Labour leadership at strife-hit council facing make-or-break meeting
TENSIONS within a feud-hit council administration face coming to a head, with the Labour Party insisting a crunch meeting is brought forward.
Councillors in North Lanarkshire will vote on whether to give their beleaguered boss Jim McCabe another year in the post when they gather for their AGM.
However, party bosses expect a pre-election truce within the group embroiled in its own civil war in recent months.
The meeting, like others held by Labour groups in Scottish local government, has been brought forward by a few months following instructions by the party’s general secretary north of the border, Brian Roy
r Roy’s father, Frank, is expected to face a tight battle in his bid to be re-elected in Motherwell and Wishaw, which falls within North Lanarkshire.
There have been concerns within Labour in Lanarkshire the split within the party at the local council sparked by the sacking a councillor who investigated a multimillion-pound public contract involving the authority would impact on the run-up to the May Westminster poll.
Mr McCabe, one of the giants of Scottish local government, has already seen off an SNP bid to oust him as North Lanarkshire leader over his relationship with senior executives at Mears Scotland.
But one senior party source said: “Had the meeting taken place in mid to late May, when it’s supposed to, and we’d maybe lost a seat or two Jim McCabe would be toast.
“As it is members at the AGM who maybe thought this was the place to air their grievances face speaking out or keeping their heads down and let what’s happened happen. That’s what they’ll be expected to do.
“My guess is more than a few just won’t turn up.”
The local authority has a £30 million-a-year contract with Mears Scotland, run by Willie Docherty, husband of Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty, personal friends of Mr McCabe, with recent losses by the firm passed on to tenants.
The sacking of Labour’s Tommy Morgan, who was also the catalyst for the notorious 1990s Monklands scandal being blown open, has split the administration.
A Labour spokesman said all groups across Scottish local government had been asked to bring forward their AGMs ahead of the short campaign in the run-up to May 7.
He said an email had been circulated in mid-January with a request they be completed by the close of February, describing the move as “standard practice”.
Glasgow, where Labour also faces an uphill battle to retain all its MPs, held its AGM a fortnight ago with leader Gordon Matheson re-elected unopposed.