New Scottish Labour leader Michael Marra addresses conference – his speech in full

Thank you, conference.

Michael Marra, newly elected Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, starting my second week in the job and giving my first ever speech to conference.

Thank you to Douglas for those kind words. Douglas, you and 36 other Scottish Labour MPs on the Government benches are changing lives every single day, be it on jobs, industry, the cost of living and fighting poverty here and abroad.

Scotland is at the heart of this UK Labour Government, getting the best deal for Scotland in a changing UK.

And those MPs are there, conference, because of the hard work of my predecessor Anas Sarwar, as well as Scottish Labour’s longest serving, hardest working MSP, our brilliant Deputy Leader Jackie Bailllie.

But conference, the joy of July 2024 gave way to the pain of May 2026, and the results in May hurt. They hurt because we know Labour in power changes lives for the better. Labour in power brings people together while our opponents seek to divide us.

In Scotland, we have some difficult truths to face up to. May was the sixth Holyrood election in a row where we have lost votes and seats.

Scotland knows what we are against. We’re against an SNP Government that has been in power too long. We’re against a Tory party that should never be in power again. And a Reform party that would take us and this country to a dark and dangerous place.

But for all Scotland knew what we are against, conference, people didn’t know enough of what we were for. And it’s my job to change that.

Social justice. Good work, good housing, good public services. That’s what Labour is for.

The good life for working people, not struggling for a holiday once a year or a pint once a week. That’s what Labour is for.

An economy where everyone has a fair chance in life, which puts power, wealth and opportunity into the hands of the many. That’s what Labour is for.

The minimum wage, the NHS, ending austerity, and cutting child poverty. Conference, that’s what Labour is for.

Conference, I grew up rooted in our Labour values. I was born to a family of trade unionists. I did my first leaflet run in the 1987 general election at eight years old for Ernie Ross MP in Dundee West.

But a generation before that, my family’s story changed. My grandmother, Margaret, was one of seven children who slept in a single bedroom. Of those seven boys and girls, she was the one chosen to go to college.

The other six brothers and sisters would stay working in the heat and the stench of the jute mills, six days a week, and when their week was done, they would take down an old flour tin and put in a share of their hard-earned wages to pay the cost of Margaret’s keep and her education.

I am forever grateful for that. Because it was their sacrifice and that opportunity changed her life. And her education changed mine.

But if we are honest, in Scotland today, nowhere near enough lives are changed through education. It’s no longer the SNP’s top priority, if it ever truly was.

And that’s why I will put education back at the heart of Scottish politics again. To make Scottish education the best in the world again. Not just steady. Not just stable. Not just average. The best in the world again.

And conference, the first thing I did as Scottish Labour leader was to write to John Swinney calling for the First Minister to work with me to meet Scotland’s legally binding child poverty targets. We are currently on course to miss those targets by a mile.

I forced a vote in Parliament this week and got MSPs to recommit to those targets.

Meeting those targets means cutting child poverty in half in Scotland in three years. Now a week may be a long time in politics, but three years in the life of a child is an eternity.

We need to get on with delivering solutions, not slogans. Don’t mistake the SNP’s progressive posturing for progressive outcomes, conference.

And let me tell you the truth. This week alone in Scotland, statistics were published showing more than 10,000 children have nowhere to call home, workers saw promises on furlough broken, the crisis of drug deaths rips through our poorest communities at a rate faster than anywhere else in the world.

And our biggest city – Glasgow City Council run by the SNP and propped up by the Greens – threatened the largest fire and rehire in British history, 23,000 workers threatened with the sack weeks, weeks before this Labour Government outlaws the practice for good.

Now they have paused the process conference, but that isn’t good enough.

This conference will debate an emergency motion condemning the council, backing our trade unions and calls for the threat of fire and rehire to be taken off the table for good.

Conference, I ask you, back that motion. Send the clearest possible message that the Labour movement will never accept threats to working people.

It could not be clearer, conference. Never confuse nationalism with patriotism.

I want a stronger Scotland. But for the last decade, Scotland has gotten weaker. Our NHS. Our education system. Even our parliament itself.

I want Scotland to be a stronger country and a fairer nation. That starts with handing the people of Scotland more control.

Too much power is centralised within Scotland. The Scottish Government has hoarded money and control at the expense of Scotland’s communities.

Had our regions grown at the same pace as Manchester, the Scottish economy would now be £30 billion larger.

That’s the cost of their centralisation agenda. And the SNP is coming for more, proposing a reorganisation of government that appears to centralise control and won’t deliver a single new power to our communities.

I want to see a new generation of devolution deals for Scotland. Power and money in the hands of local people to grow their own economies. And the best place to start is skills, as we face rising youth unemployment.

Scotland faces a skills shortage crisis. Half of employers in Scotland report not being able to get workers with the skills they need. And meanwhile, funding for apprenticeships has fallen.

We have welders from overseas working on the next generation of Scottish warships because not enough Scottish workers have the skills to fill the jobs – and fair play to those people for seeking a better life for their families, but what a staggering failure of the SNPs attitude to industry.

What a staggering failure of Holyrood’s centralised skills policy. We haven’t trained enough Scots to work in shipbuilding. Shipbuilding! Scotland is famous for it. We’re world class at it.

There should be a sense of national pride that the ships being built in Scotland are providing opportunity and security for Scottish workers, as well as for our entire country.

So, my message to Bute House is put control and money in the hands of the councils, the colleges and industries who know what their local economies need better than any SNP bureaucrat in Edinburgh ever will.

Because conference, the Prime Minister is right that too much power and wealth is held in Whitehall when it should be shared across the country.

Now, in the years to come, Andy and I won’t always agree on everything. And I don’t just mean putting the milk into your tea first. Or dancing to The Smiths. And that’s okay.

That’s the point of devolution. Different approaches, different ideas. It’s my job to get the best deal for Scotland in a changing UK.

The first phone call I received after being elected leader of the Scottish Labour Party was from the Prime Minister. And what we do agree on is that our politics needs to offer hope again. It can’t just be about what we are against. We have to give people something to be for.

That type of politics is an antidote for a poison that is infecting the bloodstream of our politics. One of hate, anger and fear masked by a smirk and a pint of warm ale. Funded by dodgy donations of crypto billionaires.

And the next election will be a simple choice. A battle of ideas. On one side, isolation, anger, fear. On the other, empathy, community, compassion.

It will be hope versus hate. And conference, hope will win.

Thank you.

READ MORE: Labour Party Conference 2026: Full LabourList events programme, revealed

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