Buoyant Sarwar pleads with PM to do more for Scots after by-election triumph

Scottish Sun

6 hours ago

Scottish Labour leader Anas has urged Sir Keir to make the lives of Scots better to give him an 'easier' run into the 2026 Holyrood election.
MUST DELIVER Buoyant Sarwar pleads with PM to do more for Scots after by-election triumph
ANAS Sarwar has told Sir Keir Starmer he 'must do more' to help him convert the stunning Hamilton by-election win into kicking the SNP out of power.
The Scottish Labour leader admitted the Prime Minister's rocky start to life in No10 had not been good enough on a number of fronts.
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Anas Sarwar leader of Scottish Labour with by-election winner Davy Russell, right, and the party's deputy leader Jackie Baillie, left
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Sir Keir Starmer
And he urged Sir Keir to make the lives of Scots better to give him an 'easier' run into the 2026 Holyrood election.
But Mr Sarwar — still 'buzzing' after Davy Russell's narrow victory in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse — insisted: 'Scotland is one step closer to changing the SNP government, from booting them from office and electing a Scottish Labour government. But we still have got hard work to do.
"Keir Starmer knows what he has to do as Prime Minister to improve the lives of people here in Scotland and across the UK, and he knows he has to do more, and demonstrably more, over the course of the next year.
'I want a UK Labour government to deliver for people in Scotland, and the context of that, of course, makes conversations and makes campaigns easier.
'And they recognise that they have to do more to improve people's lives.'
His comments come after Scottish Labour — relegated to third place by the bookies and political commentators before last Thursday's vote — surged to victory over the SNP and Reform UK.
And in an exclusive interview with The Scottish Sun on Sunday, Mr Sarwar said: 'I want to earn the right to be in government, earn the right to be First Minister.
'I want to earn the right to change the direction of our country. And that's what I'm going to try hard to do.'
Mr Sarwar had cut a despondent figure in recent months after seeing his party plummet in the polls after being neck-and-neck with the Nats last year.
Recent surveys before the by-election confirmed a slump from a high of 37 per cent in the constituency vote to 19 per cent, and from 34 per cent in the regional list stats to 18 per cent.
Anas Sarwar reacts to Labour's shock win and reveals why voters backed the party
Meanwhile the SNP has barely shifted from 33 per cent and 28 per cent support in the respective measures.
The dip came after Labour trounced the Nats in last July's General Election, returning 37 MPs to Westminster after previous near wipeouts in Scotland in 2015 and 2019.
Mr Sarwar struggled to defend the UK Labour government's decisions, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves axing winter fuel payments for pensioners and raising employer National Insurance contributions — which experts say heightened discontent.
But he was visibly energised from the by-election win when he spoke to us after his party secured 31.6 per cent of the Hamilton vote compared to the SNP's 29.4 per cent.
Mr Sarwar — who has clashed publicly and privately with Sir Keir — admitted it had been a 'challenging number of months'. He added: 'We have to have a clearer demonstration from a UK Labour government that we are improving the lives of people here in Scotland. I make no bones about that. In fairness to Keir Starmer, he makes no bones about that too. He accepts that that has to happen.'
But Mr Sarwar now feels able to turn his fire on First Minister John Swinney — and also have a pop at political pundits. He said: 'I've never felt that the underlying fundamentals have changed. I've always believed they were still good for us and very bad for the SNP.
'What was deeply frustrating, and actually the by-election has helped in this, is there was this overlaying theory amongst the political commentariat and pollsters that everything was framed around a UK Labour government. What John Swinney has tried to do over the course of the last ten or 11 months is he has very deliberately retreated from the real public debate, just withdrawn anything meaningful from the government, so they just go quiet and hope the public only focus on a UK Labour government and therefore he sneaks in through the back door.
'I think that's his entire strategy. But it's burst. It's done. He's not got it. The SNP's finished.
'The question now is what replaces them.
'And ultimately that's only the Scottish Labour Party.'