Starmer and Sarwar, the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber of political arrogance
Speymouth
If you’re having a bad day today, console yourself with the thought that Anas Sarwar is having a much worse day than you are, cue the world’s tiniest violin. Sarwar can’t do anything right, not even lay claim to the title of Scotland’s leading self-important nepo-baby, Fergus Ewing has got that one sewn up.
In Sarwar’s mind, he was going to wake up today as the hero of the hour, the man who first bravely spoke out against the ineptitude and chaos of Keir Starmer, setting off a cascade of Labour big beasts turning against Starmer, and today Labour would be looking for a new and fresh leader who would signal a new direction for the Labour government in Westminster allowing Sarwar to take his branch office into the Scottish elections unburdened by Starmer’s unpopularity and with Sarwar able to position himself as a key figure in the UK Labour party, a big beast in his own right who is influential and important at the very heart of UK Government power.
But it all went terribly wrong, and Sarwar unwittingly revealed the truth that those of us who are his critics have been pointing out all along. He’s shown himself to be nothing more than the branch manager of a franchise operation with no influence on the operations of the Labour party at a UK level, his importance in inverse proportion to his ego. The Billy no mates of Labour party politics.
No one came out in support of Sarwar after he made his big announcement on Monday, not even Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan who has previously criticised the direction of Starmer’s government as Labour looks grimly at the prospect of a historic defeat in May’s Senedd election in Wales. The entire cabinet rallied behind Starmer, even Sarwar’s supposed ally Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander, a man not averse to stabbing those close to him in the back, as first his sister Wendy and now Anas have learned to their cost. On Tuesday morning Morgan released a statement giving her full support to Starmer, saying: “I support the Prime Minister in the job he was elected to do.” The unifed message is that Starmer is a “decent man”, but anyone who has been paying even the slightest bit of attention knows he’s nothing of the sort. Decent men are not serial liars.
Sarwar is left totally isolated, and looking deeply foolish. He failed in the first principle of Machiavellian politics, if you’re going to move against the king, make sure you don’t miss. At the very least that means making sure that your allies are with you before you make your move. Not even Jackie Baillie supported him. Sarwar has not just exposed the irrelevance and powerlessness of Labour’s Scottish branch office, he has also exposed his own lack of political judgement.
Even worse, a succession of Labour figures lined up to brief against him, calling his call to defenestrate Starmer “idiotic, immature, incoherent” and “self-defeating.” One furious Labour figure even revealed the true nature of Sarwar’s supposed leadership in Scotland, telling The Times newspaper: “Anas does not have authority to speak on behalf of the Scottish party in this way. It’s a fucking shitshow.”
One Labour MP representing a Scottish constituency was reportedly in tears after Sarwar’s announcement, accusing him of “treacherous behaviour.”
Some were prepared to go on the record with their scathing assessments of Sarwar. Speaking on STV’s Scotland Tonight show, Paul Sinclair, a former senior advisor to Alister Darling and Better Together, dismissed Sarwar as a pretend politician, saying: “I think really what happened today was Anas Sarwar really came out as a kind of pretend politician. You know, he was going to get rid of Starmer when he was weak? I think’s actually underlined his own irrelevance.”
Vote Labour in Scotland, get irrelevance, even figures within Labour in Scotland admit as much. Even more damningly, Sinclair said it was “entirely unfair” of Sarwar to pin all of Labour’s troubles in Scotland on Starmer, saying: “I think one of the reasons why I think the Scottish Labour Party is sadly coming to defeat is that Anas Sarwar has offered nothing in terms of a Scottish Labour agenda and for him and Jackie Baillie and whoever else in the Labour leadership to blame all of this on Starmer and think that by possibly calling on Starmer to go was going to make any difference, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work.”
Starmer will survive for now, most likely until at least the May elections. That means the Labour party in Scotland will be forced to campaign by asking voters to vote Labour so Anas Sarwar can be First Minister with a Labour UK Prime Minister in whom he has very publicly expressed his lack of confidence and with whom he’s most likely no longer on speaking terms. Sarwar’s own position is now looking untenable, Starmer engineered Sarwar’s election as branch office manager and could just as easily engineer his replacement. Sarwar has lost the confidence of a large segment of his own party. Douglas Alexander has issued a statement insisting that Starmer and Sarwar can continue to work together, which we can file under, “Well, he would say that wouldn’t he?”
Yet even if Starmer goes, Sarwar is still in trouble. His job as branch manager is to promote the UK Labour party and its leadership in Scotland, he’s shown he cannot be trusted and is a loose cannon with poor judgement who could just as easily turn on the next Labour leader. Like Starmer he’ll most probably limp on until after the May elections, then he’ll be gone. All he’s achieved is to ensure that he will be the target of the anger and blame when, as now looks highly likely, Labour goes down to a historic defeat in May’s Holyrood elections.
For Labour in Scotland they now have the worst of all possible world’s as they head into May’s elections, Sarwar’s own condemnation of Starmer will be weaponised by the SNP who will now be banging home the message that only a vote for the SNP can defeat Reform UK. Labour in Scotland is a busted flush, brought down by Starmer and Sarwar, the Tweedledum and Tweedledumber of political arrogance.
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