A LABOUR society at a Scottish university has apologised after posting a meme showing a rifle and reading “Defend Richard Leonard”.
As rumours of worsening divisions in Scottish Labour bubbled up last night, with reports that James Kelly had resigned from the shadow cabinet and other MSPs would join him in calling for Leonard to go, the Stirling University Labour society amped up their defence of the party’s leader.
The group’s Twitter account put out posts calling Kelly a “disgrace” for his resignation and public calls for Leonard to resign, before posting the image based on an old meme about pop-punk music.
The graphic caused outrage, with former Labour MP for the area Dame Anne McGuire writing: “I’ve deleted it as I didn’t want it polluting my timeline. There was absolutely no excuse to tweet such an offensive image.”
I’ve deleted it as I didn’t want it polluting my timeline. There was absolutely no excuse to tweet such an offensive image.
— Dame Anne McGuire (@AnneMcGuire97) September 1, 2020
One former Labour press officer added that the post was “awful”, while Twitter user @BlairPScott95 said: “You’d think a Labour Society would know better than to post a ‘meme’ saying Defend Richard Leonard with a rifle on it.
“Especially one in a city pretty close to one of the most serious instances of gun violence in the UK.”
Stirling University Labour group later posted: “For the record [it] was a meme on some food [sic] old emo patter but fair enough.
“That being said apologies for offence caused.”
In another post they added: “We deleted it because clearly people didn’t see the reference and were offended.
“We recognise that we caused hurt and took steps to address that.”
READ MORE: Richard Leonard faces coup as Scottish Labour MSPs plot to oust him
Scottish Labour and Scottish Labour Students have been approached for comment.
The row comes amid a tumultuous day for Leonard, who has been publicly urged to resign by three of his own MSPs.
Jenny Marra and Daniel Johnson added their voices to Kelly’s call for Leonard to go with concerns the party would “struggle to recover” if he leads them into next year’s Holyrood election.
Scottish Labour are on track to gain 14% of the vote in the Scottish Parliament election, and have suffered a series of poor results under Leonard’s leadership.
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