LABOUR in Scotland should not be afraid of opening up a debate on Trident, the party’s new leader Kezia Dugdale has said.
Although somewhat overshadowed by events from her party’s head office, Dugdale started her first week in the job with a round of interviews.
During an interview with the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, Dugdale said she was a committed unilateralist and that she would be willing for the subject to be discussed at Scottish Labour’s conference in October. Dugdale officially became leader on Saturday after winning 72 per cent of the vote in Scottish Labour’s leadership election.
Despite a substantial increase in supporters and members for the UK Labour leadership race, Dugdale was elected on the support of around 5,000 people, around one quarter of those eligible to vote.
However, the size of her win gives her a powerful mandate to bring in reforms to the party.
Dugdale told the BBC she will re-open the party’s lists – many sitting MSPs are expected to find themselves deselected.
On the subject of nuclear weapons, Dugdale said: “I’m proud of the fact that my party is a party of nuclear disarmament.
“More warheads were abandoned under Labour than in any other country in recent history.
“The question that you have to ask is what is the best way to get other countries to give up their nuclear weapons? I think the way to do that is together on a multilateral basis.
“I recognise, however, there are people in the Labour Party and there are people who desperately want to support and join the Labour Party that take a different view.
“So why can’t you have a situation where we’re not afraid to debate these ideas?
“When it comes to conference at the end of October, which I will lead for the first time, I hope that we will be able to create a situation there where party members will have a much bigger say over how we construct Labour Party policy for the 2016 elections.”
SNP MSP Bill Kidd, co- president of Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, was critical of the Labour leader’s position, saying: “Labour are all over the place on key issues such as Trident, with Kezia Dugdale again making it clear today she is not personally against Trident renewal.
“While the Labour Party continue to tear themselves apart with in-fighting on this and other issues, the SNP is crystal clear that we remain completely and utterly opposed to these abhorrent weapons of mass destruction.”
It is understood Dugdale has already chosen her cabinet.
Ministers will be assigned briefs matching Labour priorities rather than shadowing the SNP’s front bench. The shadow cabinet will also have a 50/50 gender mix.
Later on in an interview with Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, when asked about her family Dugdale said her dad, Jeff, who is probably one of the SNP’s most famous supporters, had not always been a member of the party.
Dugdale said: “He moved to the SNP. He was one of those people who joined the SNP, having voted Yes in the referendum and he held on to that deep-rooted belief in independence.”
She continued: “He is wrong on many things, you would expect me to say that.
“But it is good. Every family has got a diverse mix of opinion in it and that is what makes a dinner table conversation so interesting, don’t you think?”
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