LABOUR’S Ian Murray said he’s prepared to run as an independent if he is deselected by his local party.
Late on Tuesday night, the Edinburgh South MP learned that the Unite trade union, led by key Jeremy Corbyn ally, Len McCluskey, were going to try and force him out.
Under Labour party rules, introduced last year, sitting MPs can be forced into a reselection battle if one-third of either local members or branches pushes for a trigger ballot.
Murray will find out tonight if the coup has enough support.
Speaking to the BBC, Murray warned Unite that the membership of the Edinburgh Constituency Labour Party were on his side and would take “a very dim view” of a replacing him with a “hard left Marxist”.
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Asked what he would do if deselected, the MP said: “I would have a decision to make about whether I would stand.
“I think constituents deserve to have a choice of candidates in front of them, I would obviously discuss that with friends, family and colleagues to decide whether or not I would stand if I was deselected.
“But certainly I can guarantee that if the Labour Party ... put in some hard left Marxist candidate they won’t win the seat of Edinburgh South. That would be damaging to the Labour Party and damaging to the country.”
Murray said he had not spoken to the Labour Party leadership about the move to deselect him.
Former Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman branded reports Murray could be ousted from his constituency as “total madness”.
Murray claimed Corbyn should support him – despite the Edinburgh South MP being a vocal and staunch critic of the Labour leader.
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Murray replied: “Well he hasn’t supported the Labour Party at every turn. Jeremy Corbyn has said quite clearly that individual MP’s should be individual spokespeople for their individual constituencies and that is the way I have been acting.
“I’ll continue to fight their corner with the issues they bring to me, that’s what being a local MP is all about I have done that since 2010 and if Unite don’t like that they can find someone else to take up the seat and will probably lose it.”
A Unite Scotland spokesman said their members were “clearly concerned that Ian Murray has consistently undermined the Labour leadership in Scotland and at Westminster, and has on occasion attacked our union.”
He added: “No MP is entitled to their seat. It is for Mr Murray to now demonstrate why Unite members in Edinburgh South should return him as their representative.”
Murray has the biggest majority in Scotland, beating his SNP rival in 2017 by 15,514 votes.
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