Educated at the Bayble School in Point, Outer Hebrides and Nicolson Institute, Stornoway, he went on to graduate from the University of Edinburgh with MA Honours in History and Politics.
During the 1980s, MacDonald was a Teaching Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for three years where he also gained his PhD in Political Philosophy.
MacDonald's published journalism (The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, the Glasgow Herald and the New Statesman) include articles on: Northern Ireland; the Balkans; Russia; links between Labour and the Liberal Democrats; Voting Reform; the Debate on Clause IV, etc.
Between 1991 and 1995, he was a leading campaigner for Western military intervention in the former Yugoslavia and a persistent critic of the-then Government's policy.
A europhile, he was one of only five Labour MPs to vote for the Third Reading of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, defying his party Whip to abstain.