Our Politics newsletter is now daily. Join thousands of others and get the latest Scottish politics news sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A senior Scottish Labour MSP has called for her party to break away from UK Labour and become a “separate” election fighting force.

Monica Lennon said her party remained a “branch office” and claimed Labour is stopping Scottish leader Richard Leonard from being taken seriously.

In an article for the Daily Record, she blasted: “We either continue at the mercy of the UK party’s distant structures or we become a party in our own right.”

Scottish Labour suffered its worst general election result since 1910 after losing six of their seven seats and slumping to fourth place.

The party that delivered devolution has also gone backwards at every Scottish Parliament election since 1999.

A review will take place which will assess the latest election reverse and attempt to stop the bleeding ahead of next year’s Holyrood poll.

Lennon, who is Leonard’s shadow cabinet secretary for health, says she will use the post-mortem to call for the Scottish party to start from scratch.

(Image: Garry F McHarg Daily Record)

Scottish Labour is not an independent political party and sits inside UK Labour, a relationship ex-leader Johann Lamont famously described in 2014 as being like a “branch office”.

Although the Scottish party has secured autonomy in recent years, Leonard’s organisation is financially dependent on Labour in London and does not have a separate disciplinary system.

The summer U-turn on IndyRef2 - where shadow chancellor John McDonnell unilaterally announced that a referendum would not be blocked - was also imposed on Leonard.

Lennon said: “My submission to the Scottish Labour review will recommend we become a separate political party in our own right.”

“If we look like a pressure group within a UK party structure, we will continue to be rejected.”

She added: “The branch office continues to this day.”

The Central Scotland MSP said a separate party would have to raise its own funds, ask trade unions to affiliate, and ensure a separate whipping arrangement existed for party MPs.

Lennon recently called for Labour to back the right of Holyrood, not Westminster, to have the final say on indyref2.

At present the UK Government possesses a veto as the constitution is a reserved matter.

In her article, the MSP reiterated her opposition to independence, arguing it would be bad for the poorest Scots.

A number of Labour MSPs were angered by McDonnell’s indyref2 intervention, which dominated the Scottish party’s general election campaign.

They believe Leonard, a left winger, has allowed Jeremy Corbyn’s office to interfere in Scottish Labour in an unprecedented way.

Ahead of the European elections last year, Corbyn allies did not allow Leonard’s face to appear on a key leaflet.

(Image: DAILY RECORD)

12 YEARS OF HURT

2007: Scottish Labour loses the Holyrood election to the SNP by a single seat.

2011: The SNP wins a majority in the Scottish Parliament election, hammering Labour.

2014: Johann Lamont, the then leader, says her party is like a “branch office” after UK Labour removed her General Secretary

2015: After Jim Murphy becomes leader, Scottish Labour loses 40 of its 41 seats at the general election.

2016: Kezia Dugdale leads Labour to third place at the Holyrood election, the first time this has ever happened.

2017: Labour rallies and goes up to seven MPs at the general election.

2019: On new leader Richard Leonard’s watch, Scottish Labour comes fifth at the European election.

2019: The party falls from seven MPs to one at the general election.