Nominations open in Scottish Labour leadership contest

The contest was triggered after Sarwar stepped down as Scottish Labour leader and MSP to take up a seat in the House of Lords and become a trade minister.

He led the party through its worst election result in the history of devolution in May, winning just 17 seats out of 129.

Marra said the party had not been clear enough in its offer to voters ahead of the Scottish Parliament election.

“Highlighting the incompetence of the SNP is not an argument for why people should put their faith in Scottish Labour instead,” he said.

“People have seen what the SNP has done or hasn’t done with power for almost 20 years. People wanted to know what Scottish Labour would do tomorrow if we won power and that just wasn’t clear enough.

“What I want is for our party’s goals to become obvious and unmistakable.”

Lennon said she wanted to see a “big tent” party and an end to internal disputes.

She said: “First, the factional infighting must end.

“Insiders who value personal loyalties over progressive action have often underestimated their colleagues.

“I’ve felt that, too.”

Meanwhile Fagan said that Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s recent by-election victory in Makerfield demonstrated that Labour could “win back trust” when it was “serious about changing people’s lives”.

He said: “Scottish Labour needs to learn lessons from where we have won, not just where we have lost.

“The lesson is simple: people will listen to Scottish Labour again when we stop sounding like a party talking to itself and start proving that we are on their side.”