Scottish Labour needs a ‘revival’ says Tony Blair as pressure grows on Richard Leonard to quit

The former prime minister said opposition to the SNP had been too weak to make the case for the union.

Richard Leonard is under pressure to quit from within Scottish Labour

Tony Blair has said political opposition in Scotland requires a “revival” as the leader of Scottish Labour continues to come under pressure to step down.

The former prime minister was speaking at the digital FT Weekend Festival and his comments came after Lord Robertson, who served under Blair as defence secretary, added his name to the Labour voices calling on Richard Leonard to quit.

Mr Blair said the “revival of a serious opposition” in Scotland would help the case for the union and said Labour had been “out of the game” for years in Scottish politics.

The former Prime Minister Tony Blair has said Scottish Labour requires a revival

He added the SNP’s strategy of acting “like an opposition” even when they are in power had also lead to their success.

The former Labour man said: "The other thing that would help enormously of course is a revival of a serious opposition to the SNP north of the Border.

"The truth of the matter is, apart from the time when Ruth Davidson was the leader of the Conservative party in Scotland, and in my view got to a serious position where there looked like there was alternative.

“Unfortunately the Labour party has just been out of the game for many years in Scotland, and the Labour party back in the game would also be a very important part of preserving the union because it would allow you then to be in a situation where there was a vibrant alternative to the SNP in the government of Scotland, because one of the things the SNP does very cleverly is they behave like an opposition even when they are in government.”

He added that Scottish Labour under Richard Leonard has become “very weak” and said it was critical for the party to “revive”.

Mr Blair said: "So in a sense, if there are problems in Scotland, the SNP should be put under pressure to resolve those problems, but that pressure requires a vibrant opposition, and we haven't really had one.

"So the other part of it, when I was Prime Minister, we had the overwhelming number of seats in Scotland. We were strong in Scotland.

"What's happened in the last decade is that Labour has become very weak in Scotland, so it has got to revive. That would be an important part of doing this."

The former prime minister, who won 56 seats in Scotland when he won his landslide election victory in 1997, a number only matched by Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP party in 2015, argued Brexit had allowed the issue of Scottish independence to return to the forefront of Scottish politics.

He said: “[Scottish independence] has come back on the agenda as a result of Brexit.

"Scotland obviously voted heavily in favour of staying in Europe. Probably it would be even more in favour of staying in Europe today.

"If you end up with a debacle on Brexit, it will give Nicola Sturgeon something else to argue about, but I honestly think right now, for Scotland this has got to be a distraction.”

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