A senior Labour MSP has called on colleagues to help pay the legal costs of a former party leader who is being sued by a pro-independence blogger.

Jackie Baillie made the call last week after the UK party stopped footing the bill for Kezia Dugdale’s lawyers, a decision that is threatening to disrupt the party conference in Liverpool.

Ms Baillie’s proposal, which has garnered support in the party, would collectively raise around £2,300 a month from Labour MSPs.

A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “It would be inappropriate to comment on a live, ongoing legal case."

Ms Dugdale, who led Scottish Labour between 2015 and 2017, is being sued for £25,000 by Stuart Campbell, whose Wings over Scotland blog is marked by support for independence and the SNP Government.

ANALYSIS: Paul Hutcheon on Kez v Wings

Mr Campbell, 50, wrote last year that Tory MSP Oliver Mundell, whose father David is an openly gay Conservative Cabinet Minister, was the “the sort of public speaker that makes you wish his dad had embraced his homosexuality sooner".

Ms Dugdale used her column in a tabloid newspaper to say she was “shocked and appalled to see a pro-independence blogger's homophobic tweets”. Mr Campbell vigorously denies homophobia and launched a defamation action against her.

It emerged recently that UK Labour had agreed to pay Dugdale’s legal costs when Iain McNicol was general secretary. The party is believed to have paid nearly £100,000 so far.

However it was reported last week that Mr McNicol’s successor, the pro-Corbyn Jennie Formby, had decided to end the financial support.

The u-turn angered Ms Dugdale’s colleagues at Holyrood, such as Ms Baillie, a shadow cabinet secretary who was critical of the UK party’s decision.

She is said to have suggested that MSPs should help Ms Dugdale to the tune of £100 a month. The MSPs currently pay the same sum to the party.

If approved, the subsidy would provide the Lothians MSP with £2300 a month towards her legal bills, rising to nearly £30,000 if the case ran on for another 12 months.

The Herald: Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland

Image: Stuart Campbell, who runs the Wings site

Lord Foulkes, a Labour peer and Dugdale ally, said: “In principle, Jackie Baillie has come up with a good idea, and if MSPs paid this sum, I am sure MPs and peers would also contribute.

“My only worry is that it gets Jennie Formby off the hook as we should keep the pressure up on the party. There should be a moral, if not a legal, obligation on the party to come up with the money.”

He added: “There must be some suspicion that the decision to stop paying the legal fees is a political decision.”

A Scottish Labour source said: "This [the Baillie plan] would be a statement of solidarity, something which has been sorely missing from the party leadership."

It was reported yesterday that Scottish Labour members are trying to force the UK party into a u-turn on the Dugdale legal fee row.

Members of the Glasgow Anniesland branch have submitted an emergency motion to the annual conference in Liverpool, stating that a promise had been made to pay her fees from "start to finish".

However, other party sources do not see why Ms Dugdale’s legal fees should be taken from the pockets of MSPs.

The former leader was criticised last year after skipping her parliamentary duties and making tens of thousands of pounds on TV show ‘I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!’.

She did not get the permission of party bosses to appear on the programme and was paid a pre-tax fee of £70,000, a portion of which she gave to charity.

Months later Ms Dugdale bought a flat in Edinburgh which she used to co-own with her former partner, according to Registers of Scotland.

At a legal hearing at Edinburgh sheriff court in July, Ms Dugdale’s lawyers called for the legal action to be dismissed on the grounds of “fair comment”, which is a defence under defamation law.

Aidan O’Neill, QC, for Ms Dugdale, argued: “If you think homosexuality is funny and a basis to denigrate or ridicule people, that would seem to be a basis that someone else might properly and honestly comment that that’s homophobic.”

Craig Sandison, QC, who is representing Mr Campbell, said during the hearing that it was “simply not true” to call his client a homophobe, adding:

“She could have said what the pursuer said was rude, distasteful, uncalled for, cheapens political discourse, she could have said that with impunity. What she can’t say, but has done, is ‘you are a homophobe’. That’s what we say is the innuendo from the article.”

The sheriff ruled against Ms Dugdale and the case was to proceed to a full hearing However the MSP lodged an appeal against the judgement last week.

Ms Baillie declined to comment on the legal dispute.