Any possibility of a friendly and good-tempered election for the post of Scottish Labour leader has gone, just a few days after nominations opened.
The bad blood is already flowing. Monica Lennon, who wants to stand but is struggling to secure the necessary support, said in a post on X (on 2 August) that the contest “reeks of misogyny and male entitlement”. So far, unless she can drum up more backers, the election looks likely to be a shoot-out between Michael Marra and Joe Fagan. For her part, Lennon has only just arrived back at Holyrood. She lost her seat in May’s election but became an MSP again through the list system after Anas Sarwar departed for the Lords and a new role as trade minister in Andy Burnham’s government. A combative, impressive campaigner, Lennon has wasted little time in ruffling feathers.
But some of her colleagues are less than impressed. “It’s nothing to do with misogyny. This behaviour is why people aren’t supporting her,” said one (male) MSP. “When someone shows who they are, believe them. It must be the lowest bar ever to get on the ballot and she’s struggling to get there.” To stand, candidates require the backing of three MSPs, three MPs and three affiliates, two of which must be trade unions. And given that Labour secured a paltry 17 MSPs in May, its poorest ever result, there isn’t a deep well of possible supporters in Edinburgh, at least. It remains to be seen whether Lennon can find the numbers.
She is putting herself forward as the candidate of the left. In an article for Labour List this week, she argued that “Scottish Labour needs a radical reset rooted in democratic socialism.” In the Holyrood election, “too often we asked people to trust our competence when what they were crying out for was conviction. We are deep into Scottish Labour’s biggest crisis. We can’t be led by people who presided over our failures or didn’t stand up to a UK leadership that was out of control.” The latter point can be seen as a fairly obvious attack on Marra, the frontrunner, the most experienced MSP of the three, and a close ally of Sarwar. Sources in the Marra camp say he has the backing of a sizeable number of MSPs and MPs and is currently engaged in “positive” discussions with the unions.
Fagan, a former leader of South Lanarkshire Council, was elected to the Scottish Parliament for the first time in May. He is mostly drawing support from colleagues in the west of Scotland. Something of an unknown quantity, he is regarded as “capable” but also as lacking a profile across the rest of the nation. Perhaps to counter this, and to secure endorsements from the unions, he has called for the UK government to approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas developments. In his own piece for Labour List, he compared his political experience to that of Burnham, having “led one of Scotland’s largest local authorities with a £1 billion budget and a 16,000-strong workforce”. He also made a Burnhamite case for greater devolution from Holyrood to communities: “Greater Manchester cannot simply be lifted and dropped into Scotland. But Andy Burnham’s approach of starting with the place itself is worth learning from.”
At this early stage, it seems most likely that Marra, a trained economist and the current finance spokesman, will win when the result is announced in September. His allies describe him as the “unity candidate” and say that he expects to be attacked by his rivals due to his status as the frontrunner. “Michael’s trying to hold together competing positions, to keep the party united. That’s going to draw flak from those with other interests,” said a source. He is also likely to draw support from most of the party’s heavy hitters. In an article this week for the Daily Record, the respected Glasgow MP and former UK health minister Zubir Ahmed threw his weight behind Marra, arguing that he is “the best street fighter we have. Anyone can be angry at the SNP. Michael takes their own numbers and walks them back through their own decisions until the minister has nowhere left to stand.”
Labour is currently conducting a review of its dreadful election result. The timing of the leadership contest is perhaps unfortunate in that regard – the hopefuls are being forced to set out their stall in terms of policy and give their verdicts about why the campaign went so badly awry. One thinks of Kemi Badenoch’s request for patience when she took over as Conservative leader following her party’s trouncing in the 2024 general election. She didn’t rush into policy announcements and took time to understand the nature of the defeat. Despite tricky early months this allowed her to rebuild from first principles and her stock has recently soared.
After five losses in a row to the SNP, Scottish Labour needs a similar period of reflection. There are no easy answers, and there are a lot of competing, and conflicting, theories knocking around. Ideally, there should be no rush to ascribe blame or to set a new direction this early in a new parliament – let time do some of the work. There has to be a way to beat the Nats, but rushing to conclusions risks arriving at the wrong ones. Getting the leadership choice right matters every bit as much.
[Further reading: An anti-guidebook to Andy Burnham’s Britain]
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Subscribe here to commentI always find it incredible that the SNP are still a going concern considering how crap and corrupt they’ve been, I suppose independence overrides the calibre of the people tasked to bring it about.