Save Scottish Regiments targets Labour seats
The Save the Scottish Regiments campaign is to target nine marginal Labour seats in the upcoming general election.
It will be supporting candidates of all parties – including the unlikely bedfellows of the SNP and Conservatives – who have opposed plans to merge the Scottish regiments.
Campaign spokesman Jeff Duncan today urged the public to use their vote to show their displeasure at Labour plans to merge Scotland’s six infantry regiments.
The seats targeted will be: Dundee East and West, Ochil and South Perthshire, Western Isles, Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, Stirling, East Renfrewshire, Edinburgh South West, Aberdeen South.
In addition, campaign organisers will be standing their own candidate, Allan Hendry, against Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces Minister, in East Kilbride.
SNP leader Alex Salmond, whose party is being backed in three seats, said: “Labour’s arrogance has been their undoing. In trying to get rid of Scotland’s historic regiments, Labour MPs will end up being scrapped themselves. Today’s endorsements of SNP candidates by the Save the Regiments campaign is a big boost for our campaign. We will win, not just these four, but also more to come.”
Save the Scottish Regiments is also endorsing four Conservative candidates.
Shadow Scottish Secretary Peter Duncan said: “Today’s announcement will add momentum to the campaigns being run by David, Gordon, Richard and Stephen [the Conservative candidates] as they fight to save their local regiment. People in those constituencies feel badly let down by Labour, and I believe that will be reflected in the general election result.”
He said he would give a “copper-bottomed guarantee to reinstate our regiments within a week” if the Conservatives were elected.
