Kezia Dugdale quits Scottish Labour

Kezia Dugdale has quit the Scottish Labour Party in opposition to the party’s position on Brexit.

Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader from 2015 until 2017, is understood to have terminated her party membership in July, shortly after she stood down as an MSP.

The BBC reports that Dugdale told friends she did not vote for the party in May's European election, despite still sitting as a Labour MSP.

Dugdale had previously questioned the party’s stance on leaving the EU, while in an interview for Holyrood’s Annual Review Dugdale described Scottish Labour as “sick”.

She said: “There’s something fundamentally not well. It’s not a healthy place to be, in all sorts of ways. And I’m probably as much of a contributor to that as I am a complainer about it, so I think the leader now has to find a way of healing the party in the round.

“And that’s not just about appeasing folk but just about trying to create a space where people can become friends and allies again in a way where they want to collectively work. It feels like a lot of tension, with one side pulling against the other and there’s a lot of that reflected in what Neil Findlay said since he’s announced that he’s standing down.

“There’s something very fundamentally wrong at that level. If the roots are rotten and not right, you can’t expect the rest of the team to flourish.”

After standing down as Scottish Labour leader, Dugdale continued to sit as an MSP before quitting the Scottish Parliament in June to become Director of the John Smith Centre for Politics and Public Service.