LABOUR MSP Neil Findlay has unexpectedly quit the party’s frontbench, and announced plans to stand down in 2021.
In his resignation letter to leader Richard Leonard, the veteran politician, who served as Labour's business and campaigns manager in Holyrood, calls for an end to the party’s “eternal, internal fighting” and “the toxic culture of leaks and briefings that come from some within the Scottish and UK parliamentary groups”.
Findlay, who was Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign manager in Scotland, adds: “This self-inflicted harm has to stop – our party members and our leadership teams deserve so much better.
“Scottish Labour will win again when the focus is on the public not the internal politics of the parliamentary group.”
READ MORE: Five of the best gaffes by Scottish Labour's Neil Findlay
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Findlay goes on to say that the party must have a “clear and easily understood position on the constitution” and that the social and economic policies being pursued by Leonard and Jeremy Corbyn are "100% correct".
“You will have my support from the backbenches where I believe I will be able to add more to this project,” he adds.
Today I resigned from my positions in the Scottish Labour Party -I will stand down from parliament at the election - there is a big world outside the Holyrood bubble, life is too short to be involved in endless internal battles with people who are supposed to be on the same side pic.twitter.com/j3MBEIfm6D
— Neil Findlay MSP (@NeilFindlay_MSP) May 28, 2019
Findlay, like Kezia Dugdale who is also standing down, was elected through the Lothians list.
His resignation comes ahead of a meeting of Scottish Labour’s MSP group, the first since the disastrous European Election that saw the party finish in fifth place.
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