General Election 2019: Ian Murray says Labour must 'adapt or die'

Labour's sole Scottish MP, Ian Murray, has said his party must adapt or die, while Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said the results were "deeply disappointing".

Ian Murray delivered a warning to his party after remaining the sole Labour MP in Scotland.

Labour lost the six seats they had gained at the 2017 election, leaving the Edinburgh South constituency the only one in the party's hands again.

Today Mr Leonard said that his party needed to "have a look at what we said about Brexit, what we said about the whole constitutional question in Scotland”.

But Mr Murray, who won with a majority of just over 11,000, said the issue was not the party's stance on Brexit, but Jeremy Corbyn and that the party needed to "change course and fast". He said: "Every door I knocked on, and my team - and I spoke to 11,000 people - mentioned Corbyn. Not Brexit but Corbyn. I’ve been saying this for years.

"The outcome is that we’ve let the country down and we must change course and fast."

Speaking after his win he added: "This party must listen and this party must respond or this party will die.

"The saddest indictment of this general election campaign is the delivery of a Conservative majority government with the worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen.

"We are not just letting down the Labour Party we are letting down the millions of people right across the four nations of this nation by not even having a credible opposition never mind a credible alternative government.

"For the sake of the country, not only does the person have to go but the policy and the ideology has to go as well.

"People told us on the doorstep what the problem and we didn't respond.

"I have said directly to Jeremy and I say it again now, if you don't want to listen to your colleagues and other people in the Labour movement the public will have their say and they have their say tonight."

This morning Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said the results were “deeply disappointing”.

He said Labour had “tried to talk about what we felt were important things”, as regretted that the party had lost MPs such as Danielle Rowley to the SNP in Midlothian.

Labour’s Ged Killen also lost his Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat to the SNP, while former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill won the East Lothian constituency from Martin Whitfield. Labour's Shadow Scottish Secretary Lesely Laird lost to Neale Hanvey, who had been an SNP candidate until the party suspended him for anti-Semitic Facebook posts. The Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill seat also went to the SNP, as did Glasgow North East.

Mr Leonard said he was sorry for the candidates and added: “More than that I am sorry for all those kids in all those families who are going to live for another five years in poverty when we had a chance in this election to make a real difference to people’s lives.

He said Labour had attempted to campaign on key issues such as the “rise in poverty and inequality, the squeeze on public services like the National Health Service that we have experienced over the last decade”.

“I think there is no doubt we said we wanted to get through the din of Brexit and the constitutional issue in Scotland and I just don’t think we were able to do that sufficiently and effectively enough.

“We need to reflect on that and learn the lessons from that.”