Stop the plots
Scottish Labour leader demands end to infighting as no-confidence vote is pulled
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has demanded an end to “internal plotting” after a no-confidence vote in his leadership was withdrawn.
The MSP was due to face a crunch poll at a meeting of his party’s governing body in Glasgow yesterday amid bitter infighting.
A number of MSPs have called for him to go, including Daniel Johnson and James Kelly, who have stood down from the shadow cabinet.
The Scot t ish Executive Committee discussed a motion for a noconfidence vote before pulling it at the last minute.
Leonard said: “It’ s time for Scottish Labour to stand together and to stand with the Scottish people at a time when risks caused by the pandemic are rising again and when the economy is on the edge of a deep recession with jobs and livelihoods in peril.
“There must be an end to the internal plotting and we must unite to hold the Scottish Government to account and to offer a real alternative.
“I firmly believe that I am the best person to lead us into next year’s elections with a plan for jobs and real economic and social transformation, which I know is shared by Keir Starmer.
“I have listened to the concerns expressed about me, I will treat those with respect and humility and I will fight with every ounce of my being to improve the fortunes of the party in the run- up to next year’s election. We need unity, not division.”
The former GMB trade union official has led the party for almost three years but is feared to have made little impact with the electorate.
Opinion polls have been dismal ahead of a Holyrood election in 2021.
Leonard was a close ally of former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and remains popular with many on the left of the party.
Scottish Labour is the thirdlargest party in the Scottish Parliament, behind the SNP and Conservatives, and lost all but one of its MPs in last year’s general election. Opposition politicians have seized on the challenge to his leadership as evidence of an increasingly chaotic party on the slide.
Scottish Conservative MSP Jamie Greene said: “Scottish Labour used to stand up for the United Kingdom. Now it won’t even stand up to Richard Leonard.
“This is the weakest that the once-great Labour Party has ever looked.
“Ex-Labour voters will be looking on in despair as their old party becomes a fringe group in Scottish politics. Labour’s distracted and divided politicians are tearing each other apar t again, wasting all their time and energy f ighting each other instead of fighting the SNP.
“Ex- Labour voters who believe in the United Kingdom know their party is a shadow of its former self.
“That’s why they’ve trusted the Scottish Conservatives to stand up to the SNP in election after election.”
A spokesperson for the
Scottish Greens said: “It’s so in character for Scottish Labour to squabble among themselves when the country faces the pandemic, a jobs crisis, people being evicted and the urgent need for a fairer new green economy.
“Labour’s internal ploys may have saved Richard Leonard for now but voters will know in May that many Labour candidates don’t think he’s up to running their party, let alone running Scotland.”