SCOTTISH Labour’s new leader is facing calls to back Scotland’s right to self-determination in a crunch Holyrood vote.
Today’s vote on Scotland’s right to chose its constitutional future is set to be Michael Marra’s first since he took over from Anas Sarwar on Saturday.
He is facing calls to back the motion, which supporters say is not about backing independence but “the fundamental principle that Scotland should have the right to decide our own future”.
In an interview on the BBC’s Sunday Show after his election as Scottish Labour leader, Marra was unable to say whether he would back the motion.
Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth said backing the motion would show that Labour “has begun to learn lessons” after their record-breaking defeat in May.
She said: “I understand that Michael Marra and I have different views on independence, but today’s vote is not about the decision Scotland ultimately makes – it is a simple statement of principle that we have the right to take that decision.
“Michael Marra has an opportunity to show that Labour has begun to learn lessons – not just from their humiliating defeat in May, but from their continued slide into irrelevance since this Parliament was founded.
“If the first vote Michael Marra casts as leader in the Scottish Parliament is against the fundamental principle that Scotland should have the right to decide our own future, it will simply confirm that Labour have learned absolutely nothing.
“Even the Prime Minister now accepts that Scotland has the right to decide. So Michael Marra must confirm whether he will back Scotland’s democratic rights, or whether Scottish Labour under his leadership will continue to try and stand in Scotland’s way.”
Gillian Mackay, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said Marra must back the motion if he wanted to deliver his promised “new beginning for Scottish Labour”.
She said: “This is his first opportunity to prove that he is prepared to go further than his predecessors, and show that Scottish Labour can stand up for Scotland’s democratic right to choose.
“If the election of a pro-independence majority of MSPs is not enough to allow Scotland to choose our own future then what more would it take for Labour to recognise democracy? It’s the simplest question of all, and one that Michael Marra has been unable to answer.
“I say that as somebody who voted No in 2014. Since then, Scotland has been dragged out of the European Union against our will and successive Westminster governments have become increasingly extreme, chaotic and out-of-touch, whilst Labour has completely lost its way.
“Scottish Labour will remain doomed to failure for as long as it takes orders from its parent party at Westminster that has repeatedly shown how little it understands Scotland, what people here want, or even why so many have lost faith in the Union.”
Speaking to STV News on Monday, Marra said: “I believe that the people of Scotland have the right to decide their future and they did so in 2014 and in 1997, they gave an unequivocal answer on both of those occasions.
“And the challenge, I know in the Parliament this week that the SNP are going to have to be held to is how they build that settled will of the Scottish people, that we actually produced in the produced in the 1980s and the 1990s, when I was but a boy.
“The Labour Party went about the job about delivering that settled will when answering the questions that people had. That’s the hard yards that the SNP have to do.”
The National understands Scottish Labour’s amendment to the motion will add to it rather than reject its fundamental premise.
