LABOUR’S sole MP in Scotland is "exploring the possibilities" of running to be his party's next deputy leader to provide a "strong Scottish anchor”.
Ian Murray, who represents Edinburgh South, has written to fellow Labour MPs seeking their opinion on such a move.
With the party seeking a new UK leader and deputy following Jeremy Corbyn's second General Election defeat, the 43-year-old politician declared: "I know how to build large coalitions of voters to win and that is what the Labour Party has to do again."
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Mr Murray was the only one of seven sitting Labour MPs in Scotland to survive the SNP landslide; repeating a similar situation in 2015.
In a letter he set out his pitch, pledging to help reform the party and insisting that Labour must "grasp the nettle of major constitutional reform".
Work in this area could start while the party was in opposition, he argued, saying if he became deputy leader he would take personal responsibility for setting up a UK-wide constitutional convention "that looks at how we govern the UK from the former coalfield town and metropolitan city regions to the rural areas and our four nations".
Mr Murray, a prominent supporter for Remain, has been a vocal critic of Mr Corbyn; he survived a bid to deselect him as Labour candidate for the constituency in the run-up to the election.
He said he was considering running because "constitutional and Nationalist issues are engulfing our politics".
READ MORE: Ian Murray testing Labour waters over possible bid to become party's deputy leader
The Scot continued: “The Labour Party has ducked this issue for too long. English Nationalism from the Tories and Scottish Nationalism from the SNP are squeezing the Labour Party and we must stop it. "
Mr Murray also stressed Labour needed a "strong Scottish anchor" to show that "everyone knows that Scotland is taken seriously by the UK party".
He added: “The starting point must be that the Labour Party can only ever win again when it speaks to the whole of the country and Scotland plays a key part in that.”
However, as the leadership and deputy leadership are now decided by the party membership, which is still regarded as heavily Corbynite, the Edinburgh MP’s chances of success look slim.
Meanwhile, Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, will be one of those to head up a major inquest into the party's disastrous election result.
The review, set up by Labour Together, will include interviewing all 59 MPs who lost their seats during the crumbling of Labour's so-called "red wall" of constituencies across northern England and the Midlands.
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