Why Anas Sarwar's premature call for Keir Starmer to quit could backfire
Anas Sarwar clearly convinced himself that he had to call for Keir Starmer’s resignation, but it is only likely to weaken Labour further
As a moment of high political drama, it was worthy of Shakespeare, with Anas Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, stepping onto a press conference stage to call for the downfall of his apparently close political ally, Keir Starmer.
The Prime Minister will surely view it as an act of betrayal, but Sarwar had clearly convinced himself that his hand had been forced, amid the ongoing fallout from the scandal over Peter Mandelson’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“It is so obvious that we desperately need change in Scotland and, in three months’ time, the opportunity to get rid of a failing SNP government is one that is too important to be missed,” Sarwar said. “We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election in May is not without consequence for the lives of Scots.”
Insisting he was not prepared to “sacrifice” the chance of replacing the SNP as the party of government in Scotland, Sarwar added: “... the distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”
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A surprise move
This may have taken Labour strategists in London by surprise. The obvious course of events appeared to be that Starmer would limp on until May, Labour would suffer its expected mid-term disasters in the Scottish, Welsh and English council elections, and Starmer would then quit, enabling a new leader to give the party’s fortunes a lift.
But if this was the scenario they were contemplating in Westminster, Sarwar decided to throw a spanner in those works in the hope of boosting Labour’s fading fortunes in Scotland, either by getting rid of Starmer or at least distancing himself from the Prime Minister.
However, with Labour Cabinet ministers – including Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, who is jointly running Labour’s Holyrood election campaign – lining up behind Starmer, Sarwar may discover that failed coups seldom pay off for their instigators.
In 2022, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross called for the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson – never the most popular figure in Scotland – to resign over Covid lockdown breaches. A few weeks later, with Johnson still in post, Ross felt the need to perform an about-face and urged the party to back him.
A few weeks after that, Johnson was forced to quit by the resignations of his own ministers. If Ross achieved any political benefit from his initial resignation call, it was hard to detect.
Chaos returns
One of Starmer’s arguments for voting Labour ahead of the 2024 election was that he would end the chaos of the Conservative years, particularly under Johnson and Liz Truss, and restore stability to government.
The markets may be happy enough with Chancellor Rachel Reeves – thanks to her determination to stick to her “fiscal rules” – but the general public may decide there’s little difference between Labour’s brand of chaos and the Tories’. Furthermore, if Starmer hangs on, Sarwar’s call for him to go may simply make the Scottish party leader look weak.
The risk for Labour is that the overall impression being created in voters’ minds is of a party which is now so deeply divided that it is more interested in the process of ripping itself apart than in competent government.
Of course, as party leader, Starmer must take the lion’s share of the blame for this, but he has not been helped by near-constant sniping from the party’s left.
If or rather when Starmer goes, it is likely Labour will move to the left and Reeves may well be replaced by a Chancellor less concerned with market opinion. A left-wing version of Truss won’t help Sarwar, Scotland or anyone – except Reform UK.
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