{"id":719751,"date":"2026-07-30T21:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T21:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719751\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T21:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T21:00:20","slug":"scottish-labour-leadership-rocked-by-stitch-up-row","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/719751\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Labour leadership rocked by ‘stitch up’ row"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Candidates must secure the nominations of three MPs and three MSPs in order to get onto the leadership ballot, but The Herald understands conversations have taken place where parliamentarians have been urged to block Ms Lennon.\n<\/p>\n

\n Sources told The Herald that Mr Marra has the \u201cparty machine\u201d behind him, while Joe Fagan, the third candidate in the race, is favoured by Dame Jackie Baillie \u2013 the current interim leader.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Marra’s team have rejected the claims and said “negative anonymous quotes” were damaging to the leadership contest and the party.\n<\/p>\n

\n Brian Leishman, Alloa<\/a> and Grangemouth MP, has endorsed Ms Lennon for the leadership, alongside Falkirk<\/a>\u2019s Euan Stainbank.\n<\/p>\n

\n But so far, no MSPs are yet to endorse her while Marra has the public backing of at least five MSPs.\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Leishman told The Herald: \u201cMPs and MSPs being placed under pressure to block any candidate would be an affront to the values of the Scottish Labour Party, and to wider democracy.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cOur Scottish Labour members deserve better than that.\u00a0 They deserve, and must have, the opportunity to engage in a robust debate of ideas and beliefs and then make the decision on the future direction of our party.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cTo be a truly democratic and accountable organisation, then the membership should have the choice of different candidates.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n He added: \u201cIt\u2019s important that the Scottish Labour membership are provided with a genuine contest with candidates that are representative of different views.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThings absolutely must change, we cannot carry on with the failed policies and politics<\/a> that have seen us reduced to our lowest total of MSPs ever.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n A senior Labour source told The Herald: \u201cIt is no secret to anyone that Michael has been plotting for the leadership for a significant period of time, only he expected there would be a coronation when Anas resigned.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \"MichaelMichael Marra (Image: Scottish Parliament)\n<\/p>\n

\n Mr Marra has the backing of MSPs Neil Bibby, Jenny Young, Daniel Johnson, Pauline McNeill and Claire Baker.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf there are candidates that are phoning around then it\u2019s clear they have learned absolutely nothing.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf they were confident they could beat Monica, there would be no need for the briefings. It comes down to giving members a choice.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cMarra has been manoeuvring for leadership for quite some time now, while Monica from the backbenches brought two popular pieces of legislation through \u2013 members are eager for a change.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is a danger for Labour members that this contest will be decided before the ballot even opens on Monday,\u201d the source added.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThat is the last thing that members want.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Concerns around Ms Lennon\u2019s leadership centre on her pro-trans stance and comments she made on Scottish independence<\/a> when running against Mr Sarwar in 2021.She said it would be \u201cfoolish\u201d to ignore the wishes of voters if they expressed a wish for a second referendum.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Lennon was defeated in 2021 with 42.44% of the vote but still remains a favoured candidate among grassroots activists.\n<\/p>\n

\n Another source said: \u201cI\u2019ve heard firsthand of conversations between Monica and MSPs who have said things to her and then turned around and done the opposite, by backing another candidate.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cObviously it\u2019s a leadership contest and politics is a contact sport but I think the real point is that members don\u2019t want a coronation and they don\u2019t want an artificial competition.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cMonica is still very popular with the wider membership and if it becomes clear that MSPs and MPs are doing this, then I think the membership will take a really dim view of this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cOn the face of it, everyone is saying that we need to have a proper debate and yet they\u2019re shutting down one of the clearest avenues of debate which would be have somebody ostensibly from the left versus someone from the centre-right and that doesn\u2019t sound like somebody who wants a debate.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is no surprise to any of us but we\u2019ve had six successive Holyrood<\/a> election defeats and this just smacks of let\u2019s just go around the exact same cycle of madness.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re not going to find the change we need by stitching up another leadership election.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Responding to the claims, Pauline McNeill and Tracy Gilbert, co-chairs of Mr Marra\u2019s campaign said: \u201cWe welcome all candidates to the contest and would encourage all campaigns to conduct themselves in the positive and comradely fashion that party members expect.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is up to individual parliamentarians to nominate who they believe offers the best leadership for the party.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cMichael has spent the last week listening to colleagues, and everyone has been clear that the last thing the party needs is for a culture of negative anonymous quotes and briefings to continue, party members deserve better than this.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe would urge all campaigns to dissociate themselves from that behaviour.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Lennon, on an Instagram video, alluded to issues, stating she did not have the \u201cmachine\u201d behind her and insisting she was not \u201cpreparing\u201d for the leadership before Mr Sarwar resigned.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI just want this to be a genuine, open debate where our grassroots supporters feel respected and not just used at elections to be the people that go out on the door come rain or shine,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Candidates must secure the nominations of three MPs and three MSPs in order to get onto the leadership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-719751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}