MP claims Labour leadership race risks being ‘rigged’

SCOTTISH Labour’s leadership race exploded yesterday after a senior MP claimed the election was being ‘rigged’.

Ian Murray says rules which allow union members to back a candidate in the party’s leadership race are unfairly helping Left-wing candidate Richard Leonard.

The Edinburgh South MP told Unite general secretary Brian Roy in a letter that there were ‘serious questions to answer about the sign-up process’ the union has deployed.

Mr Murray, who is backing Anas Sarwar for the top job, warned that the leadership election was in danger of being ‘rigged’ and looking ‘clumsy’. A leadership battle between the two MSPs was triggered after Kezia Dugdale’s surprise resignation.

Under Labour rules, members can either join the party as a full member, sign up as a registered supporter or become a supporter of an attached trade union to cast a ballot.

In the letter, printed in full by The Herald newspaper, Mr Murray said he had become ‘increasingly concerned’ at the process that allows people who have signed up as a Labour Party supporter through an affiliated organisation or union to vote.

A Unite spokesman said: ‘Ian Murray has been told by the Scottish Labour Party that our members’ affiliations are entirely legitimate. We therefore call upon him to withdraw his baseless smears now.’