Scottish Labour no longer has any “big beasts” to fall back on, the party’s sole MP north of the border will say today.
In his first major speech since being appointed to the Shadow Cabinet, Ian Murray will call for “a new generation to take the Scottish Labour Party forward”.
Mr Murray will talk about his own experience of building a coalition of voters in Edinburgh South and the lessons from that victory for the whole of the Scottish Labour Party.
He will say: “The way people engage with politics has changed but the way the Scottish Labour Party has worked hasn’t kept pace.
“As a start that has to mean our politics has to be community based, bringing together a broad range of people across the constituency.
“There can be no no-go areas. That is what we did here and, given this constituency is a microcosm of Scotland, with both wealth and poverty, we can use this as the blueprint for the future.”
Mr Murray will cite his “sadness and shock” at the death of former Labour leader John Smith in 1994 and say the “baton of responsibility” must once again be “passed to the next generation of reformers”.
After praising the work of Mr Smith, Donald Dewar, Jack McConnell and Gordon Brown, Mr Murray will add: “The Scottish Labour Party can no longer turn to the big beasts.
“It falls to a new generation to take the Scottish Labour Party forward.
“I want us to look back 20 years from now… and be able to say that when the burden of responsibility passed to the next generation we were up to the challenge.”