![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/dailybusinessgroup.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Michael-Marra-MSP.png\")
Scottish Labour leadership contender Michael Marra, who was instrumental in developing the election manifesto, said the party must rediscover it soul.<\/p>\n
The party\u2019s finance spokesman admitted the party had been let down by Downing Street but also by mistakes made in Scotland.<\/p>\n
He said it must campaign on what it is for, rather than what it is against if it is to reconnect with the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAcross the UK in May we lost to political insurgents railing against a Labour leadership that had lost contact with the country,\u201d he said, in a clear admission of Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s part in Scottish Labour\u2019s biggest defeat since 1999.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in Scotland we lost to a feckless, incompetent and corrupt SNP whose two-decade record has seen every Scottish institution weakened and the opportunities of our population recede.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot spend the next five years doing more of what we did these last five, ten, fifteen years repeating the same mistakes, sniping and complaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to clean up our internal culture and move beyond articulating what we are against and campaign on what we are for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Marra, who is competing against Monica Lennon and Joe Fagan to succeed Anas Sarwar, said the challenges the party faces are bigger than one election and it must be ready to embrace radical changes in how it does politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt used to be that the public knew where Labour\u2019s hearts were and we had to win the argument that they could trust our heads,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA big part of our challenge is now the opposite. We can make the sums add up but we must rediscover our soul and reconnect with Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can only change if we unite \u2013 activists, MSPs, MPs, Councillors, Trade Unions -our whole Labour family. The task ahead of us is to unite our party, renew our party and rediscover our moral purpose. I believe I am the leader to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Sarwar\u00a0stepped down to take up a seat in the House of Lords, where he joins Prime Minister Andy Burnham\u2019s government as a trade minister in the revamped Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade.<\/p>\n
Mr Marra, the first candidate to make the ballot, has won the support of rail workers union Aslef and most of his parliamentary colleagues. Mr Fagan has secured the backing of the GMB and Usdaw unions while Monica Lennon, the third candidate, has been endorsed by Unison and Unite the Union, but has not yet secured the necessary parliamentary nominations.<\/p>\n
See also<\/strong><\/p>\n Fagan criticises Sarwar\u2019s failure to test SNP budgets<\/p>\n Daily Business Bulletin<\/strong>:\u00a0Subscribe here for our free morning bulletin of breaking news<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \t <\/div>\n