Lord McConnell said MPs should have less say than MSPs over who the Scottish leader is Former First Minister Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale has said Labour MPs should have less say in choosing Scottish Labour’s next leader.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Lord McConnell said it was wrong that in the past MPs had equal votes with MSPs on the issue.
He was speaking ahead of a meeting of the party’s Scottish executive.
Iain Gray said last week that he would stand down as Scottish Labour leader following the Scottish election result.
Lord McConnell said: “I think it was wrong, in the past, that the MPs had equal votes with the MSPs on the election of the leader in Scotland.
“And I think, where the constitution cannot be changed in advance of a leadership election this summer, I think for both the leadership election and the deputy leadership election, MPs should voluntarily and collectively – all of them – withdraw from the process and not nominate and not vote as MPs.”
Lord McConnell, Scotland’s longest-serving first minister to date, stood down as Scottish Labour leader after the SNP’s 2007 election victory.
He took his seat in the Lords in June last year after being given a peerage in Gordon Brown’s dissolution honours list.
His comments come after Labour leader Ed Miliband appointed three MPs to help review the party’s poor showing at last week’s Holyrood election.
Former Scottish secretary Jim Murphy, shadow Scottish Secretary Anne McKechin and Stirling MP Anne McGuire have been lined up to review the defeat.
However, former Labour MSP Pauline McNeill, who lost her Glasgow Kelvin seat to the SNP, said the review should be conducted by the party in Scotland.
Speaking after the election, Ms McNeill, who was defeated by the SNP in Glasgow Kelvin, said: “There is a perception, not always the reality, that Scottish Labour always looks to London and I think that Ed Miliband appointing three MPs really should be left to the Scottish Labour Party.
“If you want to remove that perception then you have to leave the space for the Scottish Labour Party to take that decision forward.”
Alex Salmond’s SNP achieved an unprecedented overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, taking 69 of the 129 seats at Holyrood.
Labour went down from 46 seats to 37, losing some of its most senior figures.
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