Scottish Labour’s civil war has spectacularly broken out into the open after a secretly-recorded tape emerged of the party’s interim leader admitting Left wingers had discussed replacing Kezia Dugdale with one of their own.

Alex Rowley was recorded stating that the Left of the party had conducted “private discussions” over Ms Dugdale’s position but had not expected her to stand down before the 2021 Holyrood election.

Although he had publicly vowed to stay neutral in the contest to succeed her, he said he favoured Left-wing trade unionist Richard Leonard over Anas Sarwar, whom he said would “last maybe four years or whatever” if he won.

Mr Leonard’s campaign denied any wrongdoing but Mr Sarwar’s allies said he must come clean about whether he knew of a plot against Ms Dugdale. Both he and Mr Rowley are enthusiastic supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.

She denied being bullied out of the leadership but poured fuel on the row by stating it would be “right” to assume that her failure to inform Mr Rowley of her resignation until a few minutes beforehand was a sign of “internal problems”.

The recording emerged came less than a week after Mr Rowley was accused of deliberately using his line of questioning at First Minister’s Questions (FMQs) to allow Nicola Sturgeon to launch a vitriolic attack on Mr Sarwar and his wealth.