Ken Macintosh launched his bid to become the new leader of Scottish Labour with a promise to change the way the party operates entirely.
The MSP said he would move Scottish Labour’s headquarters from Glasgow to Edinburgh as part of a “radical new direction of travel”.
If elected to the top job, he pledged he would be “less aggressive and adversarial”, and would instead be “more collaborative and co-operative”.
Mr Macintosh formally launched his leadership bid in East Kilbride, South Lanarkshire, telling party members: “I want to make it quite clear – I see myself as the change candidate.
“Yes, we could manage the situation we are in. We could lurch from election to election as we have done in the past. But I want to change the whole way the Labour Party operates.
“I want to move away from the machine politics of the past, to give the party back to its members and to the people we want to represent.”
The leadership election was sparked by the resignation of Jim Murphy, who stood down from the post in the wake of the general election which saw Labour virtually wiped out in Scotland by the SNP.
Mr Macintosh said: “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but the loss of so many of our MP colleagues means we can start afresh.
“We can rebuild without the hierarchy of interests, power and control that have troubled our party in the past.”
The MSP for Eastwood, who has been in Holyrood since it was set up in 1999, said he would adopt a “different model of leadership” that was “not autocratic or dictatorial”.
He added: “I want us to stop defining ourselves by our opposition to the SNP, to the Tories, or for that matter to the referendum, and talk positively about Scotland’s future, about the good society we want to build.
“Even the language I use will be different. I believe that if you want to create a decent, compassionate and kind society, then you have to demonstrate that same decency, that same compassion and that same kindness in your language and behaviour.
“We need to be more generous in defeat, less tribal, less partisan – and more open to working with others, more willing to build a progressive alliance across traditional political divides.
“Those are the values I will bring to the leadership of the Labour Party and it is an approach that I believe will allow us to win back that trust we have lost, that will allow us to win again.”
Scottish Labour has already made changes, moving to a system of one member one vote for the first time for the leadership election.
Father-of-six Mr Macintosh said moving the party HQ to Edinburgh “reflected that the focus of political attention in Scotland is Holyrood”.
While he said he wanted the party to remain part of UK Labour, he also stressed that control would rest with members north of the border.
If elected leader, he said he would “begin discussions immediately with Labour colleagues at a UK level to redefine and formalise our relationship”.
Mr Macintosh added: “I want us to be an autonomous party here in Scotland, but one which makes a positive choice to remain part of the UK Labour Party.
“We will be entirely in charge of our own affairs and our own decision-making, but it is important to us that we have a partnership of equals with party colleagues in the rest of the UK.”
While the party headquarters would move, responsibility for campaigning and membership would be handed down to eight regions.
Under his proposals, Labour would have an elected chair who would be part of the cabinet “as a permanent voice of the membership”.
His Labour cabinet would also include at least one councillor and he said all elected politicians in the party – MPs, MSPs, MEPs and councillors – would be treated equally.
Mr Macintosh stressed: “I want to broaden our appeal, not narrowly focus on an ever-declining audience of Scots with so-called traditional Labour values.
“Not solely concentrate on former industrial heartlands in the central belt, but reach out to every place and part of Scotland.”