Jeremy Corbyn is “not competent” to be Labour leader after losing the confidence of most of his MPs, says Kezia Dugdale.
The Scottish Labour leader was challenged by a Corbyn supporter this morning during her first major public appearance since the UK parliamentary party descended into all-out civil war.
She tried to quell unrest from the Islington North MP’s supporters, who attended her speech in Edinburgh after a plot to confront her was discussed in a local Momentum meeting last night.
The Lothians MSP told a split Labour audience that her only intervention in the saga was to say that she would step down if she was in Mr Corbyn’s position.
She said: “I respect and really appreciate the mandate and the trust that many people in this room placed in me.
“If I then had to go into the Parliament and work with colleagues, 80% of which did not want me to be there, I would find my job incredibly difficult if not impossible.
“That’s the only view I have articulated.”
Asked in a press briefing afterwards if Mr Corbyn, who lost a vote of confidence by 172 of his MPs to 140 last week, was competent to be leader, she said: “It’s about much more than that.
“If he’s lost the faith of 80% of his colleagues then he can’t do his job, he’s therefore not competent to do his job.”
Ms Dugdale, who was giving a speech on the importance of reaching out to the one million Scots who voted Leave, told Labour colleagues she would “not be saying any more about Jeremy Corbyn”.
She said she was going to focus on her efforts on protecting public services and keeping the SNP’s focus on issues like cutting the attainment gap.
One attendant of last night’s Momentum Edinburgh meeting, a local branch of the pro-Corbyn campaign group, said she was planning on going to Ms Dugdale’s speech to ask her about comments she had made about the UK Labour leader.
Several others at the meeting, which was attended by about 60 grassroot supporters, said they would go to the Scottish Labour leader’s event as well.
Labour members, some of whom were distributing Momentum Edinburgh leaflets, called for the party to become a unified force after yesterday’s speech.
One Corbyn supporter said: “We need the party to come together, we would be unbeatable.”
Another said: “Conflict can be good for a party. It’s honest, unlike many parties.”
Ms Dugale revealed she has not personally spoken to Dave Anderson, an MP in northern England who has supported a review of the Barnett formula, since he took the post of shadow Scottish secretary.
He replaced her ally Ian Murray, who is Labour’s only MP and resigned from the shadow cabinet in protest against Mr Corbyn’s leadership.
During her speech, she said much of the blame for the Leave vote could be laid at the Conservatives’ door, but added Labour must take responsibility too.
She said: “We too rarely made a full throated defence of immigration.”
