Murray and Allin-Khan join race to become Labour’s deputy leader

Ian Murray has been critical of Jeremy Corbyn and used his own victory speech at the general election to criticise the leadership for helping to deliver “the worst Conservative prime minister in history”.

Announcing his deputy leadership bid, he said Labour would need to “beat the odds” to win another election and reiterated his stark view of the previous campaign.

He said: “The architects of the party’s catastrophic failure in 2019 cannot be allowed to be the architects of the response.

“The next leadership team must turn us into an election-winning machine that uses the skills and talents of all our members and supporters to succeed.

“To win again we will need to beat the odds, and I know how to win by building broad coalitions of support.

“The Labour Party must change. We must be honest with ourselves so we can be honest with the voters.

“Looking to the past will only prolong our years in the wilderness and put our country at risk.

“We must become a credible alternative government of the future, not a protest movement of the past.

“That’s how we lift millions of children, families and pensioners out of poverty again.”

In a piece for the Daily Mirror, Murray also wrote: “I never again want to feel like I did at 10pm on the night of the general election.”

He joins shadow sport minister Rosena Allin-Khan to announce her intention to run in the race.

Dr Allin-Khan, the MP for Tooting who still works as a practising A&E doctor, said the party needed to listen with “humility” to voters who abandoned the party at last month’s general election.

“It is vital that we restore trust in the Labour Party across the country. It is clear that people did not trust us – we need to accept this fact, evaluate it, and learn from it in order to move forward,” she said.

“We cannot put words into people’s mouths. Our path back to power involves listening with humility to those former Labour voters who have abandoned the party.

“I believe my life experience means I can help our movement do this. As a doctor, I cannot guess or assume what is wrong with a patient – I have to listen to their symptoms and investigate the root causes.

“This is what we must do as a party, and is what I will do as deputy leader.”

They are up against shadow education secretary Angela Rayner, shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, shadow equalities secretary Dawn Butler and shadow Europe minister Khalid Mahmood.