RICHARD Leonard has suffered an early reverse as Scottish Labour leader after two moderates were re-elected to his party’s governing body.
Cate Vallis and Meg Whitelaw comfortably held onto to their Executive seats as youth representatives.
A party source said: “This is a surprising setback for Richard and the hard Left....It goes to show that it's a myth that all young members in Labour have flocked to the Corbyn cause."
Leonard, a left-winger, became leader on Saturday after a thumping victory over moderate rival Anas Sarwar.
However, despite winning around 57% of the vote, insiders believe the Central Scotland MSP may encounter internal problems if his leadership is not inclusive.
A clear majority of his MSPs backed Sarwar in the bitter contest, and over 50% of members on the wider party Executive were loyal to predecessor Kezia Dugdale at the time of her resignation.
The picture has since become complicated as some of the moderate organisations on the Executive backed Leonard over Sarwar.
Party insiders believe the moderate-Corbynista arithmetic on the Executive is “tight”, but could tilt towards the new leader.
Against this backdrop, left-wingers were hopeful that the elections for youth representatives to the Executive would go their way.
However, Whitelaw and Vallis romped home, winning 652 and 600 votes respectively.
Nine candidates were on the ballot and the contest had around 4,000 eligible voters. The turnout was 39.4%.
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