Labour MP Tom Harris has launched his leadership campaign by attacking MSPs for not supporting him.
The former journalist also claimed the party had ”abandoned” the north of Scotland in recent years and paid the price at the ballot box.
Labour failed to win any constituencies north of Dumbarton in the Holyrood election in May as the SNP won a landslide victory.
At his campaign launch in Edinburgh on Thursday, Mr Harris (47) said the party had become ”complacent” and too content to rely on its power base in the west coast of Scotland.
”We need to make sure that we reach out to people across the country and do not neglect a single part of the country,” he said.
Mr Harris, considered an underdog in the contest, also addressed the fact he has failed to win the backing of any MSPs in his bid to become the first unified leader of Scottish Labour. Previous leaders have only been in charge of the MSP group at the Scottish Parliament.
He said MSPs seemed willing to ”tolerate an MP standing in this contest” but ”have decided, collectively, that it would be unacceptable for an MP actually to win.”
He added: ”Given how serious our electoral position, it is discouraging that anyone could think it sensible to begin a search for a new leader by excluding more than half of parliamentarians eligible to vote in this contest.
”I am a Scottish politician. I represent a Glasgow constituency. I’m as Scottish as any other Scottish politician in my party as others.”
But Mr Harris defended the quality of the party’s current MSPs, rejecting the idea that Labour sent its best politicians to Westminster.
”I saw someone on television at the weekend talking about Labour’s B- or even C-team being sent to Holyrood, and that actually doesn’t stand up to any analysis whatsoever.”
Mr Harris said he supports the findings of the Calman Commission on the future of devolution but wants to take arguments over the constitution out of the ”front and centre” of Scottish politics.
He said: ”I want a standing commission, chaired by whoever, maybe Dr Calman himself, I don’t know, to keep devolution in all parts of the UK under constant review, to look at the evidence for any case for either re-reserving or newly devolving any powers.
”Allow them to get on with the job, and here’s the radical bit: I want Scottish politicians to actually use devolution and use the powers of the Scottish Parliament.”
MSPs Ken Macintosh and Johann Lamont are also running, with the result expected on December 17. Nominations for candidates close at noon today.
Photo Andrew Milligan/PA Wire