Tory MSP trying to quit Holyrood for Westminster days after his re-election<\/a><\/p>\nHe is now set to be confronted by party chiefs on Saturday when his party\u2019s governing Scottish Executive Committee (SEC) meets.<\/p>\n
Dowling, a Renfrewshire councillor, sits on the SEC as a representative of ordinary party members.<\/p>\n
She is also a gender critical feminist who supports women\u2019s sex-based rights.<\/p>\n
In a message posted in the feminist WhatsApp group LWD Scotland, leaked to the Record, she wrote this week:<\/p>\n
\u201cI’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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way the Scottish Party has been run has been problematic for years, long before Starmer and Reform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarwar initially backed the SNP Government\u2019s pro-trans gender recognition reforms, and sacked female MSPs who rebelled, but later said he regretted his stance.<\/p>\n
![\"Scottish](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_Scottish-Parliament-elections.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. Photo credit should read: Jane Barlow\/PA Wire(Image: PA)<\/p>\n
Dowling criticised the treatment of people like her: \u201cSo many female members felt forced to convene LWD Scotland to fight for our sex-based rights, against huge Party hostility.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
She claimed the party is too centralised around Sarwar and his deputy Jackie Baillie, and criticised the Holyrood campaign:<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
She concluded: \u201cIf 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Scottish Labour source said of the criticisms: \u201cShe is right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scottish Labour and the councillor have been contacted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Councillor Alison Ann-Dowling, who sits on Scottish Labour\u2019s governing body, laid into her party’s manifesto and election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6289,15626,31,2236,3497,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-38936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-anas-sarwar","9":"tag-jackie-baillie","10":"tag-labour-party","11":"tag-scottish-labour","12":"tag-scottish-national-party","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116588721100120172","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Alison](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/3_ADR_PDE_140722_Re-Engage-party_02.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1_JS398834678.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Author](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_paulhutcheon.jpg\")
Paul HutcheonREAD MORE: