The contest for the Scottish Labour leadership is about finding “our party’s missing soul”, according to one of the candidates, Monica Lennon.
Lennon has not yet secured enough support to appear on the ballot alongside fellow MSPs Michael Marra and Joe Fagan in the increasingly bitter contest. However, she stressed the need for “a full, honest debate where every candidate is put under the microscope”.
Carol Mochan, an MSP, remains the only Labour member at Holyrood yet to confirm her nomination, representing Lennon's last chance to be presented to party members.
Party in 'last chance saloon'
Writing in the Sunday Mail, Lennon told the party it was in the “last chance saloon”. She wrote: “Having lost sight of our roots, we struggle to place ourselves in Scotland’s future. It’s the worst of both worlds, but this identity crisis needn’t be the end of our story. People still need us, and we need them.”
Lennon argued that the issues leading to May's disappointing drop to 17 MSPs began well before the leaderships of Anas Sarwar and Sir Keir Starmer. She said: “Scottish Labour inherited a proud legacy of socialist ideals and bold vision from our founders, yet our election campaign failed to inspire. If we are totally honest with ourselves, very few people in Scotland are paying attention to us any more. We have lost six Holyrood elections in a row and have spent nearly two decades angry at ourselves and the electorate since the SNP sidelined us into opposition in 2007.”
Call for grassroots overhaul
Addressing MPs and her fellow MSPs, Lennon wrote that they “cannot act like a private club for parliamentarians alone”. She emphasized: “Our real strength, weight and power lies with our grassroots activists, our affiliated trade unions, our councillors, and the working-class communities we were built to serve. If we attempt to rebuild from the top down, we will fail again. But if we embrace a radical overhaul from the ground up, there is no limit to what we can achieve. Together, we can reignite the socialist heart of our movement, and deliver the transformative Scottish Labour Party the people of Scotland so urgently deserve.”
