A former minister in Tony Blair’s government is seeking to make a comeback at Westminster, almost a decade after losing his seat. Sources confirmed to the Guardian last month that Douglas Alexander, who held three cabinet positions under Blair and Gordon Brown, had submitted his application to be the party’s candidate in East Lothian. On Sunday he announced his selection to stand as Labour’s candidate there in the next general election. “He’s running! Humbled and grateful to be overwhelmingly selected today by local party members as Scottish Labour’s candidate for East Lothian,” Alexander tweeted. “Change is coming to our country and I’m determined to play my part by winning East Lothian back for Scottish Labour.” Alexander dramatically lost his Paisley and Renfrewshire seat to the SNP’s Mhairi Black at the 2015 election, when Labour was left with only one MP in Scotland. Black at the time was a 20-year-old student. The East Lothian seat is now held by the former Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, who left the SNP to join Alex Salmond’s Alba party. Allies believe that Alexander, a Brown protege, could bring valuable experience of government if the party wins the next general election, amid concerns that only two shadow cabinet members – Yvette Cooper and Ed Miliband – have held cabinet jobs. The East Lothian constituency will be one of Scottish Labour’s top targets when the next Westminster election is fought, with Alexander saying he was “humbled and grateful” to be chosen for the contest. Other well-known figures who held cabinet posts in the last Labour government, including David Miliband and Ed Balls, have also been the subject of speculation regarding a potential return to Westminster. Miliband, who quit his South Shields seat in 2013 to take up a role running the International Rescue Committee, an aid charity in New York, fuelled speculation last month that he could return to the UK before the next election when he said: “That has not been decided yet. That has not been done.” Alexander is understood to have the support of senior Labour figures close to Keir Starmer who regard him more favourably than Miliband because he fought – and lost – his seat in the 2015 election, while the former foreign secretary quit Westminster in 2013, prompting a byelection. His candidacy comes more than 25 years after he was first elected to the Commons, winning the then safe Labour seat of Paisley South in a byelection in November 1997. After his role in helping to coordinate Labour’s successful election campaign in 2001, he was made a junior minister in Blair’s government, serving in various roles before being made transport secretary and Scottish secretary in 2006. When Brown became prime minister in 2007, he appointed Alexander as his international development secretary. • This article was amended on 14 February 2023 to clarify that the seat now held by Kenny MacAskill is East Lothian, not Paisley and Renfrewshire as an earlier version may have suggested.