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Labour's sole MP in Scotland has called on Richard Leonard to bring back two senior MSPs he sacked from his front bench.

Scottish Labour leader Leonard caused controversy in 2018 after he removed Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie, both moderates, from his top team.

Ian Murray, who is one of five candidates vying to replace Tom Watson as UK Labour’s deputy leader, would like to see them return.

In an interview with the Record, he said: “There is absolutely no doubt that Anas and Jackie are two of the best politicians that we’ve got in Scotland, therefore it would be wrong not to use their talents.”

The Edinburgh South MP, a Hearts fan who grew up in the Wester Hailes area of the capital, has also urged Leonard to make changes if Scottish Labour is to reverse its woeful election results in recent times.

Murray, who is an arch-critic of Jeremy Corbyn, has blasted Labour for softening its position on IndyRef2 and called for a more robust pro-UK position.

His analysis is that the 2014 referendum was bad for Scottish Labour because it turned the constitution into the dominant issue in the country.

(Image: Daily Record)

However, I suggested his party’s problems predated 2014, as Labour was gubbed in the Holyrood election three years earlier when the SNP won a landslide.

Murray replied: “Their gambit was, ‘We are now into another Tory government, the economic fallout from the crash in 2008 is still here, give us the ability to be able to negotiate a referendum’.”

I put it to him that Labour’s 2011 loss was less about the constitution and more about the party having poor leadership, under-performing MSPs and stale policies.

He replied: “I don’t necessarily subscribe to the fact that it should be blamed on individual MSPs or leaders, because I

don’t know if that was a factor.

“Over the last 10 years, we’ve been swamped and paralysed, possibly even poisoned, by the constitutional issues.”

Murray wants Scottish Labour to reject IndyRef2 but I asked him how this will help win back voters lost to the SNP.

“We need to get off the constitutional issues,” he said, adding that his party should not “pander” to a point of view it does not support.

He explained: “Our story has to be about the principled

position that Scotland’s best interests are as part of the UK.

“We can’t out-Nat the Nats and we can’t out-Unionist the Tories – and actually we shouldn’t because that’s not who we are.”

Murray resigned from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in 2016 and was scathing about the party’s response to the anti-Semitism scandal. So did he consider quitting Labour?

Murray said: “We all questioned our ability to be part of a party that was anti-Semitic, having doors slammed in our face by Jewish people.”

Did he have any informal discussions about defecting to the Lib Dems?

(Image: Lennox Herald)

“None whatsoever. Why would I do that? That’s like jumping off the barge back on to the Titanic.”

Murray reserved his most pointed criticism for Neil Findlay, the Corbyn ally who suggested on Twitter last week that his wife had given a pro-Murray volunteer a hard time on the phone.

He said: “If I was Neil Findlay’s wife, I’d be very, very angry he’s put something that’s not accurate in the public domain.”

Asked about the last time they spoke, Murray said he asked Findlay why Corbyn had gone soft on the constitution, to which he alleged the left-wing MSP replied by calling him a c***.

Findlay yesterday denied the claim, saying: “I can categorically say that is not true, and indeed I wonder why Mr Murray is making up such nonsense.”