ONE of Jeremy Corbyn’s most senior shadow cabinet members has made a withering assessment of Scottish Labour, saying he doesn’t think the party is going to be “revived” north of the border any time soon.
In an interview with the New Statesman, Clive Lewis, the shadow business secretary, says Corbyn and the SNP should even consider working together to defeat the Tories. However, a spokesman for Scottish Labour told the National there would be no deal.
Lewis told the magazine: “There are lots of people, including the Scottish Labour Party, who are aghast that you can say that. I think it has to be put out there. I want to see a revival of Scottish Labour but we also have to be realistic about where they are, the timescale and timeframe of them coming back.”
He added: “I’m not talking them down, I’m simply saying that we want to see a Labour government in Westminster and that means asking some hard questions about how we’re going to achieve that, especially if the boundary changes come in... If that means working with the SNP then we have to look at that.”
The remarks by Lewis will undoubtedly upset Scottish Labour members who find themselves gearing up to battle against the SNP in next year’s council elections.
Every council seat in Scotland is up for grabs, and Labour face having their 395 squeezed by the SNP and the Tories.
A spokesman for the party said: “Both Jeremy Corbyn and Kezia Dugdale have been crystal clear on this – there will be no Westminster deal with the SNP. There already is a progressive alliance in the UK – it’s called the Labour Party.”
The SNP’s spokesman said: “It seems self-evident that if progressive parties can stop a Tory government – and their plans for an economically disastrous hard Brexit – then they should do so. Scottish Labour’s visceral reaction to this straight-forward suggestion might go some way to explaining their current levels of support.”
It was an astonishing interview in the magazine, with Lewis, who has had run-ins with Corbyn over the renewal of Trident, going on to say the Labour leader should even consider working with Ukip.
Lewis added: “If Ukip survive as a political force these coming weeks and months they’re obviously pro-PR as well. I despise much of what Ukip stand for, it’s anathema to me, but I also understand that it could be the difference between changing our electoral system or not. These are things that some people find deeply offensive but I’ve not come into politics to duck the tough issues.”
Scottish Labour have had a particularly bloody weekend in North Lanarkshire with some of the longest-standing councillors being axed in the selection process for next May’s local elections.
Among the eight serving councillors to be told that they would no longer be needed were Jim Brooks, who led Monklands council at the time of its 1990s cronyism scandal, and Jim McCabe who only stood down as leader in February. In a sign of how savage the politics in that part of the world are, McCabe wasn’t even looking to stand again, but the party still told him no.
Meanwhile in Dundee, reports suggest the party is at war after party HQ in Glasgow intervened to overturn a local decision to deselect two councillors as candidates for next May’s local elections.
Former provost Mervyn Rolfe has slammed that decision and told the press he backed a purge of “under-performers”.
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