Why Anas Sarwar is succeeding

Few politicians had a better 2023 than Anas Sarwar. The Scottish Labour leader began last year with his party still in the doldrums, languishing behind a seemingly impregnable SNP led by a seemingly indefatigable Nicola Sturgeon.

A resignation, a camper van, and an incompetent successor later, and that has all changed. Scottish Labour is now in the ascendency and looking towards the coming general election in not with its normal trepidation, but with newfound relish. That much, at least, was clear from Sarwar’s speech – notionally kickstarting the party’s general election campaign – earlier this week (MON). 

As in the rest of the UK, Scottish Labour is not awash with substance or inundated with ideas. Sarwar identified a lot of problems in his speech, but fewer solutions. Where he does have the right plan, delivery is vague. He promised economic growth would be Scottish Labour’s ‘first priority’, but there was little sense of how that particular holy grail would be found.