SCOTTISH Labour needs to stop defining itself by its opposition to the SNP and the Tories and focus on creating a positive vision for Scotland’s future, Ken Macintosh said as he formally launched his leadership bid yesterday.
The Eastwood MSP, who also stood to be party leader in 2011, will compete with fellow MSP and party deputy leader Kezia Dugdale for the job.
Jim Murphy (below) is stepping down from the top post later this month after Labour’ s disastrous General Election defeat, losing all but one of its 40 MPs north of the Border to the SNP.
He survived a motion of no confidence but announced he will step down after tabling a report on how the party should move forward.
A close ally of Murphy, Macintosh was first elected to Holyrood in 1999. He served for a period as a parliamentary aide to former First Minister Jack McConnell and is currently the party’s social justice spokesman.
Last month he said his supporters were being “bullied and intimidated by the party machine” in an attempt to close down the leadership contest but with enough official support he formally launched his campaign yesterday.
He has called for a major shake-up of the way the party elects its leaders and wants a move from the current electoral college system to one member, one vote.
He also favours introducing open primaries, where leadership candidates could be questioned by registered supporters of the party rather than just paid-up members.
He said he will be a “reformist” leader and called on party members and affiliated organisations including trade unions to support his proposals to change the rules for electing a new leader.
Macintosh launched his candidacy after meeting students at Glasgow University yesterday.
“The Scottish Labour Party is a great movement”, he said. “We represent a broad church of ideas, a vehicle for common good and a champion of progressive change and equality for all, but we have lost the trust and the faith of the people of Scotland.”
“Our fightback will not be successful unless we stop defining ourselves and our party by our opponents. We need to take a fundamentally different approach to our politics.
“I do not want to ask people to vote Labour to block the Tories in London or to stop the SNP in Edinburgh. I want them to want to vote Labour because we have the ideas, the vision and the values to deliver a better future for Scotland.
“I have been in the Labour Party all my adult life, but I only stood for election because I believe in the Scottish Parliament. Devolution offers a new way of doing politics in Scotland, less tribal and confrontational, more collaborative, more about sharing power with civic Scotland, with the voluntary sector, with businesses, with the people of Scotland.
“That is why I am standing to be leader of Scotland’s Labour Party. It is time to focus on Scotland’s future, not Labour’s past.”
Macintosh, a television producer before becoming an MSP, set out his proposals in a letter to Murphy, Scottish Labour Party chair Jamie Glackin and general secretary Brian Roy.
They include reducing party joining fees during the leadership contest, in a bid to attract more members, and holding the leadership contest quickly.
Macintosh added: “This is a time of exceptional political engagement in Scotland with people more interested in the politics of our nation than they ever have been before. That is why I am so disappointed that Scottish Labour has not played as full a role as we could in leading this debate.
“That is why I have called for the people of Scotland to have their say on the next leader of Scotland’s Labour Party.
“I believe holding open primaries throughout Scotland will offer us a real opportunity to engage with a politically energised electorate, to listen to their concerns, their hopes and their aspirations and allow our movement to share our principles and our passion for Scotland free from the constraints of an election, and to demonstrate in deeds, not words, that the days of protecting or preserving the influence of vested interests are over.”
Macintosh is the first candidate to join the race since Dugdale confirmed last month she would run.
She is the frontrunner and yesterday got the backing of former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, who took over from Iain Gray after the party’s loss at the 2011 Holyrood elections.
Lamont said Dugdale could give Labour “a strong and modern voice” in the new Scotland.
Lamont quit last October after the referendum, accusing Westminster Labour of treating the Scottish party like a “branch office”. Murphy took over for just eight months before resigning after Labour’s General Election defeat.
In a radio interview yesterday Dugdale said Scottish Labour made a serious error in not focusing on the role the Scottish
Parliament plays in people’s everyday lives.
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