Ian Murray on the battle for Labour's soul

It’s been a turbulent summer for Scotland’s only Labour MP, Ian Murray, with his dramatic resignation from Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and the key role he is perceived to have played in moves to oust the party leader at Westminster.    

Just days before MPs are due to return to Westminster and with the Labour leadership campaign drawing to a close, Murray is waiting in his constituency office in Edinburgh south for the man who hopes to replace Corbyn as party leader.

Murray, fresh from seeing a constituent at his busy surgery in Edinburgh’s bustling Newington area, is preparing to play host to Owen Smith, who is in the Scottish capital as part of his key visit to Scotland in the leadership campaign.

“It’s the worst time ever for Labour, with the party going through an existential crisis,” Murray says of Labour’s current position north and south of the border.

Having resigned as shadow Scottish secretary back in June, something that left Corbyn with a real difficulty in having to place an English MP in the role as Labour’s Westminster lead for Scotland, Murray says the change has left him feeling “liberated” and able to speak on more issues in the Commons. 

“It’s a great responsibility (shadow Scottish secretary) and I’m disappointed to no longer hold the post,” he says, though making clear that at the same time he misses the role that is, in theory, currently the most senior position any Labour politician can hold north of the border after that of Scottish Labour leader.

Like many senior Labour MPs who quit Corbyn’s frontbench, there’s a slight air from Murray that they see themselves as the party’s shadow cabinet in exile, almost akin to a deposed government or an authority counterposing itself to the official rulers.    

As he waits for Smith, who was due to speak at a rally of supporters, Murray is quick to point out that Edinburgh South is one of the few areas where Labour continues to win, with Daniel Johnson MSP taking the equivalent Holyrood seat off the SNP in May’s election.

Smith, Murray insists, is a credible alternative Labour leader, who could take the party back to power in 2020, a politician that “has the whole package”, he says. 
Of course Murray, Smith and the other two-thirds of the shadow cabinet that walked out of their roles this summer did so voluntarily and Murray vehemently insists they are “not a shadow, shadow” cabinet.   

But what’s striking about Murray is that he still describes himself as the undisputed Westminster lead for Scottish Labour, despite the fact that the role of shadow Scottish secretary is now held by Dave Anderson, the MP for Blaydon in the north east of England. 

That’s of course partly explained by his controversial appointment as Westminster spokesman in Kezia Dugdale’s Holyrood-based Scottish Labour frontbench.

There’s also his appointment to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, a role he takes over from Dave Anderson, in what critics have described as a sort of musical chairs.

Unsurprisingly, Murray is quick to defend his decision to serve in Dugdale’s team, while refusing to be part of Corbyn’s in the Westminster parliament that he is a member of.   

“I am in the Scottish shadow cabinet and what Kez says for Labour in Scotland goes,” he states assuredly, while also claiming that it’s an issue party members have not asked him about.  

“I’m the only Scottish Labour MP. I’ve been a shadow cabinet spokesman. It makes sense,” Murray says as he calls for the position of Scottish Labour’s Westminster lead to become a permanent one.

“We should have had that position in the Scottish shadow cabinet anyway,” he adds.

“I had an ex-officio invitation to attend the shadow cabinet anyway.” 

Murray even claims that this new job as Westminster spokesman is similar to that of the SNP’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson, who over the years has regularly been seen in the Scottish Parliament – something that was probably largely due to the positions he held as his party’s campaign supremo at election times.        

Murray says: “We should have had that for linkages. It’s a more positive approach. With the SNP, Angus Robertson as an MP is like the SNP’s Westminster linkage to the Scottish Government’s cabinet.”

But when asked, again, whether he sees himself as the Westminster lead for Labour in Scotland, despite his absence from the shadow cabinet, Murray, in doubt, says: “Yeah, absolutely – most senior.”

It’s of course beyond dispute that Murray is Scottish Labour’s man at Westminster, In fact, since the party lost 40 seats north of the border at the 2015 general election, he’s its only MP.    

But there’s a hint of a pithy assertiveness from Murray that his status as the only Scottish Labour MP and as Dugdale’s Westminster spokesman supersedes that of Anderson, who it was previously suggested was ‘blanked’ by him and the Holyrood party leader during a summer visit to Scotland by the shadow Scottish secretary.    

“I’m the face of the Scottish Labour Party at Westminster,” Murray says, before adding of his media profile that “if there’s a Labour Party issue, the STV or BBC come to me as part of my job for Scottish Labour.”

Of his successor in the shadow cabinet, he adds: “Dave’s got a job to do, doing my former job.”

“Yvette Cooper leads on refugees, Dane Jarvis leads on defence issues, sometimes because of his past work (as a Parachute Regiment major),” Murray says as he highlights the roles two other high-profile Labour MPs on the backbenches are playing related to areas of policy expertise.

Murray’s already admitted to being disappointed about not being shadow Scottish secretary and being off the party’s frontbench for the first time since his early days as an MP following his election in 2010. He joined Ed Miliband’s frontbench in 2011 and was shadow business minister ahead of the 2015 election.    

But Murray’s statement that “there’s no real change” to his job since leaving the shadow cabinet is even more likely to raise eyebrows, especially as it’s accompanied with a dig at Corbyn.
“I was never listened to anyway (in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet),” he says, then adds: “It was difficult to make a contribution.”

Murray, a softly spoken politician with an affable manner, does not come across as territorial about his position when talking about his work. But once again, he’s absolutely adamant that not being in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet has not diminished his standing as Scottish Labour’s Westminster lead.    

“There’s not really any day-to-day difference to the job,” he says firmly.

However, he does refer to the fact that he no longer appears at the House of Commons despatch box for Labour on Scottish affairs.

That in itself, Murray says, has allowed him to speak on more issues and ask more questions in the Commons.  

“My role hasn’t necessarily changed, although I find myself doing other stuff,” perhaps a reference to his new appointment to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee.  

It’s when Murray  talks about that committee that he discloses he will use his new position to mount a fresh onslaught on Nicola Sturgeon’s new independence initiative.

Murray also suggested that the SNP majority on the committee, chaired by senior Nationalist Pete Wishart, had been allowed to dominate proceedings on the cross-party body for too long.

He said: “Being a backbench Labour MP gives me a really good opportunity to do different things, such as by being less restricted about questions I can ask in the House of Commons.

“I’ve spoken more times in the last few weeks than I have before due to not being restricted to one brief.

“The Scottish Affairs Committee is a very good opportunity. It’s liberating to a certain extent in that I’m able to participate more in the parliamentary process.

“I can hold the SNP to account more, as well as the Tories on the Scottish Affairs Committee on other issues like currency, GERS and other big issues. 

“Pete Wishart has had it his own way for too long.”

But Murray then goes back to his plan to use his new role to carve out an alternative political agenda, again, something he makes clear he is planning to do independently of a Corbyn led Labour Party, should the current leader remain in post this week.    

“There’s a real opportunity for Labour to present a new post-Brexit settlement away from the polarised position of the SNP and the Tories on the constitutional questions.  
“This settlement has to be based on social justice and how we deliver full employment.”

Speaking at the fag end of the Labour leadership campaign, with party members now receiving their ballot papers, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Murray is keen to maintain his consistent criticism of Corbyn’s year-long stewardship of the party.       

Just hours before he is due to appear alongside Smith at a campaign rally in Edinburgh South, it would be surprising to all concerned if one of the key movers in the shadow cabinet’s attempted ‘coup’ against Corbyn that kickstarted this process was now to soften his position.

Murray has a deserved reputation as one of the ‘nice guys’ of Scottish politics, but there’s no masking how difficult he finds it to say anything positive about Corbyn, when asked about the leader’s strengths.

“The big positive is the big spike in members. But does that mean we are going to win a general election?” he says, somewhat begrudgingly, alluding to the surge in subscriptions to Labour during the last year that has seen it emerge with the biggest membership of any social democratic party in Europe.

But his cautious praise for Corbyn is quickly superseded by a scathing critique of his leadership of the shadow cabinet during the last year and what the Edinburgh South MP claims is Corbyn’s lack of knowledge of Scottish politics.  

He says: “It was incredibly difficult working for Jeremy Corbyn as I got the impression that the leader’s office saw the shadow cabinet as just being a necessary inconvenience. There was no real understanding of Scotland from Jeremy.”

Meanwhile, Murray’s constituency office remains busy, with his staff seeking to get through the casework associated with the MP’s morning surgeries that day. 

Several members of the local Labour Party pop in to the office in Minto Street to pick up bundles of leaflets to deliver, something that again suggests Edinburgh South is an area where the party has managed to buck its much documented national decline.  

Once more, there’s an implied slight at the ‘Corbynistas’ who have signed up in the last year, with Murray remarking that he’d “not seen that many new members” in the Edinburgh south local party.

There have been suggestions that the Smith candidacy is drawing support from senior Labour figures largely because of an ‘anyone but Corbyn’ mentality and that the Welsh MP is simply someone who so-called moderates can unite around in the hope of ousting the Islington North MP.

But Murray is having none of that, as he waits for Smith to arrive in his office, a place where the leadership challenger can “chill out” before the big rally and assorted campaigning set pieces in Edinburgh that evening.      

“He could win. He is credible,” Murray says when asked whether the former shadow work and pensions secretary really could be just the second Labour politician in over 40 years to win a UK general election.      

Conceding Smith’s relative lack of public recognition, Murray adds: “The public don’t know him at the moment, but that is true of almost any opposition leader when they are first elected to the role.”

Murray also seems to think that Pontypridd MP Smith would fare well in Scotland due to his Welsh background and his time spent as shadow Welsh secretary under Ed Miliband’s leadership.

“Owen’s very likeable and charismatic. He’d connect with the public, he says of the man who hopes to become the first Welsh politician to lead Labour since Neil Kinnock stepped down from the role nearly a quarter of a century ago. 

“He’d go down well in Scotland. The Scots have a great affinity with the Welsh and Owen understands devolution as someone who was shadow Welsh secretary.

“He understands how devolution works,” Murray says.

Murray, dispelling any doubts that he sees Smith as a stalking horse to oust Corbyn, adds: “There is a real drive for significance and Owen gets that. He has the whole package.”

So if Smith takes over from Corbyn at this week’s Labour Party conference, would he, as the only Scottish MP, accept an invitation to return to the shadow cabinet and take up the role of shadow Scottish secretary, after a summer hiatus from the post?  

Murray replied: “I’d happily serve any leader of the Labour Party if they wanted me to make a valid contribution.

“If asked by Owen Smith, yes,” he would step back into the position he vacated back in June, when he resigned live on TV just hours after Hillary Benn was sacked as shadow foreign secretary.
“Owen would lead a credible and strong shadow cabinet that would bring back the talents that left under Jeremy,” Murray adds, in a direct reference to the likes of Benn, Heidi Alexander and Lucy Powell, who quit during the summer’s mass shadow cabinet walkout, with figures such as Rachel Reeves, Caroline Flint and Liz Kendall also potential returns he suggests.  

But should Corbyn remain in place this week, what will Murray do?

It would be a “calamity for the public and a calamity for the left”, he says as he confirms that he would continue with his current approach of serving in Dugdale’s frontbench team, while also sitting on Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Select Committee.

“I’ll continue to work for my constituents and continue in same role” (shadow Westminster spokesman under Dudgale), he adds.  

All this of course begs the question as to what Corbyn could do to reach out to Smith backers like Murray and whether any sort or reconciliation or rapprochement is possible?

Or will machinations against the left-winger continue regardless of how this week’s Labour conference plays out in Liverpool – a remaining bastion of support for the party where it holds all five Westminster constituencies.

It’s on this that Murray adds his voice to the growing calls from Corbyn’s opponents for the return of shadow cabinet elections, a move that would see the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) picking the frontbench members rather than the leader choosing his or her own team.

Murray says he backed Ed Miliband’s scrapping of shadow cabinet elections back in 2010, after the process was in use throughout Labour’s last spell in opposition up until 1997, but now clearly feels their return would be an effective way of curbing Corbyn’s power.        

“The idea that the Parliamentary Labour Party should bring back shadow cabinet elections is a good one,” Murray says.

“I’d certainly stand (for the shadow cabinet),” in a remark that arguably sends mixed messages about Murray’s plan to stay off the frontbench at Westminster and instead focus on his backbench, committee, constituency and Scottish Labour Party roles.

There are more criteria for Corbyn to meet should he still be leader at the end of this week’s annual conference, chief among these is a commitment that there would not be moves by Corbyn’s supporters in constituency Labour parties (CLPs) to deselect en masse Labour MPs who backed Smith, according to Murray.

“There can’t be moves towards mass deselections. He would have to reach out and shadow cabinet elections are a small part of that,” Murray says.

Murray also insists that Corbyn would have to do more to discourage his supporters from engaging in online abuse against Labour MPs – an allegation Smith backers such as Murray have repeatedly made.

The Edinburgh South MP says that he himself had been on the receiving end of such abuse, with online postings claiming that he is a ”traitor” for his role in the PLP passing a vote of no confidence in Corbyn.       

“Stopping abuse of people is also key. He (Corbyn) has got to stamp that out,” Murray says.  

But whoever wins or loses in the Corbyn versus Smith battle, Murray seems sure to play a leading role in internal party conflicts.

There’s a strong hint from Murray that he would continue to be a vocal opponent of Corbyn and his supporters in groups such as the left-wing campaign group Momentum.  

 Murray stops short of saying members of Momentum should face expulsion or that the group should be proscribed from the Labour Party, as happened with the Trotskyist-orientated Militant Tendency in the 1980s.

However, he says Momentum’s activities should be probed as he challenged the group to apply for official status as an affiliated Labour group, along the lines of the Fabian Society or the Socialist Health Association – groups that are formally part of a party rather than simply being internal pressure groups.

“If Momentum is genuinely there to deliver a Labour government then we should get them into the party,” Murray says.

“But if they are there to agitate in CLPs for the deselection of those who had the audacity to oppose them, that’s another issue. That needs to stop.”

It’s here that there’s a slight hint that Murray would be sympathetic to an Owen Smith-led Labour Party seeking to curb the influence of Momentum and potentially even taking disciplinary action against it. 

He says: “If they genuinely want a Labour government, then we should get them under the umbrella of Labour formally.

“It’s got to be looked at. What does it exist for? Any organisation that wishes to be involved in the Labour Party would have to abide by the rules.”

Murray is a figure who by now has become accustomed to running against the tide, first when he was initially elected as an MP in 2010 in a seat the Lib Dems had been expected to take from Labour. Then there’s his time as the former chairman of the Foundation of Hearts, which promoted the idea of fan ownership and successfully acquired the majority share­holding in the Tynecastle club after it suffered relegation from the Scottish Premier League and faced financial collapse with the threat of extinction.

Still a regular at Tynecastle home matches, despite his turbulent summer, Murray finishes with an analogy on the beautiful game that he says speaks volumes about Corbyn’s popularity with Labour’s rank and file party members, but lack of support among its MPs.  

“However popular someone is with the supporters doesn’t matter if they have lost the changing room,” he says in a withering comment about a politician who, he suggests, is on course to preside over a fresh relegation for Labour. 

“I hope that we come out with a sensible policy and a progressive and credible new leader that can unify the party,” he says of what he hopes will be the outcome at the end of Labour’s week in Liverpool – a city that is as well known for its musical and cultural icons as it is for its footballing triumphs from the great Merseyside clubs of Liverpool and Everton.