FORMER First Minister Henry McLeish yesterday warned Labour could appear “divided” as he called for Kezia Dugdale to clarify her stance on allowing the party’s politicians to campaign for a Yes vote in a future referendum.
He spoke out after the Scottish Labour leader said on Sunday she would not stop Labour MSPs and MPs campaigning for independence when she responded to calls to allow them to have a “free vote” on the issue.
But on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland yesterday, McLeish hit back: “At this stage you would not only look divided but it would look like you were giving up the party’s historic opposition to independence.
“Now I’ve always been one who has tried to have a measured contribution to this debate over the years and what I think I’m looking for is clarification.”
He asked what it would mean if the message from Scottish Labour was that it was dropping its “historic opposition” to independence and becoming “a pragmatic Labour Party” which took account of fact that “30 per cent of Labour voters were in favour of independence”.
“It’s a huge change in relations and attitudes towards the whole question of Scotland’s place in the Union,” he said.
However, McLeish, who was First Minister between 2000 and 2001, said a free vote for Labour MSPs would have “huge implications on the very idea of Scotland staying within the Union”.
“If the party is saying: ‘Look, we need a bigger debate within the party’, that’s fine,” he said.
“I think that we have to be quite clear that a debate in the party is not the same as saying to the country you can vote however you wish.”
During the interview with the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland programme, Dugdale, who was elected Labour’s Scottish leader in August, said she would not “shut down” party debate about independence.
She said: “I want people who voted both Yes and No to see that the Labour Party is the vehicle for progressive change in this country, which is why I am completely comfortable and, in fact, would encourage people who voted Yes in the past to take a look at our party and see that it has changed.”
When asked if Labour’s MPs and MSPs should be allowed to campaign against party policy, as they did in the 1979 devolution referendum, Dugdale said: “Yes. Many Labour members, in fact almost 30 per cent of Labour Party supporters, voted Yes. We know that now from all the evidence and I respect that.
“I’m not going to shut down my party’s renewal and debate in my party because people hold a different position on independence.”
Last night Labour MSP Elaine Smith, convener of Labour’s Campaign for Socialism in Scotland, said she welcomed a debate in the party about independence, but added that while she was aware of some figures in Labour who backed independence, she was unaware of any MSPs who did so.
“My own view is that it should be debated and discussed at the Labour Party Scottish Conference if there are signs of another referendum forthcoming,” she said.
“That would give a clear party decision for campaigning ... I do agree that in these big referendum votes I don’t think it’s right to whip people one way or another. That would go for the European vote as well. If an MP or MSP had particular views in a different direction, they would have to take account of the views of their local party, the vote at conference and would have to make their arguments.”
In an earlier interview with the BBC, former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont said it was “self-evident” that some people within the Labour movement had accepted that Scotland could be independent and she believed that a free vote was a debate the party should have.
“We know that there were Labour people who supported Yes and we need to understand what that was and have that debate inside the party,” she said. “It’ll be for others to decide whether you then make it a free vote.”
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