Anas Sarwar takes Scottish Labour Party from oblivion to brink of power

The pop anthem booming out of the tannoy as Anas Sarwar emerged at his party’s annual conference in February was “Unstoppable,” by the Australian star Sia.

Sarwar, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party and undoubted rising star of Holyrood politics, bounded on to the stage, engulfed by strobe lighting and cheered to the rafters by supporters. “My, has Scottish politics changed,” he boomed. “Scottish Labour — back on the pitch, and winning again.”

Few could have seen the moment coming, even a year before.

Scottish Labour — the sister party of Keir Starmer’s London-based U.K. Labour — has been in the doldrums for years, having lost 40 of its 41 Westminster seats in a disastrous 2015 wipeout.

Instead the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) has dominated Scottish politics for almost two decades, reaching impossible heights under the leadership of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. The SNP has run Scotland’s devolved government since 2007, and held the vast majority of Scottish seats in the House of Commons since 2015.

But over his three years as leader, Sarwar has dragged Scottish Labour back from oblivion — and seemingly to the brink of power.

His party is now widely tipped to end the SNP’s stranglehold in Scotland when Britain goes to the polls in the general election on July 4. In nine of the 11 Scotland-only opinion polls since the election was called, Scottish Labour has led the SNP. It stands a serious chance of becoming the largest party in Scotland for the first time in almost a decade.

Sarwar believes the result will act as a springboard for an even bigger win. Scots go to the polls for Scottish parliament elections in May 2026 — and Sarwar is now seen as a first-minister-in-waiting, the man who could end 19 years of pro-independence government in Holyrood.

On the face of it, he looks an unlikely figure to lead a Scottish revolution. Sarwar is actually a dentist by trade, and only turned 40 last year. A second-generation Scottish-Asian, his initial attempt at Westminster politics ended in failure. He was one of the many Scottish Labour MPs swept away in the 2015 landslide.

But Sarwar is steeped in grand political tradition.

It’s a tradition that stems from Faisalabad — the city in the Punjab, Pakistan, where his father, Mohammed Sarwar, was born.

Sarwar Sr.

Whatever heights Sarwar Jr. ascends to, he is unlikely to ever reach the fame of his dad. Mohammed Sarwar boasts four times as many X followers as his son and the four other main party leaders in Scotland put together.

Sarwar Sr. is a big player in the politics of Pakistan. Until recently he served as the governor of Punjab, which with a population of 110 million people stands as Pakistan’s second largest province. (Scotland has a population of 5.5 million people.)

Mohammed Sarwar was relieved of his post in 2022, by the former PM Imran Khan’s government — just weeks before Khan himself was removed in a no-confidence vote.

Before that, Sarwar Sr. lived in Glasgow, Scotland, emigrating in the 1970s. After making his name as a campaigning councillor and businessman, he became the U.K.’s first ever Muslim MP after narrowly defeating a young SNP candidate — one Nicola Sturgeon — in the Glasgow Govan constituency at the 1997 general election.

This was the household in which the young Sarwar grew up. The boy was steeped in politics from the moment he could talk.

One ex-police officer in Scotland — speaking on condition of anonymity to talk freely, like several others quoted in this article — recalled working with Sarwar’s father in the late 1990s to bring home two Asian girls who were abducted from Glasgow and taken to Pakistan.

The rescue attempt was successful (and widely covered in the press), and at a celebration afterward at the Sarwar family home, the policeman recalled being introduced by Sarwar Sr. to a small boy of about 13. “This is my son, Anas,” he said.

Anas Sarwar’s schoolmate, and former Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf’s sudden political demise is only the latest twist of good fortune for Sarwar. | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

For the younger Sarwar, such privilege was mixed with intense challenge. He has opened up in the past about his “first political experience,” aged 12, when he opened a letter to find a mocked-up picture of his mother tied to a chair, two guns pointed at her head. Large cut-out letters on the page read: “Bang bang — that’s all it takes.” Abuse and racism have long followed Sarwar and his family around Scotland.

At that time Sarwar was attending one of Glasgow’s most expensive private schools — the fee-paying Hutchesons’ Grammar. (It’s referred to by alumni, semi-affectionately, as “Hutchy’s.”) His schoolmates included the future SNP leader and Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf. Sarwar was two years above Yousaf at school, and recalls them speaking only once — to disagree about Scottish independence. Neither has changed their view over the subsequent years.

By that time Sarwar was already out delivering leaflets for Labour. He marched against the Iraq war in 2003, and wrote speeches for his MP father lambasting Tony Blair’s decision to support the conflict.

But Sarwar has long argued that he is his own man. Rather than head straight into politics as an adult, he completed a degree in dentistry and started work in the National Health Service.

Four years later, in 2010, his father quit the U.K. parliament — and Anas stood to replace him in the same Glasgow seat. He arrived in Westminster in May 2010, alongside 40 other Scottish Labour MPs, just as the Labour Party nationally — with Blair now gone — was losing its grip on power.

His old school rival Yousaf was at this time rising up the political ranks of the SNP, becoming a member of the Scottish parliament in 2011.

A decade later, the two young men would face off in Holyrood at First Minister’s Questions — Yousaf as the pro-independence, SNP leader of Scotland, Sarwar as the pro-union Labour leader looking to replace him.

The expectation was that these two Hutchy contemporaries, both Glaswegian sons of Pakistani parents, would battle it out for the crown of Scottish first minister in 2026. It was not to be.

The lucky general

Yousaf’s sudden political demise — he quit in April after barely a year in office, following the collapse of his coalition government — is only the latest twist of good fortune for Sarwar since he became Scottish Labour leader in 2021.

Yousaf’s predecessor Nicola Sturgeon had herself abruptly resigned last year as her popularity began to decline. The subsequent SNP leadership contest was deeply divisive, and rocked the party. Yousaf eventually claimed the crown — but nobody believed there was any successor who could restore the SNP to its giddy heights.

“SNP MPs used to be able to just put Nicola Sturgeon on a leaflet and they’d win a 10,000 vote majority,” noted one Labour candidate for the upcoming election. But no longer.

The SNP’s fortunes darkened further when, astonishingly, Sturgeon and her husband, the party’s former party executive, Peter Murrell, were arrested weeks after her resignation in connection with a police probe into the SNP’s finances. Sturgeon was released without charge pending further investigation. Murrell has since been charged with embezzlement.

The SNP’s once-mighty poll ratings began to collapse. Sarwar, less than two years into the job, could not believe his good fortune.

“He’s a lucky general,” a senior Scottish Labour figure said.

His predecessors “would have loved the circumstances that greeted Anas as he entered his second full year in the job,” they noted. (Sarwar is Scottish Labour’s fifth leader in 10 years.) “But he’s shown himself capable of exploiting them.”

Sarwar has quickly become Labour’s most prominent figure in Scotland. He self-describes as a “Brownite,” a reference to Labour’s former PM Gordon Brown, who succeeded — and was seen as to the left of — Tony Blair. But in style terms, Sarwar is clearly closer to Blair himself.

He’s a slick dresser, eschewing dull gray for fitted dark suits. He launched his party’s manifesto from a Scottish rugby stadium last week in a crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled up — very Blair, and also very Starmer. He often drops the tie, too.

Sarwar has a ready charm and is close to the Holyrood press pack in a way that more aloof politicians, such as Sturgeon, never were. At the U.K. party’s last annual conference in October last year, Sarwar was often found holding court in Liverpool’s Pullman Hotel. Figures as senior as Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves would approach for a chat. He refers to everyone, from senior journalists to shadow Cabinet ministers, as “chief.”

His allies say his people skills have opened doors with senior figures in the U.K. party, and help avoid some of the damaging left-right party splits that often engulf Labour. Opponents say he is an empty vessel who will eventually crumble under the pressure.

“He’s all flash and no substance. Scots will realize that when he comes under more scrutiny in 2026,” one SNP candidate said.

Even the current campaign has not been without its awkward moments. Sarwar was on Thursday forced to defend his decision not to sack a Scottish Labour candidate who — it was revealed — had voiced support for a Conservative candidate while standing for Labour in 2019.

The focus on the multiple scandals engulfing both the SNP in Scotland and the Conservatives in Westminster, Sarwar has been fortunate to escape the glare of scrutiny. That is likely to change now he is a serious contender to become the next first minister.

Back from the dead

Sarwar might argue that he had earned some good fortune after a difficult first decade in politics. In 2014, four years into his political career — and already deputy leader of his party — Sarwar played a key role in the successful campaign against Scottish independence.

But the referendum triggered a wave of emotion in Scotland which saw support for the SNP surge, and swept away all but one of Scottish Labour’s MPs in 2015. Sarwar stood no chance.

“Even Barack Obama would have lost most of our seats in 2015,” a second Scottish Labour candidate, and former party organizer, said.

Scottish Labour was now in the doldrums, with just a single MP in Westminster and facing an all-powerful Sturgeon in Holyrood. Leaders came and went, with little impact. Sarwar himself ran for the leadership in 2017, but was soundly defeated by Richard Leonard, an ally of then-U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

A bruised Sarwar was left to toil outside the limelight. He took the chance to reinvent himself as a politician.

“Losing to Richard Leonard was the best thing that could have happened to him. There was a perception — not one I shared — that he was a ‘good time Charlie’ and not a serious politician,” one long-time friend of Sarwar said.

Sarwar was able to “demonstrate his credentials as a serious politician” after he lost, the friend said — pointing in particular to his work on combatting both antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Here for Keir

In 2021 Leonard was forced out by the new U.K. Labour Leader Keir Starmer. This time Sarwar swept to victory in the Scottish Labour leadership contest — and then watched as his SNP opponents fell apart before his eyes.

And fortune smiled on Sarwar again this summer, when Rishi Sunak stood in a rain-sodden Downing Street and called the snap general election. The timing was perfect for Scottish Labour, with the SNP having only just appointed John Swinney as its new leader following Yousaf’s shock departure.

Initial thoughts that Labour might win back only a handful of seats have been blown away by surging poll ratings. Most observers now expect dozens of new Scottish Labour MPs to be returned next week.

Sarwar has undoubtedly been fortunate, though is credited by colleagues with having put the party in a position to compete.

“The optimism that radiates out of him is magnetic,” said Kirsty McNeill, the party’s candidate in Midlothian and a former special adviser under Gordon Brown. “I think his leadership has got us to place where people feel we can really make a difference.”

SNP politicians also privately acknowledge his talents. A second SNP candidate defending a Scottish seat describes him as “very effective.” Even Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader and one of its main attack dogs, admitted to POLITICO last year he finds Sarwar “relatively good company.”

“He’s obviously a very accomplished politician. I would expect nothing less from someone who’s served in both Westminster and in Holyrood and who of course comes from a fairly prestigious political family,” Flynn said.

But the SNP see a vulnerability in Sarwar’s ties to Starmer — and in the U.K. leader’s refusal to scrap a Tory benefits policy which is unpopular in Scotland and which Sarwar himself has repeatedly attacked.

Citing fiscal constraints, Starmer has insisted Labour would not immediately scrap a controversial Conservative Party policy of restricting benefit payments for families with more than two children.

Sarwar had described it as a “heinous policy” that he would push a Labour government to bin. He has since backpedalled.

Speaking to POLITICO, Sarwar insisted there are plenty of other occasions when he has successfully changed Starmer’s mind. He reeled off a long list that included the headquartering of public energy firm GB Energy in Scotland, rather than elsewhere in the U.K.

The pair are close, and speak often. Appearing at a press huddle together in West Lothian last week, Starmer and Sarwar locked eyes and shared a laugh when asked if the latter would have to “stand up” to Starmer if he enters Downing Street.

“We think alike,” Starmer said. “We work together, we’ve got a huge amount of respect for one another.”

The two men speak with pride about the way they changed their respective parties, which had both shifted to the left before their leadership. They have appeared together in Scotland on three occasions so far in this campaign.

That proximity is helpful for Scottish Labour, which argues that with Starmer likely to enter Downing Street, Scottish Labour MPs would have more influence on his government than the confrontational SNP.

“Something I quite often say [to people] on the doors is, you could have an MP that’s a passenger on the bus, or you could have someone who knows the bus driver,” Labour’s McNeill says.

But with multiple voices already competing for the ear of the U.K. leader — and likely next prime minister — it’s far from clear how much influence Sarwar would really have on the direction of the U.K. government. One Labour official likens Sarwar’s influence on the U.K. boss to a “mid-level shadow Cabinet member.”

“He’s not quite in the inner circle, but very few people are. But he is liked and respected by Starmer and his team,” the official said.

Battle for the crown

For many around Sarwar and Scottish Labour, 2024 is just a stepping stone to the Holyrood elections in 2026 — where Sarwar hopes to become first minister, the job he craves.

“If there’s one person in this country that wants a win [at a general election] more than Keir Starmer, it’s Anas Sarwar,” Cat Headley, a Scottish Labour activist and former candidate, said.

“Frankly, as far as Anas is concerned, this is the warm up to Scottish Labour trying to become the Scottish government 18 months later,” she added.

That looks a trickier battle for Sarwar to win.

Scottish Labour has managed to win over pro and anti-independence Scots, with the party currently arguing that another referendum on independence — as demanded by the SNP — isn’t a priority. Sarwar needs support from both sides of the divide to gain power at Holyrood, meaning he must press his anti-independence credentials without alienating pro-independence Scots who are open to voting for his party.

There will be no shortage of advice for Sarwar now, whether he likes it or not.

Mark Drakeford, the former Welsh first minister and leader of the highly successful Welsh Labour Party, told POLITICO Sarwar should aim to replicate his party’s trick of combining a sense of belonging to Labour with a “sense of Welsh identity.”

“I think Anas has been doing some of the same things in Scotland,” Drakeford said. “In Wales you don’t need to vote nationalist to demonstrate that you’re Welsh.”

“I think that’s been part of our success, and I would very much hope for my colleagues in Scotland, that to be Scottish and to be Labour are two identities people would feel comfortable in wearing at the same time,” he added.

Ultimately, the 2026 election result might not come down to Sarwar at all.

The Holyrood election will come at the effective mid-term stage of a (likely) national U.K. Labour government. Sarwar’s fate may well be determined by the popularity of his party in Westminster — and famously, mid-term governments are rarely popular.

“In 2026 people are going to judge us on how Starmer is doing,” the second Scottish Labour candidate quoted above said. “We need the Labour government in Westminster to deliver — that’s the only way it will ever happen for Anas.”

–Courtesy Politico