McConnell: nat-attack

Jack McConnell has warned that nationalists spell "devastation" for Scotland.

Scotland's first minister said that Labour's main fight in next year's elections to the devolved parliament is with the Scottish Nationalist Party.

Against a turbulent background following the "officegate" resignation of his predecessor Henry McLeish, McConnell is buoyed by polls maintaining Labour's lead.

With the Tories still way behind and the Lib Dems a partner in the coalition government the SNP have assumed the role of the official opposition in the Scottish parliament.

McConnell portrayed the SNP as destabilising, predicting chaos in the event of an SNP victory and a referendum on Scottish independence.

"The people of Scotland must be under no illusions. Nationalist votes next lead immediately to a summer of constitutional wrangling, a string of quarrelsome negotiations and devastation for the Scottish economy," he will say. "Scotland would be in retreat."

Labour is pointing to 1995's Quebec independence poll as an example of what is in store if the SNP takes power in Edinburgh.

"Our country would be threatened by currency devaluation, a leap in interest rates, falling stock market and companies pulling back form plans to invest," McConnell told the party faithful.

"Our emerging businesses killed off. All for what? To pay the price of the confusion and instability sown by the nationalists."