SCOTTISH Labour’s leadership contest looks set to be a bruising affair, after supporters of frontrunners Anas Sarwar and Richard Leonard launched blistering personal attacks.
Those supporting Leonard have attacked multi-millionaire Anas Sarwar for sending his two children to a private school charging fees of £10,000-per-year, rather than put them into any of the comprehensives around his Glasgow Southside home.
Supporters of Sarwar have hit back saying it would be “disastrous” if the party picked Leonard, an Englishman.
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His opponents in the party say Leonard’s broad Yorkshire accent and private schooling would play badly among Scottish voters.
A Leonard supporter told The Times: “Any people for whom Richard being English is a problem are not likely to vote for Scottish Labour anyway. If you’re racist you’re likely to look elsewhere. People aren’t questioning Anas Sarwar’s suitability to lead as a second generation Pakistani-Scot so why raise this about Richard?”
A Sarwar supporter said: “Tony Benn’s millions and Jeremy Corbyn’s schooling didn’t play much of a part in their internal election campaigns.”
On Friday, during a Scottish Labour away day for MSPs and MPs – one that had been organised far in advance of Kezia Dugdale’s shock resignation – interim leader Alex Rowley appealed for calm, asking colleagues not to talk to the media.
Both Sarwar and Leonard officially confirmed their intention to stand yesterday. It seems unlikely any of the other seven Scottish Labour MPs or 23 MSPs eligible to hold the position will make a bid for the job.
The party’s ruling Scottish Executive Committee will meet next Sunday to discuss the process for selecting a new leader.
It’s understood that the party now has around 21,500 members and 9500 affiliated supporters, all of whom will have a vote, though, as revealed in The National last week, Labour may use the contest as a recruitment drive, offering new members a vote in shaping the party.
Whatever the governing body decides, Labour look set to be spending most of the next two months talking about Labour.
Over the weekend, more details of Dugdale’s last days in office came to light. Those who had supported her previously told the Sunday Herald that the Lothians MSP had “bailed out” on Labour.
An ally told the paper: “She couldn’t be arsed any more. She put her own needs first.”
“There was no turmoil, no civil war – there was just the usual internal Labour left-right backbiting which goes on forever,” an insider told the Scotland on Sunday.
“Perhaps nobody told her but miserable is written into the Scottish Labour leader’s job description,” said another insider to the The Sunday Times.
According to sources, Dugdale had considered her future at various points over the last year, and had planned on going after the party performed badly in the council elections, but Theresa May’s snap election made that impossible, forcing her into fighting the campaign.
The abrupt nature of her resignation meant that the first most of her MSPs heard about it was a WhatsApp message half an hour before it became public knowledge.
According to Scotland on Sunday, Dugdale had last weekend told her mentor, former leader Iain Gray, that she was planning to quit. He pleaded with her to change her mind.
On Tuesday morning, she emailed aides and advisers, before telling members of the Scottish Executive Committee at noon.
Most MSPs found out at about 10pm.
One MSP said: “It was a shitty way to do it.”
Alan Roden, the former political editor for the Scottish Daily Mail who became Dugdale’s spin doctor, reportedly heard about the resignation when he was on holiday in a casino in Las Vegas.
He, along with strategy chief Martin McCluskey and policy director Gina Davidson, had their employment contracts tied to the leader.
One report suggested Dugdale will soon quit Holyrood, and may even “in time” declare support for independence or join the SNP.
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