Sarwar is no better than Starmer or Swinney

THE TROUBLE with Labour is one of trust. Sir Keir Starmer has shown us that Labour cannot be trusted. So much that was said in the run up to the 2024 general election, on issues such as Waspi women, protecting the pensioners winter fuel allowance, and not raising taxes of working people, proved that such promises are nothing more than mere mood music.

Why should Anas Sarwar be any more trustworthy than Starmer?

Other than on the question of secession, Anas Sarwar’s Labour is no different from the SNP — it’s just a different cheek of the same grotesque face of the broken Scottish state. Labour’s instinct is to throw more money we do not have at every problem it has helped to create in the belief that the lack of funds is the root cause of poorer outcomes compared with those others enjoy.

Both parties also instinctively turn to introducing more regulations that add costs, reduce productivity and repress initiative. These demands all require more unaccountable state institutions to police them and more taxes to fill the black holes that percolate through our public finances.

Why did Sarwar not resign on the basis of his misjudged old friendship with Peter Mandelson?

Sure, Sarwar has called for the prime minister to resign and be replaced, but with what in his place? The most likely winner in any contest of current ministers would be Ed Miliband — is a Net Zero fanatic who is committed to destroying our oil and gas industry really acceptable to Sarwar?

Of those MPs who would be popular among Labour members Angela Rayner is the bookies’ favourite — is the financially confused former minister and deputy leader really acceptable to Sarwar?

Closer to the truth is that the reality of Labour in government is unpalatable to the public because the challenging realities of real life, rather than fantasy student union politics, require hard decisions. Starmer has made many poor decisions, but what upsets people is that they are often the polar opposite of what he said he would do. Once in No.10, Starmer and his Chancellor, Reeves found they could not make their numbers work to deliver on many of the promises they had made. If it were Miliband or Rayner or even Andy Burnham, they too would have found the same problem, and would still face it in future.

Any Labour alternative would have had to change their priorities, so what really is Anas Sarwar saying – that what is needed is someone to the left of Starmer? Someone should be in charge who has even less of a grasp of the economic realities facing a country that has been running annual deficits since 2003 and has been growing the national debt?

A country that cannot defend its own military bases and needs the French and Spanish navies to come to the rescue of RAF Akrotiri?

The PM’s misjudgement on Peter Mandelson’s appointment was just one of many examples that have turned people against Labour in Scotland.

Sarwar’s own ditching of his boss fails to recognise the rot in Labour goes far deeper than that.

It is hypocritical in the extreme for Anas Sarwar to have called for Starmer to go on the grounds of his misjudgement in appointing Peter Mandelson – when it was Sarwar himself who, on 5 April 2025, posted on his social media “X” account, “It was great to catch up with my old friend and the UK’s (relatively!) new Ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson @UKinUSA” — alongside a photo of them both smiling and shaking hands.

Calling Peter Mandelson “my old friend” is just the sort of phrase Mandelson would use to describe Jeffrey Epstein. What about that misjudgement, Anas Sarwar? Why did Sarwar not resign on the basis of his misjudged old friendship with Peter Mandelson?

The truth is Starmer and Sarwar are joined at the hip; neither can wash their hands of their association with old friends.

Where else is Anas Sarwar confused or displaying misjudgement? Does Sarwar support the puberty blocker tests that Wes Streeting has “paused” but refused to cancel in England? Sarwar certainly didn’t back their ban in 2024, would he ban any such trial in Scotland now? Is he any different from Streeting or Starmer on this issue?

can Anas Sarwar really be trusted not to give in to nationalist demands to have another independence referendum?

Having previously backed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill that the SNP put through parliament in 2022 that would give legal legitimacy to male sex offenders being in women’s prisons, he has since accepted he was wrong. He now claims to be against the changes that were only denied when the Scottish Secretary Alister Jack used a Section 35 Order to halt royal assent of the Bill. Sarwar opposed the use of the Section 35, and argued it should be rescinded, which would have meant it would have become law, but Starmer chose not to oppose it and the Bill never became an Act. Starmer was right and Sarwar was wrong — who was more in touch with the Scottish people on that occasion?

Even now Anas Sarwar remains under pressure on the gender issue within his party and would still feel that pressure in Holyrood. Last year the Scottish Labour Conference delivered a slap in the face to Sarwar by voting to reject a motion he supported that backed single-sex spaces in Scottish schools based on biology rather than claimed gender. When it comes to trusting the flip-flopping Sarwar, which of the two opinions he has supported on biological sex should we believe?

And can Anas Sarwar really be trusted not to give in to nationalist demands to have another independence referendum? Shut out of power since 2007 — nineteen barren years for politicians that believed Labour was the natural party of government in Scotland — they are desperate to be in power. What would Sarwar not trade to be in power, even if only as a minority partner?

When the post-election negotiations begin, as they inevitably have on every occasion except 2011 when Alex Salmond won his majority outright, how can we be certain Swinney will not seek to woo Sarwar into a grand coalition that forms an impenetrable majority — but with a referendum as part of the bargain?

The opinion polls are in a state of flux, with the latest polling showing either Labour (IPSOS on Wednesday) or Reform (Survation on Thursday) being in second place – the latter putting Reform second in 54 of the 73 constituencies. A larger sample in an MRP poll by Stonehaven at the end of February put Reform comfortably in second place and in contention against the SNP to win a handful of constituencies.

With two months to go there is everything to play for. Labour coming third in Scotland would be personally disastrous for Sarwar and would invite calls for him to resign his leadership of Scottish Labour. Taking it all in the round, after 7 May the chances are high that it will be Anas Sarwar who resigns his position first, long before Keir Starmer has to resign his.