Scottish Labour Party Leadership Nomination
The Scottish Labour Party is electing a new leader. As an affiliate, the Scottish Co-operative Party is eligible to make a nomination in support of one of the candidates. Before making such a nomination, the Executive of the Scottish Co-operative Party has decided to ballot members on what candidate the Party should support.
You can read the candidates' statements and cast your vote below. Voting closes at 12 noon on Monday 25 January.
Monica Lennon
As a working-class girl growing up in Lanarkshire, it never crossed my mind that one day I would be seeking to lead the Scottish Labour Party.
I learned about the workplace from my dad, who got a second chance at education and worked his way up to be a health and safety manager within the local council. He cared about people having dignity at work and for their physical and mental well-being, when stress and mental health was rarely discussed.
My dad had his own battles, mainly with alcohol. When he had to take early retirement at fifty and died from his alcohol-related illnesses at sixty, it spurred me on to fight for better healthcare and support for people before they reach a crisis.
First as a local councillor, and now as an MSP and party health and social care spokesperson, my politics remains rooted in making life better for working people and ending poverty. In my first term in Parliament I have delivered the world-leading Period Products Bill, working across our movement and with campaigners and activists in communities all over Scotland and beyond. As a Co-operative Party member, I was delighted to be the only candidate in Central Scotland to have received the Co-operative nomination for the regional list campaign.
I’m in politics to win for working people. The people who have kept our country going during Covid, from carers to shop workers, are often the least well rewarded. As Scottish Labour Leader, I will be your friend and ally, I want to work with you to build a more equal society that tackles injustice and creates more opportunities for community wealth building. I want to realise our ambition of growing the co-operative sector with more democratic business structures, and wider access to community owned transport and utilities like the Spirit of Lanarkshire Wind Energy Co-operative.
Whether it is building affordable homes, putting an end to food poverty, or promoting financial well-being, Co-operatives have a key role to play in creating a fairer Scotland that prioritises the sharing of power and wealth. As Scottish Labour leader, I am seeking a supporting nomination from the Co-operative Party, so that together, we can demonstrate that we are willing to fight for the radical change necessary to give people a stake in our society.
Too many people in Scotland have nothing and that’s why I’m not prepared to sit on the side-lines. I can promise you that I have the best interests of the Scottish Labour Party and our wider movement at heart. As Scottish Labour leader and a Co-operative Party member, I will be true to our shared values and fight for our vision of a society and economy in which people’s voices are heard.
Anas Sarwar
I’m immensely proud of our parties’ shared history. It was in Glasgow that the first Scottish Co-operative MP, Thomas Henderson, was elected in 1922, and Mary Barbour, a champion of co-operative principles, served as one of the city’s first female Baillie – her statue in the heart of Govan recognises not just Mary but what she stood for and believed in.
Scotland is at a crossroads the likes of which we haven’t seen in our lifetime. The last year has been a very difficult one for people across the country, with lives and livelihoods tragically lost. And 2020 demonstrated who the real heroes are that keep our country running. Our wonderful nurses, care home staff, shop workers who kept the nation fed and transport staff who have literally kept the country moving. These are the workers who must be respected, rewarded and appreciated.
The reality is, at the height of the pandemic, it was people co-operating, pulling together, working together, that kept many families fed and many communities going.
I’m clear the next Parliament has to be a Covid recovery Parliament. We need a period of healing, to bring the country together, to build back better, to protect jobs, fix our education system and deliver an NHS that never again has to choose between treating a virus or treating cancer.
And Co-operatives need to be at the heart of the country’s re-building. We must work together to double the size of Scotland’s co-operative sector, putting it on a par with the economies of Germany or the US.
Scotland’s co-operative sector serves local people day in and day out; it is worth over £2.5billion to local communities and Scots are more likely to be co-operative members than anywhere else in the UK. That’s an incredible success story, but we need to be even more ambitious.
The next Parliament will see the opportunity to bring Scotland’s railways back into public ownership. A people’s railway where the Scottish Government takes control of the ScotRail franchise and puts in place a model run in the interests of the people of Scotland, not profit for shareholders. I will lead Labour’s campaign to see this happen. And I will fight for employees and customers to be represented on the board of a People’s ScotRail.
With so much more to be done to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis, we have to take the opportunity to embed collective ownership as new homes are built – and share the proceeds of our investment.
With your support, I will ensure Scottish Labour becomes the credible and trusted opposition I know we can be. l'll do this by working with key workers, trades unions, the co-operative movement, experts and business leaders across Scotland to build a platform that looks to the future.
With your support, I will champion voices from across Scotland and our movement. I will work hard to bring all of us together, so we can rebuild our party, and rebuild Scotland.