ANAS Sarwar has warned against dirty tricks clouding the Scottish Labour leadership race, demanding respect for the “spirit of the rules” amid claims of a union stitch-up for his rival.
The centrist Glasgow MSP spoke up after reports that Unite had helped left-winger Richard Leonard by signing up almost 3,000 members to its political levy in a single weekend.
The payment makes them eligible to vote in the contest for Kezia Dugdale’s successor.
Sources close to Mr Sarwar said Scottish Labour members “wouldn’t take kindly” to an attempt by Unite to turn the largely autonomous party into Jeremy Corbyn’s “branch office”.
Mr Leonard said it was wrong to “call foul” on the practice.
At a hustings at the UK Labour conference in Brighton, Mr Sarwar said he wanted more people to join Labour or sign up as supporters in order to vote in the contest.
But he added: "We have all got to make sure we play by the rules - that's in terms of the written rules and also the spirit of the rules as well.
"As long as all of us do that, I have no problem with more Unite members or any other trade union members joining this process, voting in this contest and hopefully then engaging with us as well as we return a UK Labour government and also a Scottish Labour government."
Mr Sarwar also pointedly told the hustings he would not be afraid to clash with Mr Corbyn if it was in the interests of Scotland.
He said: "It's about saying, in a grown-up environment, with an autonomous Scottish Labour Party not being a branch office ... that we can take different decisions in Scotland that are right for Scotland's interests."
Mr Leonard responded: "The trade unions are going through due process of deciding who it is they are going to back, and I don't think it's right to call foul about those rules after decisions have been taken.
"If there's a problem with the rules you should say that there is a problem with the rules up front."
He said Unite's support came after a union hustings and it was "not a decision taken by Len McCluskey", the union chief who is close to Mr Corbyn, but "rank and file" Scottish members.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel