FORMER Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has re-emerged into the political arena amid accusations he blocked moves by a local left-wing candidate to replace Ken Livingstone on the party's ruling body.

Mr Murphy, who quit as leader after his party's worst ever performance in a Scottish election, is said to have appealed to his local branch not to put forward Rhea Wolfson to Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC).

Following the intervention Miss Wolfson, who was backed by pressure groups Momentum and the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance, failed to secure the nomination for the NEC at a meeting of Labour's Eastwood branch on Tuesday night.



Rhea Wolfson

It is claimed the former Secretary of State for Scotland argued Miss Wolfson's connection with Momentum would fuel accusations of anti-Semitism dogging Labour.

Miss Wolfson is herself Jewish and was seen as the Left's replacement for Mr Livingstone, who was suspended from Labour over remarks about Hitler and Zionists.

Labour's rules state that a candidate who fails to win their own local party’s nomination cannot stand for the NEC.

A senior figure in the Eastwood branch said there were concerns about endorsing a factionalised candidate, adding that she was not well known locally.

But in a statement released on Wednesday, Miss Wolfson said: "I am now concerned that a faction of the party are trying to take that option away from the membership. To appear on the ballot I needed to secure, amongst other things, the nomination of my home CLP.



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"Last night Eastwood CLP, where my family home is, met to nominate candidates for the NEC. It was proposed that, given I am currently a member of the CLP, there would be a straight vote for or against my nomination. I made my case and answered questions from the room.

"I was then asked to leave the room while they discussed my nomination further. Once I had left, the ex-leader of Scottish Labour, Jim Murphy, appealed to the CLP to not nominate me.

"He argued that it would not be appropriate to nominate me due to my endorsement by Momentum, which he claimed has a problem with anti-Semitism. The constituency has a large Jewish population. The CLP then voted to not endorse me, before re-inviting me back into the room."

The 25-year-old GMB branch secretary and former president of Oxford University Jewish Society added the move was "disappointing" as she was "the only Jewish candidate...have a long record of challenging anti-Semitism and have in fact faced it on a daily basis since my candidacy was announced".

Nick Hopkins, chair of the Eastwood party, said: “We don’t usually nominate to the NEC, so we decided to give special consideration to Rhea’s nomination as a member of our constituency.

“The first concern was about factionalism generally and not endorsing a faction.

“The second concern was around Momentum in particular and its role within the party at the moment.

“The third thing was the party felt it wants to get to know Rhea better as an individual. She presented her thoughts very well, people were impressed by her. But I think at the end they just decided not to go with her nomination – or any nomination. We certainly weren’t going to nominate anyone else in that context.”

Others complained that Ms Wolfson had not rung local members to ask for their votes.

She was also criticised for her behaviour during the recent Scottish election campaign.

Local members complained that she had not done much campaigning in the constituency, and instead had concentrated on helping Richard Leonard, the former GMB union official, in the Central Scotland region.

They also played down the influence of Jim Murphy.

A source said that members had taken offence at Ms Wolfson’s claim that winning in 2020 "should not be the priority for the party".

“That was seen as toxic,” a source said.

But another local Labour source said: "I think it's disgusting weaponising perceived anti-Semitism against a young Jewish woman, the only Jewish person standing, who's been recently targeted by neo-Nazis for having the courage to run in Ken Livingstone's place."