Just For Scotland has written to the two candidates running to become the next leader of Scottish Labour, urging them to demand answers on whether Anas Sarwar's split with Keir Starmer damaged the party's Holyrood election campaign.
The group, which campaigns for Scottish Labour to separate from the UK party, said it was concerned by reports of a backlash from the party's HQ ahead of May's election. It has also raised concerns that activists were unable to access two key online portals used to coordinate campaigning in the run-up to the vote.
Concerns over reprisals and sabotage
In a letter sent to both Joe Fagan and Michael Marra, the group said: "This is not about the Sarwar and Starmer fall out, nor the campaign impact. This is about whether Scottish Labour can take different political positions from UK Labour without fear of reprisal or sabotage.
"It is about whether we carry ourselves as leaders in our nation, or as junior partners to a dominating organisation elsewhere in our union. A political reset with new faces at the top, as always happens, will not weather the next dispute. Structural threats need structural solutions."
Election result and leadership race
Labour returned just 17 MSPs at May's election - its worst result in the history of devolution - and Sarwar announced his resignation as leader in July. The former Scottish Labour leader initially forged a close working relationship with the ex-PM in the run-up to the successful 2024 general election, but the pair later fell out after Starmer's personal approval ratings tanked, leading to Sarwar calling on him to resign earlier this year.
Marra and Fagan are now in a race to become leader after Monica Lennon today failed to secure enough nominations from MPs.
Call for urgent clarity
The group added: "None of us want to discover UK Labour punished us for taking a different position. But ignorance is not bliss, it is a dereliction of leadership. The facts currently paint a concerning picture, but they are incomplete and we must urgently establish exactly what happened to understand the level of risk from UK Labour."
A UK Labour spokesperson previously said: "The whole Labour Party was united behind our campaign to elect Anas Sarwar and bring an end to almost two decades of SNP failure. Clearly the result in May was disappointing, despite the positive campaign that was run, which had the full political and financial support of the Labour Party."
