Scottish Labour leader slams claims party would permit pro-independence candidates

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has today slammed claims the party would permit pro-independence candidates to stand.
His remarks come after a “senior party source” was quoted affirming that this could be permitted.

“Yes we are a pro-unionist party but we are a broad church,” the insider claimed.

“That means you could have candidates who back independence. You don’t have to have a binary position; you can have people with different stances.”

“Firstly, whoever it was that was speaking or quoted clearly doesn’t understand that decisions on selecting candidates in Scotland, even for a general election, are made by the Scottish Labour party and the Scottish Labour party alone,” Mr Sarwar outlined.

He said Labour will “expect” its candidates to help push power out of both Holyrood and Westminster. “Whoever was doing the story on Sunday probably doesn’t have as much of an understanding of Scottish politics as I, or people on this call, do,” he argued.

However he said Labour would welcome people who had changed their mind since the 2014 vote.

“There is clearly a difference between candidates, individuals, who supported independence in 2014, and want our country to move on, want our country to reform and renew, whether that is across the UK or indeed within Scotland,” he said.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has tasked ex-PM Gordon Brown’s Unionist think tank “Our Scottish Future” with reviewing devolution options, with his report expected to recommend wider devolved powers following the Council elections in May

Sarwar voiced opposition to further devolution in today’s virtual address, arguing: “I don’t want any renewal of our democratic institutions and on further devolution to be conditional on a referendum, or some kind of wheeze to stop independence.”