PRESSURE is mounting for Scottish Labour to consider becoming fully independent from the UK Labour Party after Andy Burnham, the frontrunner to succeed Ed Miliband as party leader, said there was "a case" for such a move.

 

As Labour, north and south of the border, considers its future following the crushing General Election defeat, Len McCluskey, the Unite trade union boss, warned that the party's biggest donor could break its ties with Labour unless it again became the "voice of ordinary working people". Some Scottish members have already expressed support for a switch to the SNP in Scotland.

The developments came as a poll said 60 per cent of Scots did not believe Scotland would become independent in the next five years; 33 per cent said it would. But a slight majority, 52 per cent, thought the nation would break away from the UK by 2025.

With the UK Labour leadership candidates beginning to set out their stalls, Mr Burnham was asked if, in the wake of the near wipe-out in Scotland, Scottish Labour should run its affairs separately from the party in London.

The Shadow Health Secretary replied: "There is a case for that and I will look at that."

He said the election had left Britain more divided, accused David Cameron's Conservatives of "playing to English nationalism" and said he was the candidate who could "speak to all parts of the UK".

Asked about Scottish Labour becoming fully autonomous, Lord McConnell, the former First Minister, told The Herald: "All options have to be on the table. But I don't think that the current problems facing the Scottish Labour Party are only fixed by structural change."

He explained the crisis had been building in the Scottish party for some time and was now "acute". The Labour peer advised against "quick fixes" and said the road to recovery would be long and hard.

"We are disconnected from Scotland and we need to reconnect," he declared.

As Kezia Dugdale, the deputy Scottish Labour leader, emerged as the favourite to succeed Jim Murphy with her Holyrood colleague Neil Findlay ruling himself out, the ex-FM called for a "new generation" to lead the party in Scotland but declined to single out his preferred candidate. "We need someone who gets modern Scotland."

He added: "If we start to get the basics right again, we reconnect and commit to rebuilding from the bottom, then we can have a campaign strategy for the next Scottish election."

His colleague, Lord Foulkes, agreed there was a case for considering a fully autonomous Scottish Labour Party and noted how the SDLP in Northern Ireland was "in association" with the UK Labour Party.

The former Scotland Office Minister said "all sort of options need to be looked at" in terms of party set-up.

"I'm a strong supporter of a federal UK. I will be pressing for a constitutional convention towards a federal UK. The pressure behind that is growing. If you do adopt that, then a federal Labour Party is a corollary," he added.

Echoing the calls for a more federal structure, Jon Cruddas, who oversaw the party's manifesto, and ex-Cabinet Minister John Denham both supported the creation of an independent Labour Party in England.

Meantime, Mr Burnham said he had "huge respect" for Mr Murphy but admitted "in Scotland we do now need a clean break".

Promoting himself as the "change candidate," he said he had discussed his leadership bid with lots of people, including Mr McCluskey.

Mr Murphy, who will resign next month as Scottish Labour leader after narrowly surviving a vote of no confidence, denounced the Unite boss's behaviour as "destructive" and said Labour's next UK leader should not be chosen by Mr McCluskey.

But the Union boss hit back, saying the former Scottish Secretary was "looking for a bogeyman as an excuse" and added: "I wasn't the one that lost Scotland to the SNP."

And he issued a thinly-veiled threat about Unite's affiliation to Labour, saying if the party did not reconnect with ordinary working voters, then "pressure will grow from our members to rethink; it's certainly already growing in Scotland".

He added many Scottish Unite members had turned to the SNP and that there were a "number of resolutions" tabled at its conference later in the year to allow the union to fund parties other than Labour.

The remarks came as MPs today prepare for the return of the UK Parliament after the election with the first business being the election of a Speaker. John Bercow, after David Cameron's unsuccessful "grubby" attempt to dislodge the Tory MP from the position in March, is expected to be re-elected. The rest of the week will be taken up by the swearing in of all 650 MPs.