Councillor quits Labour deputy leadership bid

Marra calls for ‘Aberdeen nine’ to be restored and drug treatment changes

A Dundee Labour councillor who stood to become the party’s deputy leader has called for a new generation of party leaders to be selected.

Lochee councillor Michael Marra failed to secure enough votes for the next round after nominations from suspended Aberdeen council members were rejected.

The deputy director of the Leverhulme Research Centre for Forensic Science said current crises can only be tackled by Labour if there is change at the top of the party.

Mr Marra was in the running as leader Richard Leonard’s number two after Lesley Laird stood down last month after losing her Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat in the general election to independent Neale Hanvey.

Mr Marra, who had intended to become the first councillor to serve as deputy leader of Scottish Labour since the formation of the Scottish Parliament, pledged to be a “unifying voice” following the party’s disastrous election performance.

However, he has called for all remaining candidates to make the restoration of the suspended Aberdeen group a top priority.

The group of nine Labour council members, dubbed “the Aberdeen nine”, were suspended in 2017 after disobeying former leader Kezia Dugdale’s instruction not to form a coalition with Conservative councillors.

He said: “Scotland’s third city is being disenfranchised in our party, as is the whole of the north-east.

“The exclusion of these councillors, who have served our party for decades, needs to end. It has dragged on and on in clear breach of party rules.”

Mr Marra said a new generation of Labour leadership “has to happen” and called on the remaining candidates to make unity within the party a top priority, stating “we cannot afford any more division and neither can Scotland”.

The councillor discussed the importance of tackling Dundee’s drugs deaths problem, as well as reducing the stigma around addiction.

He said: “I deal with drug abuse not just as a councillor, but in my professional role as a forensics researcher at Dundee University.

“We need to change the way we treat people in terms of addiction and reduce the stigma around it.

“There’s no reason why Dundee and Scotland should have higher drugs death statistics than anywhere else in the world.”

MSPs Jackie Baillie and Glasgow councillor Matt Kerr have both progressed to the next round of the deputy leadership contest.

Michael Marra is a Labour councillor for Dundee’s Lochee ward.