LABOUR’S efforts to oust Richard Leonard continue today, with Tony Blair’s director of political operations and the former Better Together strategist joining calls for his resignation.

It all started earlier this week when James Kelly quit Leonard’s shadow cabinet, calling for him to resign. MSPs Jenny Marra, Daniel Johnson and Mark Griffin then followed suit.

Yesterday one of Keir Starmer’s closest allies in the shadow cabinet, Rachel Reeves, called on the Scottish Labour leader to look at the “dire” polling and “consider his position”.

And later in the day a group of Labour peers demanded Leonard step down before the 2021 Holyrood election. Former defence secretary George Robertson, former MI6 officer Meta Ramsay, former Scottish secretary Helen Liddell and peer George Foulkes said Leonard’s exit would allow the restoration of the party” to begin.

READ MORE: Richard Leonard clings on and insists he’s the best Scottish Labour’s got

Leonard has overseen a series of poor election results, and Labour is set to gain just 14% at next year’s Scottish Parliament vote.

Now Blair’s staffer John McTernan and Better Together chief Blair McDougall have also called for the leader’s resignation.

The outspoken Labour MSP Neil Findlay has reacted furiously to the attempted coup and this morning reacted to McTernan and McDougall’s intervention.

“And the arse of the barrel has now been scraped,” he declared.

Leonard is still supported on the left of the party, while unions have also offered their backing.

In an email to MSPs last night, Findlay told them: “I support Richard 100% – the usual suspects think we just need to wind back to 1997 and then wave a Union Flag with gusto with [MP] Ian Murray and [deputy leader] Jackie Baillie leading and all will be well – delusion doesn’t come close to it.”

Train drivers’ union Aslef described the efforts to oust Leonard as an “attempted palace putsch by disaffected Blairites”.

Former presiding officer Tricia Marwick also hit out at the group seeking to topple Leonard, writing: “I have no dog in this fight but the idea that Lords and Baronesses sitting in the House of Lords should have a view, which could be taken seriously, of who the elected leader of the Labour Party is in Scotland is simply abhorrent.”

Leonard has defended his position throughout the calls for his resignation and said last night: “Anybody who comes under criticism has a period of reflection, but I am absolutely convinced that I am the best person to lead the Scottish Labour Party into those elections.

“I cannot see anybody, at the moment, who I think would make a better leader of the Scottish Labour Party.”