Lesley Brennan

Brennan was elected to the East End ward of Dundee City Council in 2012. In October 2013, she was selected by Scottish Labour to contest Dundee East at the 2015 United Kingdom general election. However, she lost to the incumbent Stewart Hosie.^[2][3]

When Richard Baker resigned from the Scottish Parliament in January 2016, Labour nominated Brennan as his replacement as she had been next on their North East Scotland regional list.^[4] Brennan was sworn in on 13 January 2016,^[5] and served until the Parliament's dissolution two months later in March. She stood at the 2016 Scottish Parliament election where Labour had placed her third on their regional list for North East Scotland, but she was not re-elected.^[6] As a former MSP who had not been re-elected, she received a resettlement package of more than £30,000.^[7] In October 2016, she announced that she would not seek re-election when her term as councillor finished in 2017.^[7]

From 2016 to 2017, Brennan served as parliamentary assistant to Neil Findlay.^[8] She was selected by Labour to contest Dundee East again at the 2017 general election.^[9] She received 2,000 more votes than in 2015 but finished in third place behind Hosie and the Conservative candidate.^[3] A member of Campaign for Socialism, she was appointed in November 2017 by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard to serve as his chief of staff.^[10]

• Scottish Parliament profiles of MSPs: Lesley Brennan
• LinkedIn