LEN McCLUSKEY has voiced his support for socialist MSP Richard Leonard to be the new leader of Scottish Labour.

The general secretary of Unite said that Mr Leonard taking the helm in Scotland could help Labour claim power across Britain.

Labour north of the border would “build on the foundation laid by Jeremy Corbyn,” he said on Saturday at Unite’s Scottish policy conference.

Mr Leonard, who has the backing of several unions, is competing against “moderate” MSP Anas Sarwar, who is Labour’s Holyrood health spokesman. The winner will be announced on November 18.

Addressing delegates in Aviemore, Mr McCluksey said: “Scottish Labour needs a leader who speaks for workers. We have one in Richard Leonard.”

He praised Scottish Labour for winning back seven seats from the SNP in June’s snap election but stressed that there was still “a lot to do to rebuild from the 2015 wipeout,” when the party lost 40 MPs to Nicola Sturgeon’s nationalists.

Mr McCluskey claimed that while voters were fed up with the “weary same-old politics,” politicians such as Mr Corbyn and Mr Leonard had “something genuinely new on offer.”

A spokesman for Mr Sarwar’s campaign said that “many ordinary members” of Unite and other trade unions are backing his “radical ideas,” which include permanent membership of the EU single market and customs union.

But a no-deal Brexit could lead to a general election in 2019, with a “real chance” that Mr Corbyn could be prime minister if Theresa May fails to make an agreement with the EU27, Mr McCluskey said.

He said: “The powers that be will do everything to come up with a deal because what does look to be a certainty is: if they come back with a ‘no deal’ then Parliament will reject it.

“The DUP couldn’t support it because of the issue of the hard border in Ireland, there’s a number of Tories who couldn’t support it and Labour and the SNP would reject it and Theresa May would fall. Then I think we would be into an election in 2019.”

“One thing that they are scared stiff of at the moment is a Corbyn Labour government. If this was Tony Blair or Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband, they would be more relaxed,” he said.

“With Corbyn, they are scared stiff that a Labour government under his leadership will actually change the power axis within our nation.”