Daily Record to pay Dugdale's fees in legal battle with Wings Over Scotland

The paper’s announcement came as Dugdale blasted her party for breaking their promise to her to cover costs.

Speaking to BBC Scotland, the MSP said: "The Labour Party made a promise and it's not a good look for any political party to fail to keep its promise – and this is to one of its own.

"How can people trust that party in any other aspect of life if this is what's happening?

"I think there's a real presentational problem from the party in that regard.

"Also, this is a party that is fundamentally about fairness, equality, and justice and they've put me in the most horrendous position. I really hope they'll change their minds.”

Labour’s previous general secretary Iain McNicol promised to support Dugdale, but he was replaced by Jennie Formby, a Jeremy Corbyn supporter, in March.

The party told Dudgale that they will absorb the £90k costs accrued so far, but that she is on her own for the rest of the case.

Costs could run into six figures.

The former Scottish Labour leader is being sued for defamation after suggesting that a tweet by Wings Over Scotland’s editor Stuart Campbell was homophobic.

Campbell tweeted last year: “Oliver Mundell is the sort of public speaker that makes you wish his dad had embraced his homosexuality sooner.”

In a column for the Daily Record, Dugdale said that she was “shocked and appalled to see a pro-independence blogger’s homophobic tweets”.

On Twitter, The Record’s deputy editor David Clegg said the paper had initially, as per normal practice, “wanted to provide legal support to our columnist”.

He added: “However, in a meeting between our lawyers and Labour Party officials it was made clear they wanted to deal with it themselves and did not want our help.”

“Labour took on agency for the case and assembled their own lawyers to discharge the case. The Record was told to step aside.”

He then confirmed that the paper had “now reinstated legal support”.

There was support for Labour’s decision to cut off Dugdale from the influential Corbynite and Richard Leonard-backing Campaign For Socialism.

"The party has already spent nearly £100,000 supporting Kezia; despite this agreement being reached privately by the outgoing general secretary and Kezia Dugdale," they said in a statement on Thursday night.

The group also claimed that there were "efforts taking place among a minority of the party to use this principled decision in an an attempt to destabilise Richard Leonard".

Dugdale yesterday said she could face bankruptcy over the case.

Speaking to the Daily Record’s weekly podcast the MSP revealed she was brought to one of her “lowest personal moments” after her lawyers emailed her to say the party had withdrawn financial support.

“There was no question mark over it, they were going to support this case,” Dugdale said.

“Fast forward 18 months – and it’s pretty shocking it’s taken that long to get to the preliminary hearing, we’re not even at the full proof yet – and I had to find out by email from my solicitor that the Labour Party weren’t prepared to pay any more legal bills.

“Safe to say the one factor that’s changed in that time is the general secretary, it’s a woman called Jenny Formby.

“When I found that out by email, I was pretty crushed to be honest.

“I probably hit one of the lowest personal moments of my life. I’ve lived through a lot of very stressful situations, I’ve developed coping mechanisms in stressful situations, but I lost the ability to cope with this for a few days.

“First of all, how was I going to pay? This could mean my house, my livelihood. You can’t be an MSP if you’re declared bankrupt.”

Campbell told The National: “It's been mad watching Labour throw vast sums of money into defending the reputation of a straight white male Tory MSP, but I suppose that's 'Better Together' for you.

“I'm looking forward to holding Kezia Dugdale to account in court – if she ever stops trying to wriggle out of it on technicalities – and destroying the disgusting and totally false smear against me that she's spent the last 18 months perpetuating from behind a shield of Parliamentary privilege and other people's money."