Ken Macintosh announces he’s standing to be Scottish Labour leader

Ken Macintosh MSP has announced his will stand to be the next Leader of the Scottish Labour Party.

Macintosh is the MSP for Eastwood said last month that he was considering standing for the position. But today at a meeting with students at Glasgow University he will formally announce that he is throwing his hat into the ring.

He has been an MSP since 1999 and prior to his career in politics he worked as a producer for the BBC.

Macintosh’s announcement comes following Jim Murphy’s resignation as leader last month. He is due to step down 13th June. The leadership contest is currently a two horse race; Kezia Dugdale, Deputy Leader, has also announced that she’s standing.

In a speech announcing his candidacy, Macintosh said he will be a “reformist leader”. He has already called for changes to be made to the leadership contest; he’s proposed that the leader is elected under one member one vote as opposed to the electoral college system used in past elections.

He has also said that people across Scotland should have their say on the next Labour leader, explaining that he believes in open primaries. If it were to follow the expected model, this system would mean individuals who aren’t members of Scottish Labour could sign up as supporters to vote in the leadership election.

Macintosh explained why he was standing to be leader:

“The Scottish Labour Party is a great movement; 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 we focus on Scotland’s future, not Labour’s past.

The challenge for me if I am elected Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, is equally a challenge for every member of our Labour movement throughout Scotland. Our job will not simply be to reaffirm our values and apply them to the future of our country; our job is to rebuild trust and regain confidence in those very values by offering a positive vision.

I want everyone who has faith in the power of progressive politics to play their role in restoring Labour as the party that is on people’s side, the party trusted to stand with Scotland against the powerful and the unaccountable.

I am confident in my party’s future and in our place at the very heart of Scotland. I know that somewhere along the way we have lost people and yes, we have made mistakes but my values and my vision for a better future have never changed.”