Scottish Labour at a crossroads again as Sarwar jumps ship

Anas Sarwar has never made a secret of his desire to hold high office.

It’s only a matter of weeks since he offered himself to Scottish voters as a candidate to replace John Swinney as first minister.

That went spectacularly wrong. The SNP held power for a fifth consecutive term and Labour recorded their worst Holyrood result since devolution.

While the performance of the UK government under Sir Keir Starmer gets much of the blame, there is now a live debate in the party about Sarwar’s strategy.

Questions are also being asked of Scottish Labour’s campaign co-directors Jackie Baillie and Douglas Alexander.

Sarwar had said he would stick around as leader to steady the ship, but his swift exit contradicts that position and is a source of controversy for some.

There are those who see it as a reward for failure given the Holyrood defeat, even if Labour was able to beat the SNP in Scotland at the UK general election two years earlier.

There are those who see it as a reward for treachery given that Sarwar was the first senior Labour figure to call for Starmer to quit – a move that undermined the then prime minister, to the eventual benefit of Andy Burnham.