Edinburgh Labour councillor Katrina Faccenda suspended for abstaining on crucial vote
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Leith councillor Katrina Faccenda failed to vote with the rest of the Labour group at the full council meeting in December over who would be appointed council leader following the resignation of Cammy Day.
Labour’s Jane Meagher was elected to the role with support of the Lib Dems and the Tories as well as the other nine Labour councillors, winning the vote by 32 to 28,


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Hide AdBut Cllr Faccenda made a speech criticising the Labour group and then abstained in the vote. She has now been suspended from the group for three weeks.
Cllr Faccenda was also suspended from the Labour group in 2022, just weeks after becoming a councillor, when she abstained in the vote which put Labour into power as a minority administration following the council elections.
Stephen Jenkinson, the Labour group whip, said: “I can confirm that as a result of an internal disciplinary investigation, councillor Faccenda was suspended by the Edinburgh Labour Group on Monday January 27 for a period of three weeks.”
Cllr Faccenda said: “I was given a three-week suspension from the Labour group, the equivalent of having whip withdrawn.
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Hide Ad“This is a decision taken according to party rules by the other Labour councillors and executive members of the Local Government Committee. I had hoped that the group would have been able to take a more pragmatic position given the circumstances.”
There had been speculation ahead of December’s council meeting about whether the Labour group, then with just 10 councillors, could or should continue as the administration and whether the Lib Dems, having become the second biggest party, might make a bid for power, but they did not do so. And the SNP - the biggest party on the council - could not secure the numbers to take control in a coalition with the Greens.
Cllr Day resigned as council leader 10 days before the council meeting after it emerged police were investigating allegations of “inappropriate behaviour”. It was reported that he had sent unsolicited messages to Ukrainian refugees and he was suspended by the Scottish Labour Party.
Cllr Meagher - who was in Tanzania visiting family at the time and had to join meetings by video call - was then chosen by the Labour group as its new leader and nominated to become council leader.
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Hide AdDuring the council meeting, Cllr Faccenda backed an unsuccessful Conservative bid to postpone the vote on the council leadership to another date.
And in her speech she said there were principles which councillors were supposed to observe, the first of which was selflessness, defined as not allowing political interests to stand in the way of good governance.
“I have heard in the two and a half years since I have been a councillor, within my group and in other parts of the council, repeated expressions and demonstrations of people who did not apply selflessness to the way they did their job. If you say something like ‘I did not stand to be in opposition’, you are not displaying selflessness - and you’re also undermining the very role of councillors, which is to represent their wards.
“We in the Labour party have a further duty - to represent the people our party was founded to represent. And we have failed in the last two and a half years. We have failed to promote core Labour values and principles.”
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Hide AdShe also claimed the electoral system had failed the council because it had allowed “people who put their own vanity, self-interest and ambitions to be seen as king-makers in positions of too much power”.
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