If you’re a Scottish Labour member in Scotland, you will be very acutely aware you have just over 12 hours left to make you choice for the Regional List Selections for the upcoming Scottish Parliament Elections. I think that this, more than the Scottish Leadership Election, is the vote that will mould the party and decide whether over the course of he next Parliament we shape history or become it.

Our next crop of MSPs will overwhelmingly come from the regional list (though I hereby declare that I will repeat my feat of running around the Emirates Arena if Jackie or Daniel hold their seats). So that’s why this decision is so important. In Glasgow we have a busy field – but for me, there is someone who I so obviously a part of Labour’s future in Scotland that we’d deserve all that came to us if we decided not to send them to Holyrood! If you’re still undecided, I want to tell you why you should put EVA MURRAY right at the top of your list.

To put it bluntly – Eva gets things done. It’s easy to claim experience in a Selection contest. But real experience, experience that counts and experience that matters to the people we should be representing as a party isn’t about giving speeches to camera or having run in an election campaign before. It’s experience in standing along side and supporting the causes that matter to the people you represent – and getting results. Whether that’s standing up for LGBT+ voices, fighting for a better transport to serve communities; supporting and calling for much needed money for our public services; and standing by the 3rd Sector who stepped up when we needed them, but the SNP were ready to abandon. All these things that matter to communities – Eva has done.

When people show you who they are, you should believe them. More often than not this is meant as a warning – in this case, I offer it as counsel. Weeks before lockdown was announced last March, Eva was already out in her Council Ward, working with the 3rd Sector, with key community groups, identifying needs and those who be able to help out. Because that’s what she does. She was identifying those who could help others – and helping them do just that. It’s not for nothing that the G13/G14 Community Hub that followed became an award winning project! With our response to the COVID-19 crisis likely to dominate the next Parliament, regardless of its hue – how can we not have someone who has been involved since the very beginning help shape the Labour approach?

This itself, it could be argued, would have been enough. Just setting it up and then saying to the community “This is yours now” would have been enough – but, by my reckoning, Eva was at the Community Support Hub every single day during the first lockdown. Still fielding calls and e-mail from constituents and working as hard as every councillor should, but also helping to organise and deliver literally thousands of food parcels and meals to hundreds of people all across the North West of the city. It’s a cliché in these selections to say that we need people “rooted in our communites” to take us forward – so often, those roots are thin. Eva’s connection with her community and with her city are deep and broad. We would be foolish to overlook them.

We say that Labour needs to reconnect with our local causes elect community champions! Now, is our time to do it, and there’s no better person to do it with!

You don’t have to wait til February to shape Labour’s Future in Scotland – you can #MakeItMurray and do it now in Glasgow!