Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee (NEC), has backed plans to give Scottish Labour further autonomy. Kezia

Scottish Labour Leader Kezia Dugdale secured backing from the NEC to make the party fully autonomous. This is a measure Scottish Labour leaders having been trying to deliver for years.

The NEC gave the sign-off to devolve control over policy, constituency parties and Westminster candidate selections to Scottish Labour. The proposals will be put to Labour’s party conference, which begins in Liverpool this weekend.

The body also agreed that the Scottish and Welsh Labour parties should each have a voting member on the NEC.

Last year Dugdale and UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn issued a joint statement in support of full autonomy for Scottish Labour.

“These will be the biggest changes we’ve seen to how the Scottish Labour Party is run in a generation. It means Scottish Labour is now on track to become fully autonomous within the UK Labour Party. I’m looking forward to making these arguments at the UK conference next week, and hopefully seeing the proposals passed by delegates.

“It is right that as devolution strengthens across the UK that Scottish Labour changes to reflect that. Today we took an important step in achieving that,” said Dugdale.