Jeremy Corbyn kicks off tour of Scottish marginals

Corbyn manifesto - PA

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is to kick off a tour of marginal seats in Scotland today with a visit to the Western Isles.

Of the 64 seats Labour needs to win to secure a parliamentary majority, more than a quarter are in Scotland, with the SNP holding the Western Isles seat with a 6.8 per cent majority.

It is one of 18 seats the Labour leader has targeted.

Glasgow South West, Glasgow East, Airdrie and Shotts, Lanark and Hamilton East, Motherwell and Wishaw, Inverclyde and Dunfermline and West Fife all require a swing of less than one per cent.

Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale said: “Next time around we are ready to win those seats – and help deliver a government that works for the many, not the few."

Corbyn has said Scotland "holds the keys" to a Labour government.

Speaking ahead of his trip to the Western Isles, he said: "Rural communities have been taken for granted for too long. There has been chronic underinvestment in transport, broadband and public services, with rural infrastructure and industry neglected.

"Labour will invest in transport, broadband, public services, housing and environmental and coastal protections - vital for the economy and the rural way of life."

Scottish Conservative Miles Briggs said the Labour leader was ambivalent on Scottish independence.

“It wasn’t so long ago Scottish Labour dreaded the thought of Jeremy Corbyn coming north. In fact, Kezia Dugdale still does and having travelled to New Zealand she literally could not be further away," he said.

“Had he won the General Election, Corbyn would have sold Scotland out in a heartbeat and that ambivalence to Scotland’s place in the UK hasn’t changed."

Corbyn will be in Glasgow tomorrow and Fife at the weekend.