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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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You did call for the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to resign, right? I mean, that's a big deal for a Labour leader in Scotland.
I was making it abundantly clear that my first priority and my first loyalty is to my country, Scotland. And frankly, I don't really care what people in Westminster think. I only care what people in Scotland think. You must care who the prime minister is. Look, I'm not doing it to run against a UK Labour government. I'm running against a Scottish SNP government. Let's be honest.
Are we spending every penny of public money well?
Chapter 2: What led Anas Sarwar to call for Keir Starmer's resignation?
We're not. We will demonstrate to the rest of the UK how you can win in the politics of hope and unity, not feed off the politics of despair.
I guess you're very politely skirting around one of the massive things.
I'm happy not to be polite, Rony, and don't let me skirt. Cut to the chase. I'm happy to cut to the chase.
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Welcome to The Rest Is Politics Leading with me, Rory Stewart. And with me, Alastair Campbell. And we are with Anas Sarwar. Anas Sarwar is a second-generation Pakistani Scot. He is a second-generation Labour Member of Parliament who followed his dad, Mohammed, into the Westminster Parliament before losing his seat in 2015 after just one term.
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Chapter 3: How does Anas Sarwar plan to tackle Islamophobia in Scotland?
And in Scottish elections on May the 7th, so 30 odd days away, he hopes to become Scotland's first minister after 19 years of an SNP government. Now, that prospect looked very likely after the last UK general election when Scotland played its part in the Labour landslide since when
SNP fortunes seem to have recovered and Labour's fortunes have declined, sufficient for Anas to call for none other than Keir Starmer to resign as Prime Minister. We'll get into all of that, but I think we like to start with the backstory, don't we, Rory? Anas does have quite a good backstory.
You definitely do, Anas. Let's start with your father, who I remember. And of course, I remember you coming into Parliament in 2010. Tell us a little bit about your father and mother and a little bit about your father's political career, which was quite unusual in many ways.
Yeah, look, I mean, I had a really different upbringing in the sense of I was being brought up in a household where my dad, when I was in my really early years, trying to set up and doing it really well, successful family business, successful wholesale business. And then wanting to become a councillor in the city of Glasgow.
And then obviously wanting to become Britain's first Muslim member of parliament. And while lots of people, it's interesting you mentioned about both my mum and my dad, it's really interesting because lots of people think that automatically somehow maybe I get my politics from my dad. But in actual fact, I always say that the best politician in our family
and the person that's probably got the most values based in terms of that politics is probably my mum, and she's probably a much better politician than I or my father would ever be. But just think about upbringing a house full of love,
even if perhaps not expressed by the old man always motivated always being driven particularly by mum but also posed its challenges in terms of being brought up in a political household and my dad trying to be Britain's first Muslim member of parliament and in a weird way because he was a politician
And because of many of the dark things that we had to experience, because either he wanted to be a politician or after he became an elected member in the House of Commons, it really put me off politics. I hated the idea of being an elected member. So I was a member of the Labour Party. I love being a member of the Labour Party. I love being involved in campaigns.
But the idea of being an elected member honestly repulsed me. And it's one of the reasons why I went to I studied to be a dentist and worked in the NHS as a dentist. And it's one of the reasons why my dad and I fell out at one point because he was very keen for me to be a politician. I was desperate not to be a politician because of some of the things we experienced growing up. He won.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Scottish Labour face in the upcoming election?
I never truly set upon one on that. Maybe it was always underlying, but those people didn't have a voice. Now they've got a platform, they've got a voice, or maybe it is on the rise now. But I think one thing is certainly clear is there are people now who who are willing to use it and weaponize it for political purposes.
So the concept of like fear and blame is there are lots of people that feel a deep frustration about what's happening in their lives legitimately. And there's lots of people that think government doesn't work for them. Things are broken. This is as good as it gets. Our country's going backwards. Nothing works. Nothing can ever work. So we need to smash the system.
And then they have a layer on top of that of whether it's figures who are looking for attention or followers or to be voices online or whether it's even politicians are looking to get power. who think, how do we weaponize those problems and find a group of people to point at and say, we wouldn't have these problems if it wasn't for them over there.
And that fear, blame, us versus them culture, I think is probably the single biggest political divide in the UK and probably globally now for this generation of politicians. And I actually feel a bit of a personal responsibility to how we fight back against that. Because the answer to that is, do you do an us versus them politics and think we create a different version of us versus them?
Or do we create some kind of all of us to confront it? And that I think is what we have to do. How do we take on the genuine despair of, The genuine mistrust that people have and give them solutions and pull our country together in the process and tell a story, a positive story in the process. That, I think, is the single biggest challenge facing Scottish, UK and global politics right now.
But one could argue the biggest single driver of it is Donald Trump. He's the president of the United States of America. He's got Scottish blood through his mother.
And he has an absolute loathing of Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, way beyond any sense of Sadiq's actual real power as the mayor of London, which is clearly, in my mind, driven by the fact that he doesn't like the color of his skin and he may or may not like his religion.
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Chapter 5: How does Anas Sarwar view the SNP's long-standing governance?
Are you worried if you become first minister that you ā because he probably doesn't know that much about you. Are you worried that you then become the new Sadiq Khan? And what do you then do about that? Because I think we pander to this guy way too much. So there's a couple of things on that.
One is Sadiq Khan is a proud Londoner. Yes, a Liverpool football fan, but still a proud Londoner and someone that wants to deliver for every community in London rather than just be the voice for one community in London. But there is an attempt to other him very, very often. But I think he's done quite a good job of looking like and sounding like the voice of London.
And for me, there'll be lots of attempts to other me to claim I'm not Scottish enough or I'm not on the side of Scotland. For me, I always think about just say what I believe, do what's right by Scotland and always argue what's right by Scotland and not worry about what comes our way if I am successful in this election. And that is definitely our intention and our goal.
The one thing I'd push back on is I think it's too easy an analysis to say it's all Donald Trump's fault. No, it's not all him, but he does drive a lot of this. So I would agree that there is a driving of it from individuals, Donald Trump being one of them. But there's an underlying sentiment, fear and failure that then is weaponized by politicians like Donald Trump.
in order to try and get the outcome they want. How do we address that underlying and find a different way of challenging and telling a story that confronts that kind of politics? I think is the big, big challenge for this generation.
I guess when you were describing your time as a dentist and taking the full set of teeth out of young people, That was during a period when we had a Labour government. So we were failing them as well.
I actually think there's undoubtedly a challenge. So it was 2007 when the SNP came to power. And so I spent some of my time, of course, when there was a Scottish Labour government as well as when there was an SNP government. But I think huge progress was made under a Labour government.
And I'm not going to pretend for a second that every single thing that the SNP has done in Scotland in the last 20 years has been bad. Because I just think any politician that tells you that just isn't telling the truth. There's a reason why they kept winning elections for 20 years. There's a reason why people kept voting for them because they were doing some things that were good.
But my argument is they've lost their way and they aren't what they were. And we need a change of government in Scotland, new ideas, new leadership, new energy, etc., but are there communities that feel as if structurally they've been left behind? I think the honest answer to that is yes.
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Chapter 6: What is Anas Sarwar's stance on potential coalitions with other parties?
But how do we have an education system that works for every kid right across the country? And that's why I'm so determined to fix that going forward.
But do you not think that if you become First Minister... that somebody who's watching what you say and do in relation to education would maybe feel more compelled to listen and follow if actually you were saying, my kids are in the state sector too.
So look, I don't pretend to be something I'm not. I don't hide away from...
decisions either that i have made or my family have made about our kids or anything else i'm i've very much lived all my since i was 12 all my life very much in the public domain people know who i am they can make judgments based on who i am they've made those judgments since i became leader they've made those judgments obviously in the election in 2024 and they'll make those judgments in this election campaign as well but am i determined
to deliver a country that gives every young person a chance and an opportunity? Absolutely, I am. Because right now, so many of our kids are written off at birth, and that cannot be allowed to happen.
Some people might say, listening to you, the labour default often sounds like we just need more money. We need more resources. We're not giving enough money to teachers. We don't have enough teaching assistants. But you might say, you don't need maybe even to be Donald Trump to say that the UK economy is really struggling. It's not really growing.
And, you know, your family ran a business and you must be aware of how many regulations there are, how much red tape there is, how non-business friendly in many ways the British economy has become. A lot of investment is leaving, not much investment's coming in. So what would you do to actually restructure, make it more business-friendly, get more entrepreneurs in, get the economy growing?
Or am I sounding too right-wing?
I wholeheartedly agree with you, Rory, because I think that's probably what makes me different from... previous Scottish Labour leaders and gives me a different understanding about all these things. So I grew up in a entrepreneurial family. I spent lots of my childhood sweeping floors in my old man's warehouses, stacking the shelves and seeing and taking lots of questions about
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