SNP is not ‘Labour with a saltire’, fumes Sarwar

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.’