Scottish Labour dismisses ‘no confidence’ motion against general secretary

Scottish Labour has dismissed a motion of ‘no confidence’ in its general secretary Kate Watson.

In a motion, party members noted their “deep concern and anger” towards Watson over the selection process that led to the election of Irshad Ahmed.

He has been an MSP for Edinburgh and the Lothians since May after defeating party veterans Daniel Johnson and Martin Whitfield to make it to the top of the list.

At the time, critics blamed a raft of new sign-ups for skewing the vote in the favour of Ahmed, who is a former SNP and Alba candidate.

The Edinburgh Southern Constituency Labour Party (ESCLP) says Watson has failed to address its concerns and passed a motion on the matter last week.

It states: “This CLP expresses its deep concern and anger that the general secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland refuses to answer serious questions put to her officially on behalf of this CLP on 19th March and repeated on 2nd May about the deeply flawed selection process that allowed a candidate to flood his local party with new members and top the list of Labour candidates in Lothian region, despite being a recent strong supporter of the SNP and Alba under not only John Swinney but also Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond and in spite of having no record of non-recent Labour Party membership.”

The motion attacks what it calls “the failure of the general secretary to respond to its legitimate questions or provide information” on aspects of the selection contest.

It goes on: “This CLP is puzzled that the senior officer of Scotland, whose wages are paid for by our members, can ignore our party’s constitution by failing to address the legitimate questions and concerns put forward by Scotland’s most successful CLP, especially since an unusually high number of people, with no obvious previous support for Labour joined ESCLP in 2024/5, then failed to renew their membership in 2026.”

Once Anas Sarwar’s chief-of-staff, Watson has been general secretary since 2024.

Responding to the motion, Scottish Labour said: “This is not a legitimate motion and will not be treated as such. It is also full of inaccurate assertions.

“All selection processes for Scottish Parliament candidates, including the process for ranking candidates on the regional lists, are set out and overseen by the Scottish Executive Committee [SEC] in a fair and transparent way.

“Complaints raised regarding the Edinburgh and Lothians East list selection were investigated fully by the Scottish general secretary and the UK Labour Party’s Membership and Governance and Legal Unit and a full report was delivered to the Scottish Executive Committee on Saturday 14th March which the SEC accepted prior to approving the list of selected candidates.”