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I JOINED the Labour Party because I saw it as the best vehicle for creating a better society and the best way to campaign to give everybody a fair chance in life. But above all else, I wanted to help deliver a Labour Government.

Without doing that, the fairer society that is at the heart of everything the Labour Party stands for isn’t possible.

What is the Labour Party for if it’s not for getting into power to invest in education, to close the gap between the richest and the rest, to deliver an NHS fit for the future and to ensure that everybody has a fair chance to get on in life?

The millions of people across the UK suffering at the hands of the Tories - those bearing the brunt of the cuts, those fearful for their jobs because of Brexit and those EU nationals who have no idea whether or not they can stay in their adopted homeland - aren’t getting the Official Opposition they deserve. To be blunt about it, the Labour Party isn’t functioning as it should right now.

(Image: Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire)

The leadership contest that is now happening in my party is painful for many of us - we’d much rather be focussing on the Tories. However, it’s because we care about this party and its ability to change lives that we have found ourselves in this position.

Jeremy Corbyn is a man I have come to respect a great deal. We were elected to our respective leadership positions at roughly the same time, and we have a good, friendly working relationship. Yet he has lost the confidence of his MPs.

I won 72% of the vote from when I was elected leader, but if the vast majority of my MSPs didn’t have confidence in me then I couldn’t do my job. I don’t see how Jeremy can do his. With Jeremy as leader the chances of a UK Labour Government in the near future are slim at best and non-existent at worst.

The choice that Labour members and supporters have at this leadership election is whether we want to be a party of Government with real policies that can change people’s lives, or a party purely of protest that can say what it is against but not what it is for.

Parties can sometimes force some change from opposition - pressure from Scottish Labour has made the SNP focus more on education after almost a decade of inaction. But it’s only from government that real change can be delivered.