The general election may have been and gone but north of the border another fight is shaping up. The SNP has lost both members and support in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, the police probe into party finances and the party’s inability to find a new indyref strategy. Meanwhile, Scottish Labour under Anas Sarwar has seen its fortunes markedly improve – and even ex-SNP MPs have confessed to Mr S they see the group leader as the country’s next First Minister. How very curious…
Sarwar spent a lot of his time at Labour conference making moves around the 2026 Holyrood election. Speaking in Liverpool in conversation with Andrew Marr, the Scottish Labour leader tore into the current nationalist government. ‘I think people in Scotland have seen, in the past, politics in the SNP as more left-wing, or somewhere more liberal than the Labour party,’ Sarwar told his audience. ‘We very robustly challenge colleagues who sometimes think the SNP are just a Labour party with a saltire.’ The lefty Labour politician continued to blast the Nats, adding:
There is nothing left-wing about record levels of children that are homeless in temporary accommodation. There’s nothing left-wing about record levels of people that are sleeping rough on our streets.
There’s nothing left-wing about people being left to get justice in our criminal justice system for three years or more because of the backlogs in our courts. So anyone that wants to pretend that they somehow have liberal values more than us, or a more left-wing than us, I want to challenge judge them on their actions, judge them on their delivery, not on their rhetoric, because on their delivery they have failed Scotland and they have failed the potential of Scotland.
Ouch. No love lost there then…
‘A UK general election and Keir Starmer becoming Prime Minister was a stepping stone for Scottish Labour winning an election,’ the Scottish Labour leader acknowledged. ‘Our purpose is to deliver a fairer, more prosperous and more equal Scotland and a more prosperous United Kingdom.’ Sarwar’s voters may be persuaded by the equality line if his leaders didn’t, er, take thousands of pounds off donors to fund their lifestyles…
The Labour lot are breathing down the neck of the Nats in terms of projected vote share in 2026 – but a lot can change in 18 months. Will Sarwar’s pleas secure his party’s chances? Stay tuned…
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