A SENIOR Labour MSP has called for key Jeremy Corbyn ally Neil Findlay to be given a role in Kezia Dugdale’s new shadow cabinet.
Elaine Murray, convener of the Labour group at Holyrood, said she believed Findlay, who is coordinating Corbyn’s campaign north of the Border, should be invited back into the top team.
Findlay sensationally quit the front bench in May citing the party’s “disaster” at May’s General Election when it lost 40 of its 41 Scottish seats.
But Murray said the Lothian MSP should be invited back into the shadow cabinet in a bid to ensure the left of the party had a strong voice going into the Scottish Parliament elections next year.
“Neil is obviously going to be busy until the new UK leader is elected next month, but I think he should be given the chance to be in the shadow cabinet again,” she said.
“Obviously the decision is up to Kezia, but I would like Neil to have a place in the team.
“He did a good job in the fair work, skills and training portfolio under Jim.”
She added: “I think it is important for there to be a political balance in the shadow cabinet so there is a range of perspectives and points of view as we discuss the way forward. I think it is important that we go into the election as colleagues and comrades and not as factions.”
“Whether or not he would join the team would be up to him, but I hope he is asked.”
Dugdale, who won the Scottish Labour leadership race convincingly over her rival Ken Macintosh on Saturday, is expected to announce her new front-bench team next week, ahead of the new parliamentary session.
Cowdenbeath MSP Alex Rowley beat fellow MSP Richard Baker, and Glasgow city council leader Gordon Matheson to become deputy leader.
Yesterday Dugdale said the long and increasingly petty campaign to replace Ed Miliband as UK Labour leader was letting David Cameron “off the hook”.
Dugdale, who takes over from Jim Murphy, who stood down in June, said she was worried about the impact Labour’s introspection will have on its ability to be an effective opposition over the summer.
And she again questioned Jeremy Corbyn’s willingness to be Prime Minister, despite acknowledging his popularity and “big ideas” are exciting the country.
Speaking on Bauer Radio’s Scotland’s Talk In, she said: “Four months is a long time to pad out with policy announcements and talking about what happened in the General Election, and I think it has created a space where a lot of animosity has come in.
“It’s all become very personal in the last few weeks, which is not pleasant.
“The thing that bothers me about that is not so much the petty exchanges, but the fact that David Cameron is getting off the hook all through the summer.
“I think he’s having three summer holidays, and he can do so in the blissful knowledge that the Labour Party will continue to talk about its own future rather than scrutinise his government’s record and what they plan to do in the future. That’s quite worrying.”
She denied accusations that she has backtracked on previous criticisms of Corbyn.
In an interview with The Guardian earlier this month, she questioned how “a guy that’s broken the whip 500 times” can enforce party discipline, and said she has yet to be convinced he can be Prime Minister.
Clarifying her comments, she said: “I didn’t say that I couldn’t work with Corbyn.
“I did pose some questions about whether or not he wanted to be Prime Minister. I just posed some questions about what Labour needs to do to return to power. I went on the radio a couple of days later, ahead of actually going to see Jeremy to sit down with him and talk about his campaign and his plans, and in that interview I recognised that in many ways his campaign is exciting the country.
“He’s clearly filling community halls and he’s talking about big ideas, and that was very much to be welcomed.
“So I could work with any of the four candidates. I’ve met them all and talked to them all privately about the future.
“At no point have I said that I couldn’t work with any of the four candidates.”
She added: “Decisions about the Scottish Labour Party will be made by me here in Scotland with my colleagues, with party members and people that join our movement, and they will be made in the best interests of Scotland.”
A spokesperson for Dugdale said: “Kezia will announce her shadow cabinet later this week, and hopes to draw on the experience and talents of everyone in the Labour Party.”
Meanwhile Murphy’s former chief of staff John McTernan praised Dugdale and said her chances of rebuilding Labour in Scotland were “substantial.”
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