In the opening scene of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano famously complains that he feels he “came in at the end” and that “the best is over”. Michael Marra might be forgiven for feeling something similar as he becomes the 11th Scottish Labour leader of the devolution era.
Marra was elected on Saturday, defeating Joe Fagan by 4,266 votes to 2,485 - a 63 per cent to 37 per cent margin - from 6,751 valid votes. Turnout was 49.4 per cent among members and 5.2 per cent among affiliated supporters, the party’s modest membership of barely 11,000 serving to emphasise its travails.
Marra’s immediate message, understandably, was one of rebuilding. Marra acknowledged that Labour had failed to persuade voters that it offered a sufficiently compelling alternative to the SNP and set three broad but somewhat nebulous priorities for his first year: reopening and reconnecting the party with Scotland, developing a new programme for government, and finding ways to deliver change before the next Holyrood election in 2031.
More interestingly, he doubled-down on early indications that he intends to take a distinct position from the UK Government where Scottish interests are concerned. Marra - the first Scottish Labour leader from north of the Central Belt - has backed the development of both the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields and said he will press Prime Minister Andy Burnham to approve the projects, putting jobs and the Scottish economy at the centre of his argument.
Nevertheless, the scale of his challenge remains substantial. Labour returned just 17 MSPs in May, its worst Holyrood result, compared with 58 for the SNP. At Westminster, however, Labour continues to hold 37 Scottish seats, meaning Marra leads a party whose Scottish parliamentary strength is currently greater in London than Edinburgh.
That creates both an opportunity and a risk. Marra can potentially use Labour’s large Scottish Westminster group to influence government policy, while avoiding being defined entirely by the fortunes of the Burnham administration. Anas Sarwar’s experience demonstrated how quickly political difficulties in Downing Street can become a liability for Scottish Labour.
The longer-term test will be whether Marra can turn his promise to “reconnect” Labour with Scotland into substantive organisational and policy change. His victory speech points towards a broader electoral offer, greater localism, and a renewed economic and industrial focus, but rebuilding credibility after successive defeats will be a multi-year project.
If this new leader cannot succeed where so many others have failed, it may well be that the best really is over for Scottish Labour.