Ian Murray MP: "People who vote Tory are not our enemies, they’re our potential voters"

For the second time, Ian Murray is Scottish Labour’s sole representative in Westminster. The deputy leadership candidate talks to Kevin Schofield about the left-wing case for unionism and if the party can come back north of the border



When he appeared at the first deputy leader hustings in parliament’s Committee Room 14, Ian Murray described himself as “the cockroach who survived the nuclear explosion”. He was doing himself a disservice. There aren’t many cockroaches that survive two such life-ending events.

The Edinburgh South MP first defied the odds in 2015, when he was the only one of 41 Labour MPs in Scotland to retain their seat. He repeated the trick on 12 December, when the other six Labour representatives north of the border were consumed by the latest SNP tidal wave.

Murray told the assembled Labour MPs and peers that this showed he knows how to win against the odds, something which might come in handy for the party as it tries to find its way back from the political wilderness.

“The big lesson is that in order to win an election you have to build a broad coalition of support,” he says. “People who vote Tory are not our enemies, they’re our potential voters. People who vote Lib Dem aren’t our enemies, they’re our potential voters.

“The only way I win in South Edinburgh is by building that broad coalition of support, and that’s what I’d like to do across the whole of the UK.

“And the second thing is being honest with people. I get a lot of SNP supporters who vote for me because I’m honest with them about where I stand. I say ‘look, we’re going to disagree on independence, so let’s move to the next level and have that discussion. We need to start doing that as a party. We’ve run away from honesty.”

Murray’s message seems to have gone down well with his parliamentary colleagues. He amassed a total of 34 nominations from MPs and MEPs, easily clearing the threshold of 22, although still some way behind first placed Angela Rayner’s total of 88.

But what chance does such a well-known critic of Jeremy Corbyn have once the party membership have their say?

“I haven’t been a critic of Jeremy Corbyn for the sake of being a critic, in fact I’ve been quite complimentary of some of the things he’s done,” Murray insists. “I’ve been critical because I’ve been hearing on the doorstep up and down the country that people were turning away from Labour because of his leadership. That feeds back to just being honest with people.”

Murray says electing him deputy leader would send a strong message that Scotland’s voice is once again being heard at the top of the party. It will take more than that to restore Labour’s fortunes north of the Border, but it would at least be a start.

Boris Johnson last week told Nicola Sturgeon that the Scottish Parliament will not be given the power to hold a legal second referendum on independence, a decision which was no doubt met with approval by Murray.

His position is in marked contrast to former Labour leadership candidate Clive Lewis, who last week said he would give a second vote the green light if he became Prime Minister and Scotland wanted one.

“How do you define what Scotland wants?,” says Murray. “Scotland’s not the SNP. The SNP want another referendum, so if Clive Lewis wants to tell us how he would measure how Scotland would want another referendum, I’m happy to hear from him.

“54% of people in Scotland voted for pro-UK parties on the 12 December, but we seem to have swallowed this idea that the SNP have a mandate. The SNP ran their election campaign about stopping Brexit and locking Johnson out of Downing Street. That was on the side of their bus.

“The three leaflets I got through my door from their candidate in South Edinburgh didn’t mention independence once, so how can anybody say they’ve got a mandate? The Scottish people have said quite clearly that they want to stay in the UK. It was a fair referendum, everyone said they would respect the result and that’s where we are.”

This uncompromising message on the Union is in stark contrast to Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard, who last week urged his party to back another referendum if it included the option of a fully federal UK. He was foiled by the party’s executive committee, who agreed instead to kick the whole issue into the long grass once again.

The episode demonstrated that when it comes to the main issue in Scottish politics, Labour has nothing to say. Until that changes, the party will continue to tank.

“With the SNP running our schools and hospitals into the ground, the last thing the Labour Party should do is give Nicola Sturgeon the distraction she craves to deflect from her record in office,” says Murray.

“We must be a pro-UK party and a pro-EU party not just because that is in the best interests of the country, but because it is part of our Labour values.”

His solution to the impasse is for a constitutional convention to be set up looking at the future of devolution across the whole of the UK, giving more power to councils and mayors, what to do with the House of Lords and whether the UK needs a new voting system.

It’s an agenda he would embrace with relish, he says, if he manages to come out on top when the new leader and deputy leader are announced on 4 April. But even if he doesn’t, Murray hopes to at least have one significant achievement to point to at the end of the campaign.

He says: “If we come out of this whole process with a new leader and deputy leader who understands Scotland, I’ll have succeeded in what I’m trying to do.”