Anas Sarwar

The SNP do it by pointing to Westminster or to London or to the UK and saying, we've got these problems in Scotland, we wouldn't have them if only we were away from that lot.

And reform say, look at this problem.

If it wasn't for them over there, usually pointing at a community, whether it's by race, religion, and saying we wouldn't have these problems if it wasn't for them over there.

Both feed off an us versus them.

Both feed off a fear and blame.

I'm just done with that kind of politics.

And that is, I think, our generational challenge.

Is do we become a country that lets the politics of fear and blame and despair take hold and all the dangers that then poses to our country more broadly?

Or are we going to confront it with a positive story about what the challenges are, how we change the country, we're bringing the country together in the process.

And that's what I want to demonstrate we can do in Scotland.

And that's what I think is a lesson for a UK Labour Party as well.

One is, I always joke that it's often better being lucky than good.

And they've been very lucky with lots of circumstances that have happened across the UK and lots of what to campaign against.

So, you know, Boris obviously was a contrast to Nicola Sturgeon through the COVID period, etc.

But I think there's a more self-reflective part that we have to be honest about.

They kept winning and we kept losing because we weren't good enough.

And I set myself that challenge when I took on this job five years ago, when everyone said the Labour Party was dead and it was just a shell when I took over five years ago, is how do we get the Labour Party back on its feet, make it worthy of its name and make it worthy of people's support again?

How do you earn people's trust?

And we did the hard work to get ourselves back into second place in the council elections in 2022.

We did the hard work to win the Rutherglen by-election when people said we couldn't win.