Anas Sarwar – Daily Business Magazine

Anas Sarwar: I want this election to be about what change looks like (pic: DB Media Services)

The Scottish Labour leader admits mistakes have been made, but is staying focused on the prize, writes TERRY MURDEN

As a fan of wrestling, Anas Sarwar is trying to stay focused on pinning down the First Minister, though his other ringside bête noire, the Prime Minister, continues to hinder his chances. The Scottish Labour leader’s infamous distancing from Sir Keir Starmer’s perpetual u-turns and misjudgements was meant to clear his route into Bute House. Alas, the scrap has only become more troublesome.

Sarwar’s call for Starmer to step down backfired when the Cabinet united around Downing Street, leaving their man in the north to fight his own corner. Needless to say, Labour ministers have been conspicuous by their absence during the Scottish election campaign.

Adding to the pressure on the Scottish party, the Mandelson affair refuses to go away and, closer to home, the PM delivered another blow to his Scottish lieutenant by making no attempt to meet him during a recent visit to the Faslane naval base on the Clyde.

If the soured relationship is getting to Sarwar, he’s putting on a remarkable show of strength and determination to take the battle to the SNP and prove he is his own man.

We meet at a function in a rooftop bar in Glasgow where the guests include the businessman Lord Haughey who, along with Sir Tom Hunter, has been a frustrated critic of Holyrood’s approach to business.

“The case we will make is that, as disappointed people may feel with Sir Keir Starmer, or the UK Labour government – and much of that frustration I feel too – this election is not about judging a government that has been in power for two years it is about judging a government that has has been in power for 20 years,” he says.

“This is not a protest election. I want to make this an election about Scotland and I have to make that positive case about what change looks like.”

Fighting a Scottish election, however, is not wholly about devolved issues. The chaos at Westminster and the decisions that have impacted businesses and households across the UK hover over the Holyrood campaign like a looming storm and are just as likely to affect voters’ decisions.

“I get that, but I will be taking a principled position on the positions we believe in such as opposing the cut to winter fuel payment which I’m glad has been reversed,” he says.

“Looking at the issues which affect business, yes some people have frustrations with the National Insurance hike and changes to inheritance tax, but let’s not pretend we do not have economic levers here in Scotland.

“I have lost count of the number of hospitality businesses that have been impacted by the business rates hike, with 200% or even 400% increases.

“That is all decided in Scotland. That is not Westminster, or the Chancellor or Prime Minister imposing those decisions on Scotland. These are decisions made in Scotland. So those economic levers that sit in Scotland are what we are going to talk about in this campaign.”

Back to Westminster and what about the gains that Labour has made? Is there not a contradiction in him denouncing a Prime Minister who has overseen some well-received policy changes, such as the overseas trade deals, lowering the energy cap, investing in defence? Why not promote these gains?

Sarwar with businessman Lord Willie Haughey (pic: DB Media Services)

“This is a relentlessly positive campaign,” he insists.”There have been successes by the UK Labour government… the failure of the government has been not telling the story of where they are trying to take the country. The many good things they have done have been lost because there have been misjudgements.

“A significant decision the UK government has done is to strike a £10bn defence deal with Norway which is transformational. Am I going to pretend everything has been great, that there have been no misjudgements? No, I am not.”

He again tugs the agenda back to Holyrood and the record of the SNP government. “The people of Scotland deserve to know what my values and standards are and what I would do differently,” he says.

“What I am interested in is how do we use the opportunities here in Scotland to fix our NHS, to make life more affordable and to build that better future for Scotland.

“This election campaign is a relentlessly positive one because I think our country can do better than the division that is spearheaded by either Reform or the SNP.

“We have the talent, the ideas and the resources. We’ve got the powers. What we don’t have is a government that works as hard as our people do, or a First Minister who shares the ambitions and aspirations of families across the country.

“That’s why I’m speaking positively about how we grow Scotland’s economy, positively about how we back businesses, end the waste and achieve amazing things.”

Despite those “positivity” pledges, his deputy Jackie Baillie described the Scottish Conservative manifesto’s call for lower business rates, reform of planning and less regulation as “not being worth the paper it is written on”, even though they were measures welcomed by the business community, and even by Scottish Labour. Baillie later said the same thing about the SNP manifesto.

“That’s Jackie in a modestly kind mood,” jokes Sarwar. Some would say it shows Labour being out of touch, or being too focused on rubbishing the opposition even when they are offering policies that Labour says it supports.

“I would say the opposite. If you look at our manifesto it is firmly on the side of business, but it is realistic about the things we can do and the ambition we have if we manage to achieve our growth targets.’

Sarwar with Jackie Baillie at the Labour manifesto launch (pic: DB Media Services)

Sarwar dimisses the regular refrain that politicians lack business experience. “The thing that makes me different from other leaders is that I have seen it from all sides,” he says.

“I’ve grown up on the industrial floor, the warehouse floor. Not just sweeping the floor, but to price the items, to get them on the shelves and to look at what it means for margins and costs. Growing up in an entrepreneurial family.

“I have experienced the public sector, having worked in our NHS as a dentist before coming into politics. So I have seen all three sides.”

He says that he understands the relationship between business and politics and how it is necessary to create the right conditions for business to prosper in order to finance public services.

“If we are honest with ourselves many of the things we accept in the public sector would never be accepted in the private sector.

“How do we get a genuine partnership with business to maximise the growth opportunities? For example, taxes are too high in Scotland. How do we drive them down? I am not going to pretend you can just cut tax on day one. We have to grow our economy if we are going to cut taxes.

“Planning is devolved and our planning system is archaic. The average planning application in Glasgow takes 57 weeks. In Manchester it takes 13 weeks. Where will the investors go? They will go to Manchester. That’s why we will have a national planning agency, but with local decision making.

“Our skills system is wholly devolved. We will have skills development hubs, including on the Clyde, so that jobs can go to kids in Glasgow. Right now a third of the workforce comes from Eastern Europe or the Philippines. We will back that up with 9,000 apprenticeships. Housing is devolved and we will build 125,000 homes across all tenures to drive down homelessness but also ramp up construction jobs.”

It’s a hefty to-do list, though it doesn’t differ much from what is on offer from the other parties.

“The difference is I’ll do them,” he asserts, However, even some of his Labour colleagues were disappointed that the manifesto did not deliver a ‘big idea’ that would capture the public’s imagination.

“Making Scotland work is the big idea,” he says. It’s pointed out that this is close to the Conservative party’s ‘Get Scotland Working’ slogan. “You’ll have to ask the Tory party their view,” he says.

“I think getting the NHS fit for the future is a big idea”. Again, other parties say that, and this is an interview about the economy. Where’s the big economic idea?

He presses on. “125,000 new homes is a big idea.”

Where does he get that figure from?

“We genuinely believe that by ramping up the speed of planning and attracting investment from the private sector as well as new development trusts we will create around housing associations that we can have a housebuilding revolution.”

He pushes other ‘big ideas’.

“By ending the ideological block on nuclear energy we attract billions in investment and thousands of jobs. We have two sites ready to go at Hunterston and Torness.

“Abolishing business rates.. that’s another big idea.”

Everyone talks about business rates reform.

“But I am going to do it. That’s the difference,” he says.

What about his own record so far? Does he admit to mistakes, such as pledging to keep Grangemouth open and compensate the Waspi campaigners? Didn’t Labour let down thousands of women after a series of promises and photo opportunities promising compensation over the changes to the state pension age?

“On Grangemouth, we have not breached any manifesto commitments. It is right that £120m went in to save the jobs at the petrochemicals site that protected 500 jobs. My regret is that we could not do more to save jobs at the refinery site.

Labour had supported the Waspi pension campaign (pic: DB Media Services)

“The reality, though, and the business has said this, that the warnings were coming for almost a decade and the Tory government at Westminster and the SNP government failed to act.

“I also think it was wrong for us to have so much confidence in Jim Ratcliffe [owner of the Grangemouth refinery] doing the right thing. I think he did the wrong thing by the workforce and was being intransigent, having run down that site for decades which is deeply unfortunate and is another example of why we have to make sure some of our key assets are in the right kind of hands.”

On the Waspi campaigners, Rachel Reeves told Daily Business before the General Election that despite Labour’s campaign promises she had not budgeted to compensate the women if she became Chancellor. It was a major admission that led to one of the new government’s first big embarrassing u-turns.

Sarwar says: “We should have taken a more balanced approach. Recognise the country had less money so it was not able to do all the things it wanted to do .

“Rather than a blanket ‘no compensation’ policy, they should have targeted payments at the lowest income pensioners and made incremental payments. That would have been a more reasonable thing to do.”

Does he believe Holyrood needs more powers, particularly to drive economic growth?

“I think the next stage is less about transferring powers from Westminster to Holyrood, its more about transferring powers to the regional economies.

“Take Manchester, for example, its growth is outstripping Glasgow city region and many other parts of the UK. How do you get regional economic development with that Metro Mayor model? I think that is the next stage of devolution because we have this one-size-fits-all idea. The region of Glasgow is going to have a different economic model to the Highlands and Islands or the south of Scotland.”

Among Sarwar’s list of personal battles has been a televised spat with Malcolm Offord, leader of Reform UK Scotland, who told viewers that the Labour leader had offered to work with him to keep out the nationalists.

“Absolutely not,” says Sarwar. “The very idea that the people who have tried to racebait me through this campaign are some of those I want to do a secret deal with is nonsense. I want Reform to get absolutely hammered in this election campaign.”

Before they almost came to blows, did the Reform leader know he is a wrestling fan who had once fancied trying his luck in the ring?

“Probably not, but he certainly knows now.”

PERSONAL CHECKLIST

Birthplace: Glasgow

Age: 43

Education: Hutcheson’s Grammar School, Glasgow University

Career highlights: Worked as a dentist in Paisley before turning to politics. Served as the MP for Glasgow Central (2010–2015), where he was Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour (2011–2014) and a Shadow International Development Minister. He has been a regional Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow since 2016 and Scottish Labour leader since 2021

Family

He and his wife Furheen have three children. He is the son of the UK’s first Muslim MP, Mohammad Sarwar

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