Analysis: Can Richard Leonard survive?

There is nothing more certain than night following day, than the knowledge that the Scottish Labour Party will find itself hidebound by internal division.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard.Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard.

For a political party based on solidarity, co-operation, and community, it is never far from fractures, fall-outs and factions.

This time, like every other time, the division is centred on the leader and the direction of the party, which according to all the latest opinion polls, is down.

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The election of Richard Leonard as leader was regarded as something of a coup by the left of the party, who had longed to get rid of his predecessor Kezia Dugdale, and those before her, especially Jim Murphy, convinced that the Better Together project in the 2014 referendum which had saved the union, had also forever sunk the party’s electoral chances.

When Ms Dugdale unexpectedly resigned just after she had led the party to a slight revival with seven MPs being elected (the SNP rout of 2015 had left it with just one), the party’s leftier sections, including the Campaign for Socialism, thrust Mr Leonard forward as the candidate who would have the backing of then UK leader Jeremy Corbyn.

It made no matter to them that he had little experience in Holyrood, he was a man who, like Corbyn, had stuck to the same political principles since the 1970s.

The more centrist Anas Sarwar stood against both Mr Leonard and the prevailing political winds of the time – and he lost.

However since then Mr Leonard has, say his detractors, failed to make any impression on voters, or on Nicola Sturgeon in First Minister’s Questions.

The opinion polls seem to back that reality, and certainly under his leadership Scottish Labour lost both its MEPs at the European elections and then lost the six MPs it had just gained at the December General Election. Dire warnings had been sounded privately – to no avail.

He’s now lost the support of four MSPs – almost a fifth of the Holyrood group – including James Kelly who may not be on the same wing of the party as his leader, but who is known for being the kind of Labour politician who puts the party first.

He has been happy to serve in Mr Leonard’s shadow cabinet, and would not have been the first among suspects to call publicly for him to go, yet that’s what he did. He also made clear that MSPs had pressed upon Mr Leonard many times that things had to change, but that nothing had altered.

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Resigning in such a public way would have been the catalyst, he would have hoped, for Mr Leonard to consider his position. Instead it appears that the Labour leader is becoming more entrenched.

Interestingly, while in the Holyrood chamber his presence is lacklustre, and he appears unable to land a blow on the First Minister, this internal challenge has transformed him.

Like a punch-drunk, bare-knuckle boxer, he is beating his chest declaring that he’ll take on all-comers.

Who they will be is yet to be seen. There doesn’t appear to be a queue and there’s a growing feeling there’s no real plan in place by the moderates who are keen to be back at the helm of the party.

It could be that Mr Kelly’s resignation, and the outpouring of criticism by Jenny Marra, Daniel Johnson and Mark Griffin, will fail to be the knock-out blow they had hoped. That might have to wait until next May and be dealt by the voters.

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