by Niall Christie

Scotland editor

SIR Keir Starmer will launch Labour’s national election campaign tomorrow, declaring that “a vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses” and promising that the party’s new leader in Scotland can unite people north of the border. 

At a press conference this morning, the Labour leader will outline his party’s offering in May’s Holyrood, Welsh Senedd and English mayoral elections. 

Sir Keir will attack Labour’s rivals and insist that the party is “reconnecting” with voters. 

He will pledge to build a stronger, more secure and prosperous recovery for Britain.

The MP for Holborn and St Pancras will also hit out at the SNP, claiming that the nationalists are “too busy fighting among themselves to fight for the Scottish people.”

Sir Keir will say: “Under my leadership, and with our great local candidates across the country, Labour offers a very different route to recovery.

“Labour’s changing. Our priorities are your priorities: securing the economy, protecting the NHS, rebuilding Britain.”

Recently elected Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is set to promise that the UK “can’t go back to the old politics of fighting each other, while our NHS loses out on funding,” claiming that his tenure will offer “a vision of hope and ambition for the future.”

Mr Sarwar will promise an NHS restart plan, a “catch-up plan for schools” and “a real vision for jobs, for now and for the future.”

Welsh Labour leader Mark Drakeford and London Mayor Sadiq Khan will be among other speakers at the event. 

Sir Keir’s backing for the health service comes after he demanded today that MPs be given a vote on NHS pay amid mounting anger at the government’s 1 per cent offer.

The proposal amount to a real-terms pay cut that would leave staff hundreds of pounds worse off, and Sir Keir used Prime Minister’s Questions to call for politicians to have the power to decide on public-sector pay increase. 

He said: “The mask really is slipping and we can see what the Conservative Party now stands for: cutting pay for nurses; putting taxes up for families.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed that the Conservatives were the “party of the NHS” and pledged to give it 50,000 more nurses. 

But campaign groups have dismissed this notion, pointing to Tory funding cuts and creeping privatisation of the health service.

We Own It campaigns officer Pascale Robinson said: “If Boris Johnson really wants the Tories to become the party of the NHS, he'll have to ditch his long-running commitment to outsourcing, austerity and privatisation.

“Because the reality is that after 11 years of Tory government, our precious NHS has been chipped away at again and again.”