Overview
- Marra, the North East Scotland MSP, was elected on Saturday 19 September 2026 with 4,266 votes to Joe Fagan’s 2,485, winning roughly 63% while 49.4% of members took part in the ballot.
- The leadership contest was triggered by Anas Sarwar’s July resignation from Holyrood after accepting a peerage and joining Andy Burnham’s UK government as a trade minister.
- Marra has set an early reconnecting agenda, pledging to spend his first 100 days outside Holyrood engaging communities and to rebuild the party’s purpose and programme.
- He signalled pragmatic energy positions by backing approval for the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields and calling for the windfall tax to be reformed sooner than the planned 2030 timetable.
- Marra inherits a party that has declined at every Holyrood election to 17 MSPs, faces a dominant SNP and the independence question, and must unify factions and union supporters to show early delivery and regain ground.