SCOTTISH Labour activists lost access to campaign tools ahead of the Holyrood election after Anas Sarwar called for Keir Starmer to quit, according to reports.
The Herald reports that campaigners found they were unable to access Contact Creator, which is used to select voters for doorstep canvassing, and Organise, which is used to mobilise party members and coordinate campaigning.
According to the paper, problems were confirmed internally by February 11, just two days after Sarwar publicly called on Starmer to resign as Labour leader and prime minister.
Scottish Labour have since said that they understand both Contact Creator and Organise had been affected by a technical outage while the systems were being updated, and that similar problems had been reported outwith Scotland.
However, UK Labour has given a different account of what took place.
A spokesperson told The Herald that Organise suffered a temporary UK-wide outage which was "promptly resolved", but that Contact Creator remained in use and that campaign work could continue as normal.
But The Herald has seen contemporaneous evidence which shows Scottish Labour activists reporting they were unable to access both systems.
There is no evidence to suggest the access problems were deliberately imposed, or that they were connected to Sarwar's intervention against Starmer.
While the outage issue was resolved by the end of the week, a campaign source told The Herald that those affected were not given an explanation for what had happened, adding that "it prevented campaigning".
In a press conference on February 9, Sarwar called on Starmer to quit as Labour leader, saying: "The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street needs to change."
Sarwar himself resigned as Scottish Labour leader in July, following the party's disastrous results in the May Holyrood elections.
Sarwar was made a life peer, despite previously pledging not to enter the Lords, and has taken up a role as a Trade Minister in the UK Government.
It comes as one candidate hoping to replace him claimed that Scottish Labour membership collapsed by a third during Sarwar's tenure.
