Scottish Labour leadership hopeful Joe Fagan insists the SNP should "fix the basics" before they demand a referendum, after PM Andy Burnham appeared to open the door to a second IndyRef. The former South Lanarkshire Council leader is vying to replace Anas Sarwar after the party's disastrous showing in May's Holyrood election.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mail, Fagan, 39, insisted voters are not interested in pursuing IndyRef2 and it should not be a government priority. Last week, Burnham appeared to tell the House of Commons Scotland should have the same right to a breakaway vote as Northern Ireland, where a legal obligation is written into the Good Friday Agreement.
Priorities are public services
But South Scotland MSP Fagan said: "For a lot of middle ground voters who may be open to independence, who may have voted both Labour and SNP recently, I think their priorities are public services, the NHS, cost of living."
"The tragedy of the last Scottish election was that the battleground shifted away from independence on to those issues, and Labour still lost. But the way which Labour wins those voters back is to win in that battleground."
"My challenge to the Scottish Government is fix the basics, and once you've fixed the basics then maybe we can have that conversation about another referendum."
His comments came after Burnham said the basis for any IndyRef2 should be "exactly the same" as for a poll in Northern Ireland, where the conditions are a seven-year gap between votes and clear majority support. Burnham later rowed back on the comments, writing to Swinney to say a referendum remained "off-limits".
Election context
Swinney's SNP secured a fifth term in office in May but fell short of a majority with 58 seats. Labour under Sarwar fell to a dismal defeat in its worst Holyrood result, claiming joint second place with Reform. Labour has not been in power at Holyrood since 2007 and has lost votes in every election since devolution.
With the pro-indy Greens surging to a record 15 seats, the parliament has a strong majority in favour of a referendum – but the constitution is reserved to Westminster, with successive prime ministers, including Burnham, blocking Holyrood calls for a plebiscite.
Reform Scotland chief Malcolm Offord said last week he believed two million Scots voting for pro-separation parties at an election could be an IndyRef2 mandate. But Fagan refused to be drawn on what he thought a trigger should be, insisting: "It's something we can talk about when the country is in a better place."
Leadership credentials
In a wide-ranging interview, the candidate – who only became an MSP in May – also touted his credentials as a Holyrood outsider with fresh thinking that can "give Labour its confidence back". Drawing an implicit comparison with Burnham, who spent nine years as Greater Manchester mayor before replacing Keir Starmer in No10 this summer, Fagan highlighted his four years as leader in South Lanarkshire.
He said: "The Scottish Labour Party right now seems to lack a sense of definition, and really lacks a sense of identity."
"I want to give the Scottish Labour Party its confidence back. It's the issues we pursue and the advances we make for working people that help define us."
"But I also think politics has changed. We've seen the politics of class give way to the politics of identity, and I think we're living in an era where the politics of identity might very well be about to give way to the politics of community."
"That politics of people and place has just propelled a new Prime Minister into Downing Street and is something we can learn from in Scotland and use to rebuild."
His rival, North East Scotland MSP Marra, has been an MSP since 2021 and served in Sarwar's shadow cabinet. But Fagan has insisted his frontline political experience is just as valid.
He said: "You don't get much more frontline than leading one of Scotland's biggest councils."
"I'm in a contest with somebody who's got a term on me in the Scottish Parliament and it's somebody that I respect."
"But what I say to people is, I might be new to the Scottish Parliament, but I'm not new to Scottish politics. I'm not new to leadership because I led a council with a £1billion budget and a 16,000 workforce."
"We did it well and we did it by building consensus and building a team. I think it's valuable experience and it's just as legitimate as any experience from within the Scottish Parliament. I'm the only one with executive experience. I do think that matters."
Housing and Gaza
One of Fagan's flagship policies is to secure investment from Scotland's £67billion council pension funds to help build more social homes and tackle the housing emergency. But he insists the funds, which are run independently and look after the pensions of hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, would not be forced into making investments.
Fagan said: "What I am not advocating for is the state interfering in investment decisions. You've got to respect the independence of the funds and the fiduciary duties of their boards."
"But you can work up a pipeline of projects that you put before these boards, and challenge them to be more transparent about where they invest the money, and work with them to bring that investment into Scotland. This is already happening across England."
He also echoed comments by Marra in the Sunday Mail last month branding Israeli actions in Gaza a "genocide" and defending hundreds of Scottish protesters who have been arrested for t-shirts and placards linked to banned group Palestine Action.
Fagan told the Sunday Mail: "Bluntly, it seems that the authorities have gone too far, and there has to be a bit of course correction. I don't think that activists who feel passionately about this issue, who are acting in good faith, should be criminalised."
"That is a separate matter from other genuine bad actors out there who are looking to undermine the government or who are criminals."
Asked if what has happened in Gaza is a genocide, he said: "Yes - and I'm concerned that in years to come, the West is going to be ashamed of how little we did to put pressure on the Israeli government at this time."
