Blair McDougall (born 3 June 1978) is a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

Labour Party politician and former political adviser who has served as the Member of Parliament for

East Renfrewshire East Renfrewshire (; ) is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It was formed in 1996, as a successor to the Eastwood (district), Eastwood district of the Strathclyde region. The northeastern part of the council area is close to Glasgow and ma ...

since

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

. He is best known as head strategist to the Better Together campaign during the

2014 Scottish independence referendum A independence referendum, referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held in Scotland on 18 September 2014. The referendum question was "Should Scotland be an independent country?", which voters answered with "Yes" or ...

Career

He was educated at the

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

, where as chair of the Labour Club he was

Ross Kemp Ross James Kemp (born 21 July 1964) is an English actor, author, and television presenter. He rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. His other roles include Graham Lodsworth in ''Emmerdale'' and ...

's campaign manager during the 1999 Rectorial election. He went on to serve as chair of

Scottish Labour Students Scottish Labour Students (SLS) is a student society affiliated to Scottish Labour, and part of the UK wide organisation Labour Students. It aims to bring Labour values to campuses and represent students within the Labour Party throughout Sco ...

from 2001 to 2003 before becoming a

special adviser Special adviser may refer to: *Special adviser (Norway), a high-ranking civil servant *Special adviser (UK) A Special Adviser, also known as a SpAd, is a temporary civil servant who advises and assists UK government ministers or ministers in th ...

Ian McCartney Sir Ian McCartney (born 25 April 1951) is a British Labour Party politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Makerfield from 1987 to 2010. McCartney served in Tony Blair's Cabinet from 2003 until 2007, when Gordon Brown became Prim ...

, Minister for Trade, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and

James Purnell James Mark Dakin Purnell (born 2 March 1970) is a British former broadcasting executive and Labour Party politician who served as a Cabinet minister in the Brown Government from 2007 to 2009. In October 2016, he became the BBC's Director of ...

, Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport in the governments of

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He was Leader ...

and

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...

. In 2006 he took the post of Youth Representative on Labour's National Executive Committee. Between September 2009 and July 2010, as part of an initiative led by

, McDougall worked for Rwandan president

Paul Kagame Paul Kagame ( ; born 23 October 1957) is a Rwandan politician and former military officer who has been the President of Rwanda since 2000. He was previously a commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel armed force which invaded ...

as an "adviser on governance and strategic communications". Following Labour's defeat at the 2010 general election, McDougall coordinated

David Miliband David Wright Miliband (born 15 July 1965) is the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the International Rescue Committee and a former British Labour Party politician. He was the Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010 and the Member o ...

's unsuccessful campaign for the party leadership. He became Campaign Director of Better Together in 2012. After the No vote in the referendum on 18 September 2014, McDougall explained a key element of success had been regular and rigorous voter research and message testing. In 2014, he was appointed to an advisory role in

Jim Murphy James Francis Murphy (born 23 August 1967) is a Scottish former politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2014 to 2015 and Secretary of State for Scotland from 2008 to 2010. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for East R ...

's successful campaign for the Scottish Labour leadership. Murphy subsequently lost his seat to the SNP in the 2015 general election. In April 2017, McDougall was confirmed as the Scottish Labour candidate for Murphy's former constituency of

in the 2017 general election. He came third in that election, with 26.7% of the vote, a fall in the Labour vote of over 7 points as compared with the 2015 election, in which Murphy came second with 34% of the vote. In January 2020, Labour MP

Jess Phillips Jessica Rose Phillips (; born 9 October 1981) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. A member of the Labour Party, she has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for S ...

hired McDougall as Scotland adviser for her unsuccessful leadership campaign. McDougall announced in July 2023 that he was running to be the Labour candidate for

at the

2024 United Kingdom general election The 2024 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 4 July 2024 to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons. The opposition Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, won a lan ...

. He was elected as MP for East Renfrewshire after beating incumbent Kirsten Oswald. According to his register of members interests, McDougall worked "as a consultant delivering international governance aid programmes for democratic activists in Belarus, Kosovo and Serbia", on behalf of the

National Democratic Institute The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is a non-profit American non-governmental organization whose stated mission is to "support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability". It is ...

from February to April 2024. He also worked as a consultant for the East West Management Institute, based in Georgia, USA. McDougall is the chair of the Stop Uyghur Genocide Charity.

Personal life

McDougall is married to Mary and has two children.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDougall, Blair Living people 1978 births Scottish activists Alumni of the University of Glasgow Place of birth missing (living people) Scottish Labour politicians Scottish special advisers Scottish Labour parliamentary candidates Scottish Labour MPs UK MPs 2024–present British Zionists