Ex-Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale claims she was forced to reveal she was gay after being outed by a leftwing magazine

THE FORMER Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has claimed she was forced to reveal she was gay after being outed by a magazine.

The MSP claimed her requests for quotes about her sexuality not to be included in the published piece were ignored by the Fabian Review.

She said she had to ";make some phone calls" to inform people before they read the interview and regretted not having "complete control" over the process.

But the journalist who wrote the piece in 2016 has disputed the claim – and the group behind the magazine said it was "very sorry" she was upset by the article.

Ms Dugdale, who stood down from her role this week, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "It wasn't the first time I'd been asked (by journalists) about my sexuality.

“I would always answer honestly, and then I would say 'I'd prefer you didn't use that ... I don't think it matters'.

"Up until that day, everybody had respected that, and then that one journalist had decided no, it was a story."

The Labour politician is currently in a relationship with SNP MSP Jenny Gilruth, as revealed earlier this summer.

Mary Riddell, the journalist who conducted the interview, said: "During my Fabian interview with Kezia Dugdale, she volunteered that she had a female partner and spoke briefly about that relationship as a source of strength.

"I had no knowledge before the interview either of her sexuality or whether she was in a relationship.

“At no point during the interview or afterwards did she ask me not to publish her comments, which were recorded with her agreement.

"Nor has she ever complained to me that her on-the-record comments relating to her relationship had been published."

And a Fabian Society spokeswoman said: "We are very sorry that Kezia Dugdale was upset by the interview that appeared in the Fabian Review in 2016.

“This wide-ranging and comprehensive on-the- record interview was conducted by an experienced, broadsheet journalist who followed usual journalistic practice."

Meanwhile, foreign office minister Sir Alan Duncan claimed being gay led to him being "blackballed" from a senior role early in his career.

Speaking to the same programme the MP, who came out in 2002, said: "I thought, 'I'm just going to say it. Whatever happens, happens’.

"I'd reached the point, having been in Parliament for 10 years, where I thought I was senior enough not to be dismissed."

But he believes his sexuality did cost him a role as a whip in Sir John Major's government in the decade previously.

He said: "I know I was blackballed from the whip's office. Not by him, but by [others], who thought it would be too high-risk."