KEZIA Dugdale will this week return to her day job at Holyrood after a three-week absence to take part in a reality TV show.
The former Scottish Labour leader faces an inquiry by her party after she took “an unauthorised leave of absence” from her responsibilities as a MSP to appear in ITV’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! The Labour MSP was the second contestant to leave the show after a public vote.
It has now been reported Dugdale faces being “totally isolated” in Holyrood’s Labour group after her political mentor criticised her for appearing on the show.
Iain Gray, who is her closest ally in her party at Holyrood, suggested in a leaked email that all the party MSPs disapproved of her controversial decision to go on the show which is filmed in Australia.
The development comes as a Labour source told the Sunday Herald it is believed Dugdale is likely to lose her top place on the Labour list in the Lothians if she stands for election again, meaning that she would be unlikely to be returning to parliament.
There has been some speculation she might join the SNP, but last night one of the party’s MPs, said she should not be allowed to cross the floor to become a SNP MSP, but should stand down and face re-election.
“Anyone who agrees with our party’s principles is welcome to join. She wouldn’t be the first person to have gone on a journey,” said Edinburgh East SNP MP Tommy Sheppard, a former Scottish Labour assistant general secretary.
However, he believed she shouldn’t be simply allowed to cross the floor and become a SNP MSP without going through the same processes as others.
“I would have thought if she wanted to do that it is only fair to the electorate that she step aside, in her case being a list MSP is pretty easy to do as there wouldn’t have to be a by-election, it would be just a matter of the party selecting the second person on the list.
“I think if people cross the floor they should fight under their new colours.”
Labour figures were particularly angry the news that Dugdale would be appearing on the show coincided with the announcement over her successor, overshadowing Richard Leonard’s first days in the job.
Jenny Gilruth, a SNP MSP, who is Dugdale’s partner, told the Daily Record that Dugdale, had tried hard to avoid news getting out before the new leader was announced and was upset by the impact it had had on the party, but also by the attacks on her judgment. Dugdale was criticised by fellow Labour MSPs and by others in he SNP and the Scottish Greens last month after abandoning her duties representing people in Edinburgh and the Lothians as well as her parliamentary responsibilities to go on the money-spinning show.
She said her inclusion on the programme, which involved her attempting to consume a drink of blended bull penis and ostrich anus, was a platform to promote “Labour values”.
She has also dodged questions on what proportion of the fee — thought to be between £75,000 and £100,000 — will be given to charity.
When Dugdale returns to Holyrood this week, she will be interviewed by senior Labour figures and could face a disciplinary sanction.
Last month, Gray emailed colleagues about a child abuse campaigner who was on a vigil near the Scottish Parliament.
The campaigner pledged to remain camped outside Holyrood for the time Dugdale was in Australia.
In one email, leaked to the Sunday Herald, Gray noted “... I think it only fair to forewarn colleagues that the catalyst for his vigil was Kez going to the jungle.
“However, he did not really major on that when I spoke with him this afternoon, he does know that hers is a personal decision which most (all?) of us disapprove of, and I am not suggesting you should defend it.”
Gray had previously been described as Dugdale’s “mentor and father figure”.
It was also reported yesterday that one Labour MSP had received around 30 complaints from members of the public about going on the show.
In an interview with a London-based newspaper last weekend Dugdale insisted she was not defecting to the SNP and that she “loved the Labour party”.
Commenting on a report that she would be isolated inside Labour, a spokesperson for Dugdale told the Sunday Herald: “Kez knows her decision upset some of her Labour colleagues.
The nature of her contract meant that she could not discuss her reasons for appearing on the show with them in advance.
“She will hold private talks with Labour colleagues on her return to parliament in a few days.”
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on leaks.”
Meanwhile, Leonard, who beat fellow MSP Anas Sarwar, to take the top job, has yet to unveil his front bench team.
The MSP for Central Scotland has been meeting colleagues before who he will appoint to hold each key role.
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