Get the stories that matter to you sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Last month’s victory for Boris Johnson was a devastating blow for people who wanted real change across the UK.

Labour exists to win elections and we failed on an epic scale to convince people we were fit to govern.

In Scotland, the party is at its lowest ebb, but it would be foolish to think we have hit rock bottom. Scottish Labour’s long-term losing streak will continue unless we make some epic changes of our own.

With the 2021 Holyrood election looming, the internal review announced by Richard Leonard will rightly examine what went wrong.

We must be honest about our long-term decline. We are the third-largest party at Holyrood but our capacity to shrink is a sure bet, unless we act fast.

The opportunity to recast ourselves as a modern, dynamic political force is there – if we are prepared to take bold action.

My submission to the review will recommend we become a separate political party in our own right. It’s no longer tenable for decisions about Scottish Labour to be taken or undermined by colleagues outside of Scotland.

The UK link is stopping the Scottish leader from being heard or taken seriously. If we look like a pressure group within a UK party structure, we will continue to be rejected.

In her parting shot as leader in 2014, Johann Lamont used the damning phrase “branch office” to describe the relationship with the UK party, after the Scottish general secretary was sacked from London.

However, the branch office continues to this day. At the European elections we had the ridiculous situation where Richard’s face wasn’t allowed to appear on an election leaflet to Scottish voters.

Worse was to follow. John McDonnell came to Edinburgh over the summer and contradicted our leader on IndyRef2.

I am opposed to independence because I believe it will make the poorest Scots poorer, but members in Scotland should decide our position on a referendum.

And decisions about Scotland’s future within the UK should ultimately be a matter for Holyrood, not Westminster.

Disciplinary issues underline why we need to be a separate party.

Long-running cases have caused embarrassment in Scotland, including a councillor who admitted making offensive comments about Cabinet Secretary Humza Yousaf, as well as the saga of the Aberdeen Labour councillors suspended in 2017.

Everyone involved needs closure, but UK structures have tarnished the Scottish party.

Scottish Labour needs to stand or fall by its own decisions. We either continue at the mercy of the UK party’s distant structures or we become a party in our own right.

This would mean raising our own funds, persuading trade unions to affiliate and reaching out to voters and organisations in a more meaningful way. Our MPs would take the Scottish Labour whip and vote with our sister party at Westminster, if persuaded.

Scottish Labour has a proud history, but the future matters more. It’s time we took responsibility into our own hands.