Anas Sarwar

But if you want me to make up the numbers on a regional list somewhere, I'll do it.

So I agree to stand on the Glasgow list.

I got involved in the campaign really heavily to try and get high up on the list.

And I ended up coming top of the Glasgow list.

And actually, combined with what I was seeing in Paisley and getting the bug of going through that first election campaign, I think that kind of sparked that interest to be in front-line politics.

It's a really good question, because I think the way I think about lots of these things

is less what it means for an individual faith but i think being a dad of three boys i think about a lot in the frame of fatherhood and a sense of identity and belonging for them and obviously for for me in in the scottish context and since you mentioned this individual that's said these comments to you like in the hamilton larkhall stonehouse by-election

We had what is now sadly a mainstream political party.

We had Reform spend tens of thousands of pounds on a Facebook advert claiming that I would prioritize Pakistan rather than prioritize Scotland.

And even today, one of Reform's candidates has said that they're open to the idea of repeating that ad in this election campaign.

There's another candidate for reform that says that all Muslims in Scotland should be deported.

So I think about obviously what it means for me as a politician, but actually I think about what does it mean for my kids?

Are they suggesting that my sons who are third generation Scots born and brought up here have no, apart from their skin color and where their grandparents were born,

have no real affinity or identity with Pakistan.

They are Scots, they are Brits, they're nothing else and they won't view themselves as anywhere else.

Why is their identity being questioned?

Why is their belonging being questioned?

And this weaponization of faith and trying to create a homogenous block, whether it be automatically every Muslim must think the same or every Jewish person must think the same or every evangelical Christian must think the same.

That's not how life is and that's not how humans are.

And for me, faith has always been something that brings people together and unites people rather than finds difference with people.