Labour by-election campaign rocked by 'civil war' claim over leaked emails

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Labour’s by-election campaign in Rutherglen and Hamilton West has suffered a blow over leaked emails revealing a “civil war” in the local council.Party councillors in South Lanarkshire rounded on colleague Monique McAdams for allegedly airing Labour business in public.Emails show fellow councillors describing her comments as a “disgrace”, “entirely unacceptable” and “politically damaging”.Katy Loudon, the SNP by election candidate, said: "Instead of prioritising the people of South Lanarkshire, Labour councillors are once again focussed on their own internal battles."We have South Lanarkshire Labour embroiled in a grubby civil war, a Labour candidate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West who has copied Anas Sarwar and ditched his principles to toe the Westminster party line, and a UK Labour leader who has u-turned on a raft of progressive manifesto pledges to be more like the Tories.”Labour is confident they can defeat the SNP in the looming Westminster by-election amid growing problems for Humza Yousaf’s party.But Labour insiders are worried tensions inside the Labour group in South Lanarkshire, which they run, will harm their campaign.Council leader Joe Fagan was earlier this year suspended for two months for disclosing confidential information and McAdams was censured for a similar breach.The latest row concerns a meeting of the full council last year in which McAdams said she had had her “political committees” taken off her.She also said she had not provided consent to sit on the committees she had been nominated to be on.Her comments sparked an angry backlash among colleagues, including from Fagan.In an email obtained by the Record, Fagan wrote: “The intentional airing of internal Labour business in a Council meeting,