EXCLUSIVE: Councillor Alison Ann-Dowling, who sits on Scottish Labour’s governing body, laid into her party’s manifesto and election strategy in a leaked message.
Alison Ann-Dowling
A Scottish Labour official has branded her party “toxic” and “authoritarian” after the party’s Holyrood election humbling.
Councillor Alison Ann-Dowling, who sits on Scottish Labour’s governing body, also slammed Anas Sarwar’s manifesto and called for personnel changes at the top.
She wrote: “The public are fed up with Scottish Labour, they’ve stopped listening to us.”
Labour collapsed to their worst Holyrood election result last week after slumping to a fifth defeat to the SNP.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer was blamed for the rout, but party figures have also criticised Sarwar and claim he tried to win too many constituencies from the Nationalists.
Despite the defeat, Sarwar has said he intends to stay on as leader for an undefined period.
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He is now set to be confronted by party chiefs on Saturday when his party’s governing Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) meets.
Dowling, a Renfrewshire councillor, sits on the SEC as a representative of ordinary party members.
She is also a gender critical feminist who supports women’s sex-based rights.
In a message posted in the feminist WhatsApp group LWD Scotland, leaked to the Record, she wrote this week:
“I’m afraid I don’t share the view that categorising any challenge to the scottish labour leadership about their performance and the outcome of the election is in fighting or disruptive.
“The way the Scottish Party has been run has been problematic for years, long before Starmer and Reform.”
Sarwar initially backed the SNP Government’s pro-trans gender recognition reforms, and sacked female MSPs who rebelled, but later said he regretted his stance.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. Photo credit should read: Jane Barlow/PA Wire(Image: PA)
Dowling criticised the treatment of people like her: “So many female members felt forced to convene LWD Scotland to fight for our sex-based rights, against huge Party hostility.
“How long did it take to even be allowed to have a stall at Party conferences, such was the level of authoritarian control exerted to remove our voices from a vital debate? It wasn’t junior staffers who made those damaging decisions.
“If we don’t take this opportunity to honestly look at everything that has gone wrong leading to this election result, we can’t remedy anything to improve our chances at future elections, which is what we all want.”
She claimed the party is too centralised around Sarwar and his deputy Jackie Baillie, and criticised the Holyrood campaign:
“I also think it’s wrong and counter productive to give individuals in positions of leadership full control over the Party, but decouple that from any personal accountability for their actions.
“We had no list strategy. The 38 constituency strategy was wildly optimistic and failed to read the public mood. We failed to communicate a coherent manifesto election offer that we could sell as an elevator pitch on the doorsteps.
“The entire party has been centralised to a toxic level of control held by a small group of people, to an extent I’ve never seen before. I could go on.”
She concluded: “If they don’t see some significant personnel changes and evidence that we’ve responded to the message they sent at the ballot box, we’ll slide further into political irrelevance in Scotland.
“What we define as Party loyalty and pulling together to be an effective opposition, the public will see as circling the wagons and us not caring enough to listen to the message they’ve sent us at the ballot box.”
A Scottish Labour source said of the criticisms: “She is right.”
Scottish Labour and the councillor have been contacted.