Nicola Sturgeon: SNP must try to ‘inspire’ Scots who rejected independence

As part of her opening speech Ms Sturgeon is also expected to make a “significant” announcement on housing policy.

The fortunes of the SNP have flourished since the referendum defeat in last year’s referendum on independence.

She said: “I have been First Minister for less than a year, and I am about to face an election which for the first time I will look the Scottish people in the eye and say, “vote for me as First Minister”.

Further austerity-driven benefit cuts and a vote to leave the European Union could turn Scottish public opinion in favour of another independence referendum, the SNP Deputy First Minister argued today.

The first minister is expected to tell delegates: “For those who want Scotland to be independent, there is only one vote next year that makes sense – and that is a vote for the SNP”. House of Commons lawmaker Michelle Thomson, who was also the SNP’s business spokeswoman, was suspended by the party last month after police started an investigation into her property dealings.

Nicola Sturgeon is to use her opening speech at the SNP conference to call on people who rejected independence in the referendum to vote for her party.

The party has half of the legislature’s 128 lawmakers and Sturgeon is aiming to increase that number, especially given the collapse in support for the Labour Party, which won the second largest number of seats in the 2011 Scottish election.

But she will attempt to shift the focus to the domestic Scottish agenda and the SNP’s policies on health, education, justice, the economy and tackling inequality.

“Next May, we are determined to win a historic third term as Scotland’s government”, Sturgeon, 45, will say.

“On all of these issues and many, many more, our manifesto will
set out radical, ambitious and progressive policies to make this country even stronger”.

At present, the UK Parliament goes into recess for several weeks in the autumn while the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives each hold their consecutive annual conferences. There will be 3,500 delegates, Sturgeon said, 2,300 more than there were seats at its conference in Perth past year.

In addition it will “begin to set out our claim to lead Scotland confidently into the next decade” at the conference. In the Scottish election a year later, our support grew to just over 900,000 votes. “And in the general election this year, nearly 1.5 million people chose our party”.

“Everyone, from the strongest supporter of independence to the stoutest advocate of the Union,
has the right to know that we will continue to govern well with the powers we have at any given time”.

“The truth is that in our schools the gap between the richest and the rest is growing, and our hospitals are struggling”.

Labour have criticised the SNP for obsessing over the constitution and neglecting the day job of running schools and hospitals.

“Just this week we saw specialist support sent to Scotland’s £850 million flagship hospital for the second time in four months after the hospital had the worst waiting times it had ever had with nearly a quarter of patients waiting more than four hours for treatment”. I want to inspire people who voted No a year ago to vote SNP too.

He said: “For example the situation on the European Referendum and what that may deliver for us; such as the impact of the UK Government’s austerity attack and the benefit attack; such as the whole approach to renewing the Trident nuclear missile system programme – what does that do to the debate within Scotland”. The fit between old and new in such a politically disciplined organisation as the SNP – accusations of a nationalist one-party state are heard a lot these days – will be one of the most keenly watched questions in Aberdeen.