CAROLYNNE Hunter previously harboured ambitions to run as a Scottish Labour MSP.
She had always been a supporter, stretching back to her childhood.
“I remember going through a box of stuff that my mum had given me a few years ago. And there was actually one of my school jotters,” she told the Sunday National.
“And it had a Labour Party rosette. I was actually pretending that I was a Labour candidate.”
She officially joined Scottish Labour as a member and activist nine years ago, campaigning on behalf of candidates in various local and national elections.
Hunter said she was even told to consider running as an MSP three years ago.
“Jackie Baillie spoke to me, quite a lengthy chat,” she said.
“And she was like – I think you're great. I think you'd be a brilliant MSP, and I think that you should work towards that.”
But not anymore. The prominent disability campaigner resigned from Scottish Labour last week over the UK Government’s welfare reforms benefit cuts, saying she feels “quite disgusted by the way that they're treating the most vulnerable in our society”.
“This was the final straw,” she added – telling us that the huge welfare reforms targeting support for disabled Brits and those on incapacity benefits will directly impact her daughter.
Hunter’s daughter Freya (both above) has severe complex health problems and disabilities, is non-verbal and blind and requires full-time oxygen and at-home nursing care. In 2022, Hunter made headlines after Hollywood star Kate Winslet stepped in to help with her sky-rocketing energy bills – leading her to launch a campaign to help others in the same way the following year.
But it’s not only the welfare cuts. Hunter has felt disillusioned with the current state of the party for a while – including cuts to the Winter Fuel Payment last year and scrapping compensation for Waspi women.
Her meeting with Keir Starmer at the Pride of Britain awards in October last year “put her off” too.
“He was quite a cold person. I'm quite bubbly and I wanted to speak to him about the energy crisis campaign, and he was just very cold about it,” she said.
“He wasn't very chatty, he shrugged me off. I didn't like it. I felt he was quite rude to me actually.
“I mentioned that I was in his party. And he said, what, are you sitting at my table? I said, no, I'm in your party. And it was just rude.”
She is also disappointed in Anas Sarwar, who has said he supports the benefits overhaul, which he has denied amounted to “cuts” at all.
Sarwar also said the welfare budget would still go up despite the changes to disability support, something he claimed was “the very opposite of austerity” – in stark contrast to a number of Labour MSPs and MPs who have hit out at the move.
For example, Carol Mochan, the party’s public health spokesperson, described the UK Government’s proposed £5 billion worth of welfare cuts as “austerity” and warned her party not to balance the books “on the back” of those most in need of help.
“I'm shocked because I actually always thought that Anas was on the side of supporting people who are vulnerable,” she said.
“I know Anas actually quite well. And I just find it really difficult. I can't believe that they're doing this.”
Hunter added: “For me, that's not true Labour.”
She wasn't the only prominent Scottish Labour member to leave last week.
Neil Findlay, who represented Labour at Holyrood for a decade until 2021, resigned from Scottish Labour after 35 years.
In a furious letter to Starmer, he said the Prime Minister was “betraying Labour's proud history and lay[ing] waste to any claim of moral principle”.
But he also reserved some ire for Sarwar amid his steadfast defence of the welfare cuts.
“We were told, when Richard Leonard was the leader of the party in Scotland, that they just had to get rid of Richard and then the adult would come back and take over the Labour Party and march to victory,” he told the Sunday National.
“And I actually think Anas will lead Labour to its biggest defeat in the devolution era.”
When it comes to the loss of several key activists lately, Findlay said this was a trend across all political parties.
“I would probably contend that the party that has haemorrhaged the most activists is probably the SNP, but Labour are certainly haemorrhaging activists,” he said.
“When you see pictures of people out campaigning, they always take snaps campaigning, it is the payroll folk – MPs, councillors, their families and friends, and one or two – and I mean this literally – one or two activists.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by a party source the Sunday National spoke to, who said the cuts will no doubt hurt Labour in Scotland.
“Both among the public and the party’s membership, who’ve been asked to swallow yet another of London’s ‘difficult decisions’,” they added.
“As Neil Findlay’s decision to leave the party after 35 years of membership reflects, for some this is a step too far.”
The source then warned: “Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie do not have an abundance of activists at their disposal ahead of next year’s Scottish elections – and they’d be wise to remember that.”
Lauren Harper, a youth representative on the Scottish Executive Committee and a member of the party's socialist wing, said she was sorry to see the likes of Hunter leave but added that she would like to see activists stay and push for a more left-wing Labour Party.
“Whenever we have these conversations about people leaving, people always talk about how in the Jeremy Corbyn years, we were member-led and it was a big mass membership party,” Harper said.
“But in Scotland, that has never been the case. Even when we were at our height in Scotland, we were never a mass membership organisation.”
She added: “So, I think it's something as a party we need to really address and become a party of the working people rather than existing in this weird sort of limbo.”
