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Katy Clark launched her bid to be deputy leader of the Scottish Labour Party yesterday with an appeal for the party to “reclaim the ground we have lost.”
“I am standing to help deliver the social and political change that the people of Scotland are demanding,” she declared.
“We must recognise that Scottish opinion is opposed to Trident, austerity, privatisation and attacks on welfare.”
The former trade union lawyer gained the nominations needed from MPs and MSPs just in time for yesterday’s 2pm deadline, allowing her to mount a challenge to the party’s Holyrood education spokeswoman Kezia Dugdale.
Ms Dugdale is widely seen as being on the right of the party and the contrast between the candidates mirrors that between left-wing health spokesman Neil Findlay and Blairite MP Jim Murphy for the leadership.
Ms Clark and Mr Findlay have backed each other’s campaigns.
The rightwingers lead on parliamentary support. Ms Dugdale is backed by 51 MPs and MSPs and Mr Murphy by 43, compared to 12 for Mr Findlay and 11 for Ms Clark.
Centrist leadership candidate Sarah Boyack had 10 nominations.
But the left has wider labour movement backing so far, with Unison throwing its weight behind Mr Findlay and Ms Clark alongside rail union TSSA and bakers’ union BFAWU.
Train drivers’ union Aslef has also backed Mr Findlay.
As nominations closed on Equal Pay Day, Ms Clark slammed the “appalling” fact that women still earn just 80p for every pound earned by men, calling on Labour to introduce a Bill establishing mandatory gender pay audits for private companies if it wins in May — a proposal she first attempted to push through in the last Parliament.
While working as a lawyer for Unison, Ms Clark was involved in Britain’s biggest ever equal pay case, concerning the NHS.
She condemned the way “secure jobs, decent homes and good public services” were “prevented by so much wealth and power being held in the hands of a few.
“We need to talk about how Scottish Labour will end low pay, deliver full employment and decent homes for all and reverse the failed privatisation agenda which have been pursued for far too long.”