The general election is a "straight choice" between Labour and the Tories, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

At one of his final events of the election campaign, he told supporters in East Kilbride that a vote for the SNP would, in effect, be a vote for Rishi Sunak. 

Despite polls showing his party on course for a historic win at the general election, he insisted the “route to a Labour government runs through Scotland.”

In their final MRP, YouGov forecast Labour to win 431 seats, giving them the biggest majority of any administration since 1832.

Under the firm’s modelling, the Tories would win just 102, while the Liberal Democrats would be on 72, and the SNP on 18.

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Sir Keir was speaking to activists and candidates in East Kilbride as part of a whistle-stop tour of the UK. When put to him that the polls suggested he did not need to rely on Scotland for a majority, he said it was not a “numbers game.”

“I want a Labour government to have Scotland at its heart,” he said. “The route to a Labour government runs through Scotland, has always run through Scotland.

“And I want voters in Scotland not to send a message. The SNP say, the most important election for I don’t know how long, and they say what? Send a message.

“Send someone, an SNP MP, to sit on the opposition benches for this important period of history, and say a few things across the aisle. I don’t want Scotland to send a message, I want Scotland to send a government.”

He refused to be drawn when asked if that meant he would include Scottish MPs in his cabinet.

“I'm not going to predict what the cabinet is going to look like. But I will tell you this those Scottish Labour MPs will be a powerful voice for Scotland, but so will I.

“Because the whole Labour Government will want to deliver for Scotland and that starts with me. That's why I've spent so much time in Scotland, why we've worked so closely together for Scotland.

“So this isn't something which comes only through the Scottish Labour MPs but it does come from them because they will be powerful advocates making the case in positions across a Labour government.

“But it starts at the top. It starts with me. I want to start delivering for Scotland from day one in government.”

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He said voters had to choose between him and Rishi Sunak.

"Tomorrow is a straight choice between more of the Tories or a Labour government. That is the choice. There's no other choice on the ballot paper.

"There are only two people who are going to be prime minister, will likely be prime minister on Friday morning, Rishi Sunak or me.

“That is the choice and so across Scotland that is what needs to be upper mind in people's minds.

“If you want to see the back of the Tories, you have to vote Labour and there are many constituencies here in Scotland, that are going to come down to a few hundred votes.

“They're really tight. You've seen the polling, you've seen how tight it is. So every vote matters. And that is the choice that's on offer.”

Meanwhile, in his eve of poll speech, John Swinney is expected to say that the result of the General Election in England is “a foregone conclusion.”

“Labour will win and Keir Starmer will be Prime Minister,” he will say.

“The only story left in this election is here in Scotland, where seats across the country are on a knife-edge."

The SNP has been bolstered by a new poll putting them ahead of Labour in Scotland. However, the concentration of Labour voters in the central belt could still see Anas Sarwar's party win the most seats.

Meanwhile, one of Rishi Sunak’s most loyal Cabinet allies has admitted that Labour is likely to win “the largest majority any party has ever achieved”.

Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I have accepted that where the polls are at the moment – and it seems highly unlikely that they are very, very wrong, because they’ve been consistently in the same place for some time – that we are therefore tomorrow highly likely to be in a situation where we have the largest majority that any party has ever achieved.”

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Ex-home secretary Suella Braverman, a potential contender for the Tory leadership if Mr Sunak quits, has also written off her party's chances.

She wrote in the Telegraph: “One needs to read the writing on the wall: it’s over, and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition.”