Labour leadership contest: Anas Sarwar wants obsession with poverty not independence

The challenges of poverty, education and health he argues can’t be tackled if the country comes out of a lockdown and into another battle over independence.

The Glasgow MSP is standing to be leader of his party for the second time after losing out to Richard Leonard three years ago.

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He says in that short time he had changed and Scotland has undoubtedly changed and unity is crucial to recovery and building a better country.

He said: “I’ve changed in the last few years. Our country has undoubtedly changed and I think our politics needs to change as well.”

“I have a record of trying to pull divisive communities together and unite against hate and prejudice in all its forms.

“I think coming through Covid and some people want to entrench us in the old pre Covid arguments, people want a leader that is serious about focusing on what unites us rather than divides us.”

He said the priorities instead must be on dealing with the impact Covid and the lockdowns has had on people lives.

Sarwar lost out to Richard Leonard three years ago

Sarwar said: “We don’t have to go back to divisions. We’ve pulled together as a country in the last year.

“We’ve taken an economic hit sharper than the banking crisis. People are worried about their jobs, about their business their livelihoods.

“They are worried about what kind of education their kids are going to get, worried about their cancelled operation and whether they are going to get a cancer diagnosis in time.

“That’s the day-to-day things people care about in our country.”

He said a renewed focus on independence again will not help any of the issue he lists as what matter to people’s lives.

Labour, he says must carve a new path away from the “flag waving” of the SNP and Tories.

He said: “My fear is we are going to go into this election with the Tories doubling down on their army tank driving, union jack waving, chest besting unionism on the one hand and on the other, rather than trying to health the wounds of their own party and the troubles they’ve got, the SNP doubling down on referendum now, independence now, saltire waving nationalism.”

The people that will lose out he says “are those who I’ve said are worried about jobs, businesses, education and the NHS.

“If you think he priorities for the next five years should be jobs, the economy, the climate emergency, education and health then the Labour Party is going to put those things first.”

Family, and his experience, has shaped his politics. His father Mohammad Sarwar was Britain’s first Muslim MP, and it brought unwanted attention that has stayed with him.

But he says it is his mother who is his political inspiration and who shapes his politics.

He said: “I remember when my dad was starting off in politics, aspiring to be Britain’s first Muslim MP, he was getting national media attention in a way a local candidate wouldn’t. And he was also getting a lot of attention from the far right.”

Mohammad Sarwar

He recalls hate mail, threatening phone calls and being followed in cars.

He added: “My mum said if we walk away these people win.”

He sees similarities in his own children’s experience with their father in the public eye and said it “scares the life out him”.

However, rather than “run away from politics” he said it “makes him want to run towards it”.

At times he said he wonders how much progress has actually been made.

He said: “I worry are my kids going to hear the same things I hear now, that scares the life out me.

“If so, then my generation has failed.”

He sees increasing poverty and growing inequality as the challenges that need urgent attention in Glasgow.

He said: “If you look at what is happening in our city with queues at food banks, queues for homeless people to get something to eat.

“The number of homeless people you see out on the street. The number who are unemployed, the number having to turn in greater numbers to welfare support and to citizens advice, there is a glaring inequality issue in our city and a glaring poverty issue in our city.”

He returns to the focus on uniting against divisions.

He said: “Just imagine if we had spent the last four or eight years obsessed with ending poverty like we’ve been obsessed with independence or Brexit. How different could thing’s be?”

The cuts to local government budgets, he says are incompatible with improving the services people rely on.

He added: “Glasgow has had its budget decimated over the last decade. You have a government, both at a UK level and particularly in Scotland, that talks about ending poverty and inequality and ending austerity but they are delivering austerity by chocking local budgets.”

While the Labour domination of the city electorally has been replaced with the SNP he says they have stood by in silence.

Sarwar said: “I find it unforgivable that our elected politicians particularly front the governing party think as SNP councillors, MSPs or MPs their job is to work for the SNP not to work for the people hat elected them.

Year after year our city’s budget has been decimated and year after year SNP MSPs and MPs and councillors have not been brave enough to say a single word about it.”

He says local government services are essential to improving lives and need to be funded accordingly

He said: “The ambition we set ourselves in education, unless you fund local government properly, you’re not going to achieve them.

The SNP, led by Susan Aitken, dominate Glasgow's political landscape

"If you are serious about ending child poverty, unless you fund local government properly, you’re not going to be able to provide the extra support people need.”

If he wins the leadership contest, he will lead Labour into the election in May but he said the job is much more in the longer term.

Sarwar said: “Right now if you look at the polls we are literally fighting or our survival polls suggest we could lose seats.

“I would love for us to win the election but I’m a realist so we have to survive and come through and build and be a serious and credible opposition.

"We’ve got a job to use the eight weeks to pull our party together and establish ourselves as a credible opposition then use the five years for that re-building programme to be a credible alternative.”

Read our exclusive interview with Sarwar's rival, Monica Lennon