Congratulations to Martin Docherty-Hughes on his election win last week.

Despite representing rival political parties, it is my privilege to know Martin and on a personal level. I wish him well over the next five years. May I also commiserate my Labour Party colleague, Jean Ann Mitchell. She worked her socks off attempting to secure a Labour MP for our area, but sometimes it is impossible to fight against a national tidal wave.

My opinion is that local issues were irrelevant in this election and people cast their vote according to their view on the two major issues of the day, Brexit and independence and until both issues are finally settled not much will change.

I became chair of Clydebank and Milngavie Labour Party a few months ago. I was so concerned with the direction of my party and our dismal European Election showing that I decided it was time to step forward and attempt to instigate change.

We in the Labour Party must learn lessons very quickly or we will become a political irrelevance in Scotland. Yes, in the end, Corbyn became an unpopular sell on the doorsteps. The ultra-left wing utopian manifesto became an unbelievable and absurd sell on the doorsteps.

The product offered in our shop window was rejected in 2017 and again in 2019. It’s stale and out of date. Changing the window dressing by changing the leader is pointless if we still try to flog the same product, fail to recognise this, and the shop may close, bankrupt of support. If you can’t see this leave my party and join or form your own socialist protest movement.

What we must do now is elect a leader who is prepared to lead a movement which consults our constituents on what issues Labour should be fighting for.

In Scotland, we start by agreeing Scotland has the right to determine its own future. We should support the move to transfer that power to the Scottish Parliament. If we are not on the right side of this issue, then again we have learned nothing from the election. Let’s have the referendum in 2020, get it over with finally, irrespective of the result, and then we can rebuild the Labour Party. Only a strong Labour Party can fix the mess this SNP government is making of our health service, education, local government, and the economy.