|
The 2014 Scottish Labour Party leadership election was an internal party election to choose a new leader and deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party, following the resignations of Johann Lamont as leader and Anas Sarwar as deputy. Lamont announced her decision in an interview with the ''Daily Record'' on 24 October, saying that she was stepping down effective immediately because the UK Labour Party treated the Scottish party as a "branch office of London". Lamont, who had won the 2011 leadership contest, thus becoming the first Scottish leader to have authority over Labour's Scottish MPs in the House of Commons as well as in the Scottish Parliament, was the second leader of a Scottish political party to resign in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum. Before her resignation, Alex Salmond announced his intention to relinquish the role of Scottish National Party (SNP) leader and First Minister. Sarwar announced his own resignation on 30 October, saying he felt it was right for the party to elect a new leadership team. Sarwar became interim leader following Lamont's resignation, and announced plans for the party to hold a leadership contest, with the winner to be announced on 13 December. Sarah Boyack became the first person to confirm that she would be standing as a candidate for party leader; she was subsequently joined by Neil Findlay and Jim Murphy. Katy Clark and Kezia Dugdale entered the deputy leadership race. Findlay was among those to call on former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to enter the contest, but he ruled out doing so. Other senior Labour figures who decided not to put their names forward included Sarwar, Jackie Baillie, and Jenny Marra. Voting took place between 17 November and 10 December using the three-tier electoral college system, which gives parliamentarians, individual members, and affiliated bodies such as trade unions an equal say in the outcome. During this time, the candidates toured Scotland for a number of hustings meetings, at which they set out their direction for the party if elected. Policy options raised were centred on issues such as health, education, employment, and the prospect of further devolution to Scotland. The three leadership candidates were from different wings of the party–Murphy from the Labour right, Boyack from the centre, and Findlay from the left. Controversy ensued when the Unite trade union issued a mock ballot paper instructing members on which candidates to elect, and when two prominent Labour figures engaged in an argument about the contest on social media. On 13 December, Murphy was elected to lead the party, while Dugdale was chosen to become his deputy. In his victory speech, Murphy said that his election was a "fresh start" for Scottish Labour. The 2014 referendum had seen a 55 percent vote in favour of keeping Scotland in the United Kingdom, but Labour's decision to campaign alongside the Conservatives for a 'No' vote led traditional supporters to accuse the party of betrayal. Opinion polls in the weeks following the referendum suggested an increased support for the SNP at Labour's expense, while SNP membership quadrupled. After his election as its leader Murphy led Labour into the 2015 UK general election, which saw the party's worst-ever election result in Scotland and a landslide victory for the SNP. Labour lost all but one of its 41 Scottish Westminster seats, including Murphy's own East Renfrewshire constituency, while the SNP won 56 of the 59 seats in Scotland. Although Murphy subsequently said that he wished to remain as Scottish Labour leader, the poor result prompted senior party figures and trade unionists to question the viability of his future in the post. After narrowly surviving a vote of no confidence on 16 May, Murphy announced his intention to relinquish the role, triggering a fresh leadership contest. Dugdale was elected to succeed Murphy on 15 August. ==Background== Lamont was elected to lead the Scottish Labour Party in December 2011 following the resignation of Iain Gray, who stepped down in the wake of the party's second consecutive defeat by Alex Salmond's Scottish National Party in the 2011 Scottish Parliament general election. She was the first leader to take charge of the entire Scottish Labour Party, previous leaders having only had responsibility for Labour's MSPs at Holyrood, and she initiated a review of Labour policy on issues such as devolution and the party's commitment to free universal public services.〔 ''The Scotsman''s Euan McColm wrote that although Lamont was given greater autonomy over Labour in Scotland, her Westminster colleagues "restrained" her attempts to develop a devolution policy, and her debate on universal benefits resulted in the SNP portraying her as "a politician dedicated to seizing from the people that which was rightfully theirs".〔 Her leadership was further harmed by a controversy over the 2013 Falkirk candidate selection, in which the trade union Unite allegedly tried to engineer the selection process in the Falkirk constituency; an investigation into the matter was led from London rather than Edinburgh.〔 Lamont also led the party through the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, during which Labour joined the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the Better Together campaign, an alliance of parties that campaigned for a "No" vote. Lamont herself had a relatively low profile during the period prior to the poll, while Labour's association with the Conservatives was viewed as a betrayal among its traditional supporters.〔〔 *〕〔 The referendum was held on 18 September 2014, and saw a turnout of 3,619,915, or 85 percent of those eligible to vote. Scotland rejected independence, with a 55 percent vote in favour of staying part of the United Kingdom. Salmond announced his resignation as SNP leader and First Minister the day after the referendum. In the subsequent leadership election, the SNP selected Nicola Sturgeon as its leader.〔 Also on 19 September, UK Prime Minister David Cameron established the Smith Commission to look at the prospect of devolving further powers to Scotland. Chaired by Lord Smith of Kelvin, the cross-party Commission published its findings on 27 November. Among its recommendations were proposals to give the Scottish Parliament responsibility for some welfare payments and for setting income tax levels. Although it had previously been opposed to giving Holyrood greater tax powers amid concerns it could diminish the role of Scottish MPs at Westminster and lead to "independence by the back door", Labour confirmed its intention to support income tax devolution shortly before details of the Commission's report were made public.〔 Although Scotland had voted to remain part of the UK, the independence referendum had returned "Yes" votes in some traditional Labour strongholds, particularly Glasgow and North Lanarkshire, prompting media speculation about Lamont's future as the party's leader.〔 Shortly after the referendum, a ''Daily Mail'' article claimed that Shadow International Development Secretary Jim Murphy was being lined up to take over party leadership; ''The Herald'' reported that party delegates concerned about the referendum results had started to view Murphy as a possible successor. Lamont had attempted to quash rumours of a leadership challenge at the 25 September 2014 session of First Minister's Questions, the first of the post-referendum era: "When the First Minister is long gone I will still be doing my job on behalf of the people of Scotland." Her position remained uncertain. ''The Daily Telegraph''s Alan Cochrane wrote that many Labour MPs in Scotland feared losing their seats in the 2015 UK general election without a change of leadership.〔 In the weeks following the referendum, SNP membership increased fourfold, reaching more than 100,000 by mid-December. Labour's membership over the same period was less clear. Paul Hutcheon noted in the 9 November edition of the ''Sunday Herald'' that Labour had "consistently declined" to confirm the number of its members in Scotland, but quoted an "informed source" suggesting the figure was slightly short of 13,500. However, Peter Jones of ''The Scotsman'' subsequently quoted a less favourable figure of fewer than 10,000, with "most of the existing constituency membership () the relatives and friends of councillors/MSPs/MPs () would not welcome ... an influx of new members who might try to oust second-rate post-holders in favour of somebody new and better". In October, two former first ministers voiced their concern about the direction of the party. Jack McConnell expressed fears that Labour would experience increased difficulty in regaining the confidence of Scottish voters following the election of Nicola Sturgeon as SNP leader, and described Labour as "a political machine that is angry about what has happened in Scotland in the recent past". Shortly afterwards, his predecessor, Henry McLeish suggested Labour had ceded "enormous ground to the SNP unnecessarily" because its supporters no longer understood "what the party stands for".〔 Margaret Curran, the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, said that although the party was changing, it needed to reconnect with its "socialist principles". Lamont's deputy, Anas Sarwar, later suggested that during the referendum campaign, Labour "had stopped being a movement for change and fell into a trap of being defenders of the past and defenders of the establishment". The ''New Statesman'' claimed that Labour had spent "decades treating Scotland as little more than a one-party state" and needed to "() itself relevant again for the people whom it was established to represent". Stephen Daisley, political editor of STV News, suggested that Labour had "responded to the Nationalist advance by electing a succession of decent but ineffectual Holyrood leaders who were dominated by the Westminster party machine". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Scottish Labour Party leadership election, 2014」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|