Anas Sarwar has been branded a “chancer” ahead of an expected switch to the House of Lords to become a UK Government minister.
Mr Sarwar remains the Scottish Labour leader, but it is understood he is expected to be announced as a minister in the newly-expanded Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade on Wednesday. He will also stand down as leader and as a Glasgow MSP to sit in the Lords.
Opposition criticism
Opposition parties in Scotland have hit out at the decision, describing the outgoing leader as a “chancer” and calling for clarity on when he was approached by Andy Burnham to take on the role.
Scottish Green co-leader Gillian Mackay pointed to Mr Sarwar’s past opposition to the House of Lords, saying: “Anas Sarwar is a chancer. He has gone from promising to scrap the House of Lords to taking a seat in it. He has spent years attacking the very institution he is now preparing to join. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. If he cannot stand by his most basic political principles when power is on offer, why should anyone believe a word he says about anything else? By grabbing a place on the unelected red benches, he’s ensured that he gets all of the power and privilege without having to worry about what voters might think.”
Ms Mackay added that it was “not right or fair for politicians who have been rejected by the country to end up as lawmakers for the rest of their lives”.
Reform UK Scotland’s deputy leader Thomas Kerr pushed for transparency on when Mr Sarwar was offered the role and if his previous call for Sir Keir Starmer to step down had led to the offer.
“During the Scottish Labour leadership debate, Sarwar said he did not want to go to the House of Lords,” he said. “Not so long ago, he also went as far as to say that Labour would abolish it. Yet now, just 76 days after asking voters to elect him to Holyrood, he is walking away. Anas Sarwar cannot walk away after 76 days and expect these questions to disappear. He asked people to trust him. He asked them to elect him. He made commitments about his future. Now he has abandoned that responsibility almost as quickly as he took it on. The timeline, the circumstances and the decisions behind his departure must be made public.”
While Scottish Tory deputy leader Rachael Hamilton said: “Anas Sarwar repeatedly told Scots his only focus was serving Scotland and becoming First Minister. Now, if these reports are confirmed, he’s walking away from that pledge for a peerage and a ministerial job in Westminster. Given he was one of the loudest voices calling for Keir Starmer to go, people will inevitably ask whether he always had one eye on a role at Westminster. Scottish voters will rightly feel they’ve been let down by yet another Labour broken promise.”
