‘Nonsense’ to suggest cultural issue in Labour after two arrests – Sarwar

It is “nonsense” to suggest there is a cultural issue in Scottish Labour following the arrests of two senior councillors, the party’s leader has said.

Anas Sarwar said the situation is “deeply unfortunate” but he insisted all political parties have to deal with such cases.

On Monday, it emerged that Glasgow Labour councillor Philip Braat had been charged in connection with stalking offences in October.

The former lord provost has been suspended from the party pending an investigation.

In November, Inverclyde Council leader Stephen McCabe was separately charged with assault and threatening or abusive behaviour.

The 60-year-old, who later quit as the local authority leader, is accused of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner towards a woman in Kilmacolm on October 27. He is also accused of assaulting her.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Speaking to journalists on Monday, Mr Sarwar was asked whether the two cases suggest a cultural issue within his party.

“I think that’s utterly nonsense,” he said. “I think there will be individual cases that come across all individual political parties.

“But is this deeply unfortunate? Yes, but I’m not going to comment on live investigation.”

Mr Sarwar was speaking while campaigning in Partick East and Kelvindale in Glasgow ahead of a by-election in the ward.

His visit comes just days after it was announced Glasgow City Council’s newest Labour councillor was disqualified after she failed to quit her job with the local authority.

Mary McNab was voted in as the new councillor for the Glasgow North East ward on November 22.

But she failed to comply with legislation that required her to stand down from her job with the council the next working day, which automatically disqualified her from being an elected member.

It means residents in the area are likely to face another by-election.

Asked why Ms McNab did not quit her council job, Mr Sarwar said: “I think the whole thing is, to be honest, an administrative mess.

“I think there will be lots of people on the council that feel disappointed. I think Mary herself will feel greatly disappointed.

“I think many people in the local ward will feel really disappointed.

“This is someone who was desperate to serve the local community, someone who was elected by the local community, and we’ve allowed an administrative mess-up on all sides to mean that we now have another by-election there which is really, really deeply frustrating.

“I think we could have worked in a way to resolve that, but we are in the situation we are in, and it’s deeply, deeply frustrating.”

The Scottish Labour leader suggested Ms McNab may have been given faulty advice over whether she had to quit her council job to serve as a councillor.

He told reporters: “I think you need to speak to Mary McNab and speak about the conversations that she was having with her employer and the process that she was told to follow with her employer.

“I think there are probably some discrepancies on the advice that she was given by her employer and the process that she had followed, which meant inadvertently, that there was a situation we now find ourselves in.

“I don’t think this one’s on the Labour Party to be honest. I think there is a wider administrative issue here which sadly means we’re going to have a by-election.

“But I hope can be resolved so a similar situation doesn’t happen again for any political party.”

A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said: “The council’s election team issues guidance to all candidates and agents in advance of every election, on behalf of the returning officer – this includes the Electoral Commission’s guidance on when employees who are elected to local authorities are required to resign their positions.

“In this case, neither the candidate nor their party sought any further advice from the returning officer or from the council’s election team.

“It would not be legal or appropriate to discuss the details of any individual’s employment without their consent.

“However, nobody would reasonably expect a line manager to offer specialist advice on election law.”