Scottish Labour Leader Jim Murphy To Resign After Surviving No-Confidence Vote

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has announced that he will resign next month. The announcement came despite Murphy surviving a vote of no confidence at a meeting of the party's national executive in Glasgow. Murphy also said that he will offer a plan to reform the party alongside his resignation.

Murphy lost his seat to the SNP candidate Kirsten Oswald last week in the general election. He said he would like to have a successor as leader of Scottish Labour in place by the summer. Murphy revealed he decided to stand down ahead of the national executive vote, which went narrowly in his favor, 17-14.

Murphy said he loved Scottish Labour and wanted to leave it with an agenda of reform. He said he left no legacy of bitterness for anyone in the Labour Party, and that the only person he was angry at was the one who blamed Scottish Labour for the party's UK-wide general election defeat. This is believed to be a reference to Unite leader Len Mccluskey.

Murphy was appointed to the post as Scottish Labour's leader in December 2014, following the resignation Johann Lamont. Scottish Labour now has one MP in Scotland, Ian Murray MP in Edinburgh South, after losing 40 seats to the SNP.