SCOTTISH Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has pledged to continue her fight against austerity and to expose the SNP despite being punished at last month’s Holyrood elections.

The party tabled a motion in the Scottish parliament on Thursday afternoon to introduce a 50p top rate of tax for those earning over £150,000.

The policy is aimed at wealth redistribution and alleviating spending cuts to public services when Holyrood is granted its new taxation powers in 2017.

However, the SNP united with the Scottish Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to vote the motion down.

MS Dugdale said Labour’s “clear priorities” were to “use the new powers to tax the richest 1 per cent so we can invest in schools and stop the cuts to our public services.

“The SNP face a choice. They can work with centre-left parties like Labour to stop Tory cuts, or they can work with the Tories to force through Tory cuts.

“This week alone, Labour has forced votes on fracking and raising the top rate of tax, and we will continue to work through this parliament to make the SNP government bolder.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Alex Rowley said: “People expect the Tories to side with the rich, but for the SNP to join them is shameful” and condemned the nationalists for making the “wrong choice.”

Mr Rowley said it was “right” to use the Scottish parliament’s new powers to restore the 50p top rate of tax for the highest earners at a time when “budgets for schools and local NHS services face big cuts.”

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon backed the 50p tax rate during last year’s general election campaign but has since ruled out the proposal in the first year after Holyrood is granted the new powers, despite a recent Unison poll which found that 79 per cent of SNP voters supported the tax on higher earners.

The Scottish Greens voted with Labour on the proposal, but it was defeated by 94 votes to 26.