‘Labour must listen or it will die’ warns MP on re-election

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn waits for the results at Sobell Leisure Centre for the Islington North constituency for the 2019 General Election. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA Wire. - Credit: PA

Re-elected Labour MP Ian Murray has warned his party’s ideology must change or else it will die.

Labour’s Ian Murray. Photograph: Lesley Martin/PA Wire. – Credit: PA

The Edinburgh South MP used his victory speech to criticise the Labour leadership for helping to deliver “the worst Conservative prime minister in history”.

He warned: “This party must listen, this party must respond, or this party will die.

“The saddest indictment of this General Election campaign is the delivery of a Conservative majority government with the worst prime minister this country has ever seen.

“That’s a sad indictment on the Labour Party. We’re not just letting down the Labour Party, we’re letting down the millions of people across the four islands 1/8sic 3/8 of this wonderful nation by not even having a credible opposition, never mind a credible alternative government.”

Murray gained 23,745 of the votes out of 49,855 cast, with a 75.3% turnout. His majority fell from 15,514 in 2017 to 11,095.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he will not lead the party into the next election following Friday’s results.

Murray said: “For the sake of the Labour movement, for the sake of the Labour Party, but more importantly for the sake of the country, not only does the person have to go but the policy and the ideology has to go as well.”

He was the only Labour MP in Scotland following the 2015 election.

He said voters he spoke to on the doorsteps during this campaign did not see Corbyn as prime minister and could not see Labour as a credible alternative government.