16:09

A leading Labour critic of Jeremy Corbyn, the former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, has said a majority of the party’s Scottish MPs and MSPs now backed a second EU referendum.

Speaking at a People’s Vote press conference in Edinburgh, Dugdale suggested there was deepening opposition among backbenchers to Corbyn’s stance on Brexit, even among those who are otherwise loyal to his leadership.

That extended to Labour MSPs at Holyrood, most of whom now backed a referendum on Brexit, she said. Two Scottish Labour MPs, Ian Murray in Edinburgh South and Martin Whitfield in East Lothian, already back the proposal.

Many Scottish Labour figures believe Corbyn’s pro-Brexit stance will cost the party seats and votes at the next general election, with the Scottish National party the most likely to benefit.

Dugdale said that over the weekend Paul Sweeney, the widely-tipped Labour MP for Glasgow North East and Ged Killen, the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West, also supported a second referendum. Killen resigned from his frontbench role as a parliamentary aide last year over Corbyn’s Brexit stance.

That suggests Richard Leonard, Dugdale’s successor as Scottish leader, faces deepening splits on Europe even though no Scottish Labour parliamentarians have so far backed the new breakaway group.

Leonard implied the breakaway group could make it harder for Labour to defeat the Tories. He said in a statement:

When young people are fighting for action on climate change, it is time to come together for the future, not divide. The Tory party’s failed solutions represent a dead end. We must do nothing to let them off the hook.

Dugdale, who resigned as Scottish leader in 2017 partly because of her deep differences with Corbyn, distanced herself from the breakaway group on Monday by insisting she still wanted to see a Labour government. But she added: