Scottish Labour leadership election result set to be announced

Scottish Labour’s new leader Kezia Dugdale will undertake her first engagement as head of the party when she campaigns in Edinburgh today.

Lothians MSP Ms Dugdale has been tipped as the favourite to defeat Mr Macintosh in the contest to succeed Jim Murphy, who resigned after Labour was all but wiped out in Scotland in the general election. She becomes leader after just four years as an MSP.

If she was elected leader, 33-year-old Ms Dugdale said she would start rebuilding trust in Labour straight away.

‘I know that the past few months have been incredibly hard for Labour members across the country, ‘ she said on winning. We are down but we are not out.

She pledged to work “day and night” to rebuild the party ahead of the Scottish elections next year, with polling for that ballot putting the SNP on course to win another majority at Holyrood.

Around 21,000 party members and supporters were eligible to vote in the contest, which was held on a one-person one-vote basis following reforms introduced by Mr Murphy.

During her campaign, Dugdale said she thought a Corbyn victory would leave Labour “carping on the sidelines”.

“I can tell you that under my leadership there will be no question over what we stand for, or who we stand with”.

The new leader was also a signatory to one of the weirder Parliamentary motions back in 2012 – signing a motion in support of two fictional X-Men characters who were due to tie the knot in a same-sex ceremony.

“Kezia Dugdale’s election as leader is a chance for Labour to show it has learned”, he added.

It is hard to see Ms Dugdale making any great impact on Labour fortunes in Scotland.

The young Aberdonian will also have to navigate the final weeks of the UK Labour leadership battle, with Left-wing favourite Jeremy Corbyn among the first to congratulate her yesterday.

Gordon Brown will make a high-profile intervention in the Labour leadership contest with a keynote speech.

In a message to voters while speaking in Stirling, the Lothian MSP said: “Take another look at the Scottish Labour party”.

“He cannot, in all conscience, attempt to continue as leader of Scotland’s biggest city when he has made it so abundantly clear he’d rather not be here”.

SNP business convener Derek Mackay said: “A change of leader alone will not solve the deep, deep problems which the Labour Party in Scotland now faces”.