New foundations
Scottish Labour needs renewal if is to win back Scotland's trust, writes Michael Marra
The 2026 Scottish election ended as all elections do: standing exhausted in a gym hall with a clipboard. On the early afternoon of 8 May, my own version of this ritual took place in Dundee International Sports Centre waiting for the official result in Dundee City West. This election ended as all Scottish devolved elections have. Scottish Labour losing seats and going backwards. This result was worse though. Much worse.
Across the UK we had lost to political insurgents railing against a Labour leadership that had lost contact with the country. In Scotland we lost to a feckless, incompetent, and corrupt SNP whose two-decade record has seen every Scottish institution weakened and the opportunities for our population recede.
A short-term review into one campaign is not going to be enough. We need a new approach – one that reaches every corner of Scotland, revitalises our movement, and reconnects the communities that founded our party. This starts by handing the party back to the members.
Leadership is not a job for one person. Our recovery must be a collective endeavour, built with unity and hope. I am standing for leader of the Scottish Labour party because I believe we must renew and unite our movement behind its moral purpose: to build a better, more equal nation and leave it as a legacy for our children.
I grew up in a family of Labour trade unionists in Dundee. I studied at the University of Glasgow and the London School of Economics before working on anti-poverty programmes for Oxfam. I later served as a councillor in my home city, founded a charity focused on tackling child poverty, and spent a decade working in leadership roles in higher education. For the past five years, I have represented North East Scotland in the Scottish Parliament.
I am rooted in Labour and I am ready to lead. Under my leadership, we will once again root the party in our wider movement. My plan to give our party back to our members will devolve real power and resources away from the centre and across our movement, giving members and affiliates a stronger voice in how we organise, campaign, and develop policy.
This will put people and place at the heart of our politics, so that we never have a one-size-fits-all political agenda again. It is simply not how our communities work, nor how real politics works. It is not how Scotland works either.
Scotland faces deep challenges in both our economy and our public services, and the two cannot be separated. A stagnant economy makes it harder to fund the services people rely on, while failing public services hold back opportunity, productivity and growth. Too many people experience that failure directly. NHS waiting times remain unacceptably high, educational performance has declined, social care is under enormous strain – similar too how it is across the UK – and families continue to struggle with the cost of living. Too many parts of Scotland have also been denied the economic opportunities they need.
We also have structural challenges where comparative performance in our median wage impacts directly on the fiscal framework. In essence, if wages do not grow quickly enough, we will have less money for the services we need. These trends are exacerbated by population stagnation, climate exposure and lack of adaptation or adoption of technology.
For far too long, Scottish Labour has been more comfortable describing the symptoms of these failures, rather than setting out how we would change them. This has to end. We need a policy platform which connects economic growth with stronger public services and shows people, clearly and practically, what Labour would do differently.
While it is vital that we approach the 2029 general election and the 2031 Scottish parliament election with a vision to deliver change for every place in Scotland. The truth is that we simply cannot wait that long to ensure change in every postcode. Scottish Labour must be working with our colleagues in the UK and recognise the opportunities that exist in the Scottish parliament to deliver change on our priorities now.
My vision is of a Scotland that leads in the UK. A stronger Scotland in a UK that is changing, that is getting better under a Labour government.
We must push the SNP to go further and faster on our priorities and demonstrate the difference that a pragmatic Scottish Labour in opposition can make. Since May, this approach has already borne fruit: on a cross-party basis, we have helped secure commitments to start the process of finally replacing the unfair and outdated council tax, as well as taking immediate action on business rates reform. The electorate shouted at us and we need to sound like we are listening. I have a track record of cross-party work and have fought to secure a public inquiry into the Eljamel scandal, which left more than 200 patients with devastating and, in many cases, permanent injuries in NHS Tayside.
That is the kind of Scottish Labour party I want to lead: rooted in our movement, confident in our purpose, and determined to make a difference now. Our next battle will be in May 2026, when council elections up, and we cannot underestimate how important those local Labour fighters are for their communities.
Renewal cannot simply mean changing the person at the top. It must mean changing how our party works, rebuilding our relationship with the communities we seek to represent, and once again, demonstrating that Labour can deliver meaningful change in people’s lives. We should be ambitious about the Scotland we want to build, but we cannot ask people to wait until 2031 for us to start building it. We must use every lever available to us now, while renewing our movement for the future.
That is the task ahead of us. And it is one we must undertake together.
