014, was formed with the support of the Tories, Labour, and the LibDems.
Baillie was made a director of the organisation in late 2012. However, speaking to a Scottish Labour conference event on Saturday, she said her party was wrong to have been involved.
READ MORE: SNP veteran Jim Sillars donated thousands to Labour's Jackie Baillie, figures show
Baillie said: “We had been telling everybody for years that the Tories were terrible, and we cooperated with them. Don't get me wrong, there was a greater issue at stake, which was the future of the United Kingdom, but I think we were wrong to have done that.
"I think we should have run distinctive campaigns … but that's what we chose to do at the time.”
The veteran Labour MSP further said that she thought the Unionist parties would all run separate campaigns during a second independence referendum.
“It doesn't necessarily mean that we don't agree ultimately on the objective,” she added.
Baillie further claimed that there had been “nothing civic or joyous” about the first independence referendum.
She said: "It was the day after the referendum that struck me the most. The Labour Party in Scotland carried on as if it was business as usual. We failed to take a step back and reflect on the seismic difference within the country.
"All this nonsense from the SNP about civic nationalism and a great debate, it was rubbish."
Baillie claimed her car window had been shattered during the campaign, adding: "There was nothing civic or joyous about what we went through. And we failed to reflect that back to the country and we carried on as normal.”
SNP Aberdeen Donside MSP Jackie Dunbar (below) said Baillie's words meant "nothing" as long as Labour and the Tories were in coalitions in local government, like in Aberdeen.
Dunbar said: “While Scottish Labour continue to prop up Tories in council chambers across Scotland Jackie Baillie’s words mean nothing.
“Since 2014 they have continued to work hand in hand with the Tories to lock the SNP out of councils in Aberdeen and North Lanarkshire, with Jackie Baillie herself supporting the reinstatement of the ‘Aberdeen Nine’.
“They’ve apparently learnt nothing from their countless election defeats and, seemingly locked into a contest on who can out-Unionist the other, Scottish Labour and the Scottish Tories have continually proved themselves to be completely out of touch with public opinion.
“At the end of the day Scottish Labour can campaign alongside whoever they want to, but what they have no right to do is deny Scotland the right to choose its future in an independence referendum.
“The SNP has a cast-iron mandate to hold another referendum and will do so before the end of 2023.”
Scottish Conservative MSP Sharon Dowey accused Baillie of betraying Unionists.
She said: “By refusing to work with pro-UK parties, Jackie Baillie is betraying the very voters who returned her to Holyrood. She's turning her back on Unionists who trusted her even when they didn't trust Labour to stand up for the Union.”
She added: “It’s unbelievable that Labour wouldn’t even join another pro-UK campaign because they're so ashamed of joining Better Together in 2014.
“Jackie Baillie has made it clear that Labour won’t stand alongside unionists again but right now, in councils all over Scotland, her party are in coalition with the SNP.”
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