LABOUR is within “touching distance” of taking power, Jeremy Corbyn will tell party activists today.

Speaking in Lanark, the party leader will tell members and Scottish parliamentary candidates that campaigning north of the border is crucial to delivering a Labour government.

Mr Corbyn said: “It will be Scottish voters who kick the Tories out of Downing Street when the time comes  and the whole of the UK will benefit from a Labour government that ends austerity and invests in our people and public services.

“While the Tory government stumbles from one crisis to another, Labour is selecting candidates and laying the groundwork to win the next election, whenever it is called.

“Labour has the candidates and the policies that will provide the hope, transformation and investment that Scotland needs and which I believe will help us win the next general election.”

The June 2017 election saw Labour gain six new seats in Scotland and seriously reduce SNP majorities in many areas across the country.

In many seats, particularly in former industrial areas, it will now require a swing of less than 1 per cent to replace SNP elected representatives with Labour ones and take power from the Tories at Westminster.

Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard, who will speak alongside Mr Corbyn, said: “The real divide in Scotland is between the SNP and the Tories, planning another decade of austerity, and Labour, on the other hand, offering a decade of real and sustainable investment in public services and our economy.”