A former Scottish Labour MP has hit out at calls for her embattled party to embrace 'Home Rule' .

Sheila Gilmore, who lost her Edinburgh East seat at last year's General Election, said that Labour would not benefit from more constitutional wrangling.

What voters wanted was reassurance that Labour was not “wobbly” on independence, she said.

The party suffered a disastrous result in last week's Scottish Parliament elections, slumping to a humiliating third place behind the Conservatives.

Just days later deputy leader Alex Rowley blamed the defeat on a refusal to advocate Home Rule.

Former Labour first minister Henry McLeish has also weighed in, calling for Labour to develop a new plan for further devolution to be put to Scots in a new referendum, possibly alongside independence.

And Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, who was Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale's boss between 2007 and 2011, has called on the party to back a federal UK.

But Ms Gilmore suggested that Labour had suffered because voters were confused about where the party stood on independence.

The Tories seized on comments by Ms Dugdale that she would allow her party's MSPs to campaign for independence if there was a second vote.

She was also quoted in an interview with the Fabian Review as saying it was "not inconceivable" that she could back Scottish independence if it secured Scotland's EU membership.

She later said she would vote to stay in the UK in any future referendum.

Ms Gilmore categorically rejected the suggestion that Scottish Labour should embrace 'Home Rule'.

On the Labour Hame website she wrote: “Did Scotland move past the ‘constitutional question’ in this election? No. Does that mean we should embark on another period of bringing forward yet another set of changes, whether these are called ‘Home Rule’, ‘Devo Max’ or something else? I would argue not.”

She added: “In the constituencies where I was involved (mainly Edinburgh Southern but also Edinburgh Eastern) some people raised the constitutional question, but mainly to establish where Labour and our candidate stood. Did we want to see a second referendum? Had Labour gone ‘wobbly’ on independence?”

She went on: “Virtually no one was saying they wanted ‘more powers’ or ‘Devo Max’ or ‘Home Rule’ either explicitly or indirectly... A need for yet more powers simply did not figure.”

She warned her party that for many Yes voters, more devolution “will never be enough”.

Voters were noticing that services were "under great pressure," she wrote, but "clearly many... did not believe that we could make a difference."

She also warned it could be dangerous for Labour to change tack.

"We have argued for the increased powers now available because we believe that these can help us make real change and improvement in Scotland.

"Why start arguing now, even before these new powers have been tested, that these are not enough? That makes it sound as if we don’t really believe our own arguments."

Meanwhile, a new poll suggests that just one in three voters think the party will be a force in the future.

A poll by YouGov for The Times found that 36 per cent said that Scottish Labour was finished as a political party.

Another third, 34 per cent, said Labour was would stay and probably be important in a decade.

The rest did not know.

The poll, which was carried out before last week's Holyrood vote, found that even 12 per cent of those who intended to vote Labour predicted that the party would not last.

Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon said that Labour's "sheer and utter collapse" had been the "most significant" aspect of the election.