A former Scottish Labour leader has urged Keir Starmer to “root out” the super-rich instead of focussing on benefit fraudsters.

Richard Leonard slammed the Prime Minister for pledging to tackle people who are exploiting the benefits system.

Starmer will use his Labour Party Conference speech in Liverpool today to announce plans to to give benefit inspectors powers like those used by HMRC to target tax evasion.

Leonard shared the story on X with the headline ‘Keir Starmer pledges to root out benefit fraudsters in speech’. Leonard wrote: “How about rooting out the tax avoiders, big City bonuses and excessive wealth? How about rooting out poverty and inequality?”

Leonard was Scottish Labour leader for three years until 2021. He is on the left of the party and was a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. The Central Scotland MSP has been a vocal critic of Starmer during his tenure as Labour leader.

He called on the UK Government to scrap plans to strip millions of pensioners of their winter fuel payment just a fortnight ago. He also demanded a re-think ahead of a crunch vote today and urged Keir Starmer to impose a wealth tax instead.

Starmer admitted last year that he forced Leonard to resign as Scottish Labour leader. He boasted that he had taken “some pretty ruthless decisions . . . The Scottish leader was gone two years ago”.

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