LABOUR leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday warned that an independent Scotland would face “turbo-charged austerity” and struggle to fill “glaring holes” in local government budgets.

On a visit to Glasgow, he cited tumbling oil prices and market volatility as potentially hitting state finances. Scotland is the EU’s largest producer of oil and gas due to its proximity to the North Sea and the Atlantic.

Addressing Labour members, he said that Scotland “has the talent and ability to run its own affairs” but warned that independence won’t tackle underlying problems such as poverty and industrial decline.

A breakaway from the rest of Britain on the SNP’s terms would simply shift political power away from the Westminster Establishment to the Holyrood Establishment, while economic power would still lie with the City of London, he said.

“Of the 250 largest companies in Britain, only 17 have their headquarters in Scotland.

“Decisions about wages and salaries would be made in boardrooms largely down south where the Scottish government would have little sway.”

He slammed SNP — nicknamed the Tartan Tories — as two-faced and for simply “pass[ing] on Tory austerity” as it plans to slash £327 million from council budgets.

He warned that “trying to talk left at Westminster, when in opposition, while acting right in power at Holyrood is not standing up for Scotland.”

Mr Corbyn attacked the nationalists for their record on the NHS, public services, and their outsourcing of a rail contract worth £7 billion to Dutch firm Abellio, despite its “worsening performance.”

He urged Scots to “think again” if they believed Labour would never be capable of radical change, and insisted that his party was now committed to the redistribution of power and wealth in a way that “no other party will ever even think of let alone achieve.”

Brexit provides a chance to “fix a rigged system” to work for ordinary people, he said.

His claims were branded “rubbish” by Ms Sturgeon.

She wrote on Twitter: “If Corbyn wasn’t leading such a pitifully ineffective opposition the Tories wouldn’t be getting away with half of what they are.”

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