A FORMER deputy leader of Edinburgh Council has quit the Labour Party, insisting it has been subject to a “hostile takeover”.

Susan Dalgety, who was previously Labour’s chief press officer, insisted the party she loved is dead.

In an emotional Facebook post, she blamed the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

She wrote: “I am leaving the Labour Party, the organisation that has been a huge part of my life since I joined, as young mother, in 1980.

“I met my husband through the party, made lifelong friends, worked for a Labour First Minister. I was even lucky enough to be a Labour councillor for seven years, on Edinburgh City Council.

“I marched behind Labour banners, delivered countless leaflets, cried at election results, especially in 1997 when we won that famous landslide. I was Labour for life…or so I thought.

“Then came Saturday, 12 September 2015.

“As Jeremy Corbyn was announced as leader of our party, I turned to my husband, and said, through tears, ‘Well, our party has just been subject of a hostile takeover…we are finished.’

“And so it has turned out. The hostile takeover is complete. An unlikely coalition of grumpy old blokes in Lenin caps and wide-eyed Millennials in Converse, aided and abetted by some sinister apparatchiks, now controls our party. The numbers are against us.

“I have no heart to go over the reasons I am leaving…there are too many…but in the final analysis it boils down to this: the Labour Party I loved is dead.

“I am not anti-Semitic, I am not pro-Brexit and I don’t believe a command economy will work in Britain. And I am no longer a member of the Labour Party.”

It comes as Labour continues to be embroiled in an anti-Semitism scandal that has seen a number of figures threaten to quit.

Last week, veteran Labour MP Frank Field resigned the party whip, blaming a "culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation".