KEZIA Dugdale has revealed she felt “crushed” and at “crisis point” after Labour withdrew its funding for her legal defence against the Nationalist blogger Stuart Campbell.
The former Scottish Labour leader said she suffered one of her “lowest personal moments” when general secretary Jenny Formby stopped the legal support earlier this month.
She feared being made bankrupt and disqualified as an MSP.
Speaking on the Daily Record’s political podcast, the Lothians MSP also said Jeremy Corbyn had failed to return her text messages for help.
It understood Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard this week watered down a demand from his MSPs for the funding to resume.
The party issued a statement saying Labour MSPs gave Ms Dugdale their “full support and solidarity” in her case, but an agreed demand on funding was omitted.
Mr Campbell, 50, who runs the Wings Over Scotland website, is suing Ms Dugdale for £25,000 in a defamation action brought over her Record column in March 2017.
Ms Dugdale accused him of making a homophobic remark, which he vehemently denies.
The UK Labour party agreed to underwrite the full costs of Ms Dugdale’s defence, but after the bill approached £100,000, Mr Formby announced she had ended support.
It leaves Ms Dugdale facing significant legal fees to continue her defence, as well as potential damages and costs owed to Mr Campbell.
The party is now reconsidering its decision after pressure from her supporters and claims of “betrayal”.
Ms Dugdale, who opposed Mr Corbyn becoming leader, said the party supported her under past general secretary Iain McNicol, then stopped it under Corbyn-supporting Ms Formby. She said: “The Labour party promised unequivocal support. There was no question mark over it, they were going to support this case.
“Fast forward 18 months - and it’s pretty shocking it’s taken that long to get to the preliminary hearing, we’re not even at the full proof yet - and I had to find out by email from my solicitor that the Labour party weren’t prepared to pay any more legal bills.
“The one major factor that’s changed in that time is the general secretary, Jenny Formby.When I found that out by email, I was pretty crushed to be honest.”
“I probably hit one of the lowest personal moments of my life. I’ve lived through a lot of very stressful situations, I’ve developed coping mechanisms in stressful situations, but I lost the ability to cope with this for a few days.
“First of all, how was I going to pay? This could mean my house, my livelihood. You can’t be an MSP if you’re declared bankrupt. How could my party do this to me?”
She said politicians of many parties had offered her support, but Mr Corbyn had not returned texts.
“I have repeatedly asked Richard Leonard for support. He’s been very supportive recently.
“Because this is a real crisis point for me, I’ve been looking for support pretty much wherever I can find it. I twice tried to contact Jeremy Corbyn - someone I used to be in regular contact with, we’d regularly exchange texts - I know he’s read those messages but he’s yet to respond.”
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