Michael Marra defends telling Andy Burnham to 'shut up' amid 'experience' dig at Labour leadership rival
Michael Marra unveiled plans for further devolution to Scotland and collecting millions from supermarkets to fund extra addiction services provision.
The frontrunner to become the next Scottish Labour leader has insisted he does not regret telling Andy Burnham to “shut up” as he took a dig at his rival over a lack of experience.
Michael Marra was asked about his awkward comments, made during last year’s UK Labour conference, as speculation grew that Mr Burnham was poised to launch a bid to oust then prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Speaking at the time, Mr Marra called the speculation “a distraction”.
He added: “Anybody who is concerning themselves with this kind of stuff at the moment is neglecting the job that we’ve got in front of us.”
Addressing Mr Burnham’s potential takeover at the time, Mr Marra added: “I think he should shut up.”
The North East Scotland regional MSP doubled down on his comments when asked by journalists after delivering a keynote speech in Glasgow on how he intends to unite Scottish Labour after May’s dismal election results.
“Do I regret saying to Andy to ‘shut up’? No, I don’t”, Mr Marra said.
“I said that from a place of frustration, that I felt in a lot of the discussion that was ongoing around the UK leadership at the time, that this was a question of whether Scotland was being ignored in the vital election that we had ahead of us in 2026.
“I will continue to make the case to Andy, to anybody else in the UK Cabinet, that the interests of Scotland for me come first. First every time.”
Mr Marra used his keynote address to hit out at his rival for the top party job, Joe Fagan, over a lack of experience.
Whist Mr Marra was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2021 and has held frontbench positions at Holyrood, Mr Fagan’s only experience of politics before May is at a local council.
In an apparent dig at Mr Fagan, Mr Marra said: “Experience matters because Scotland cannot afford an opposition that has to learn from scratch.”
Mr Marra gave a scathing assessment of the election campaign run under Anas Sarwar’s leadership.
“Our anger at what the SNP has done to this country is genuine”, he said.
“But to the citizens of this country, it has appeared that we were more angry that the SNP took our jobs that we were at the pain the had to bear as a result of the SNP’s failures.”
Mr Marra used his speech to set out plans for “a new generation of devolution deals for Scotland’s regions”, claiming he could “broker the deal” with both the Scottish and UK governments.
It is understood areas including skills and the associated investment could be delivered under the plans on a regional rather than national priority basis, while existing regional strategies that brought forward the former city regional deals could be pushed forward.
He also suggested he would be open to deals with other parties in the Scottish local elections next year in stark contrast to the often-unworkable opposition to coalitions under Mr Sarwar’s leadership.
Mr Marra also vowed that “the wealthiest and the big corporations” could be asked “to pay their fair share” under his leadership.
He said that the SNP government’s minimum unit pricing has handed supermarkets “a windfall of tens of millions of pounds”.
Mr Marra said: “I’m proposing we claw that money back and spend it on alcohol and treatment services.
“Even a conservative estimate suggests we could raise an additional £50m per year. Almost a quarter of a billion pounds of additional investment into drugs and alcohol services funded by big business over the course of this parliament.
“If the SNP bring those proposals forward, the Scottish Labour party I lead will support it.”
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