Former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has called for the man who was her deputy to be suspended from the party after allegations about his conduct emerged.
Alex Rowley had taken over as interim Scottish Labour leader when Ms Dugdale dramatically quit the job in August.
Now he has stepped aside from that role and his post as deputy leader north of the border after a a former partner told the Scottish Sun newspaper that their relationship "felt like emotional blackmail and abuse".
READ MORE: Acting Scottish Labour leader steps aside amid misconduct prob
Mr Rowley, who was election agent for former prime minister Gordon Brown and is an MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, denies the allegations.
But the anonymous woman claimed he made her life "hell with his behaviour" and said she had been inspired to speak out after a number of other women made complaints about misconduct by politicians at Westminster and Holyrood.
Mr Rowley is the most senior person in the Labour Party to be affected by such allegations.
A Scottish Labour Party spokesman confirmed: "Alex Rowley has stood aside as interim and deputy leader of Scottish Labour and referred himself to the party's internal complaints procedure regarding allegations made against him."
But Ms Dugdale insisted the party should have suspended him while a probe into the "serious and deeply concerning" claims is carried out.
She stated: "Had I remained in the position of leader of the Scottish Labour Party I would not have hesitated to suspend Alex Rowley from the party while these allegations are fully investigated.
"Given the evidence published today the right course of action for the Labour Party to take would be suspension."
READ MORE: Acting Scottish Labour leader steps aside amid misconduct prob
Ms Dugdale added: "Sexual harassment and abuse is never acceptable. If the past weeks have taught us anything it is that we need to support victims of abuse and all allegations need to be taken seriously and investigated in a fair and transparent way."
Voting is currently under way in the contest to find the next Scottish Labour leader, with the results of the ballot due to be announced on Saturday.
Left-wing MSP Richard Leonard, a former trade union organiser, is running against the more moderate MSP Anas Sarwar - Labour's health spokesman at Holyrood.
Ms Dugdale was the third Scottish Labour leader to resign in the last three years, after her predecessors Jim Murphy and Johann Lamont also quit.
Mr Sarwar also said it would be "appropriate" for Mr Rowley's membership to be suspended.
The leadership candidate said: "These allegations are distressing and deeply concerning. It is right and proper that Alex has referred himself to the party's internal complaints procedure.
"The party has clear procedures, and given the seriousness of these allegations it would be appropriate for Alex to be suspended from the party while a robust, fair and thorough investigation is carried out."
He added: "It is vital that people have confidence in our party-internal procedures. As leader, I will take a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel