Anas Sarwar's Claim of 'Hardest Job in British Politics' Sparks Controversy at Fringe

London, United Kingdom Aug 12, 2026 ALN: LABOUR in Scotland’s branch manager election isn’t getting much better.

Anas Sarwar, speaking at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe amid clowns and comedians where he surely felt at home, helpfully informed his successor, before buggering off to a cushy job for life in the House of Lords, that the post of leader of the Labour Party in Scotland is the hardest job in British politics.

This is quite possibly the stupidest and most asinine thing ever uttered by a Scottish politician – and in a field which includes George Foulkes and Murdo Fraser, that’s some achievement.

Leading a smallish band of MSPs, the third-largest contingent in the devolved Scottish Parliament, with no government responsibilities, no obligations other than popping up regularly in a friendly media to slag off the Scottish Government, is allegedly the hardest job in British politics.

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It’s not even as if he had to think creatively. His main task was to robotically support whatever instructions were handed down from the Westminster party which paid the bills.

Sarwar’s position was not even a proper job, just as his new post isn’t a proper job either. Being head of Labour’s Scottish branch office is simply to be a mouthpiece for instructions from the UK Labour of which the branch office is part. They do what they are told.

Any decent leader would distance Labour in Scotland from Westminster, promote a much more progressive devolution as a minimum, end the kneejerk opposition to a referendum, and actually fight for a better deal for Scotland. That’s precisely why no such potential leader will ever make it on to the ballot in a leadership contest, as Monica Lennon is discovering.

However, to be fair to Sarwar, any job is going to be difficult when you’re a clueless nepo baby, flailing about, hopelessly out of your depth, buoyed up solely by a sympathetic Scottish media which loathes your main political opponents even more than you do.

Sarwar also counselled his successor to avoid infighting, which is pretty rich coming from a guy who only got the gig he failed at so dismally because he knifed his predecessor Richard Leonard in the back.

Labour Party accounts filed with the Electoral Commission have underlined what we’ve all known for some time: “Scottish Labour” is nothing more than a branding exercise by the UK Labour party of which so-called “Scottish Labour” is an integral part.

The accounts demonstrate that the income of Labour’s Scottish branch office plunged from £2.1 million to £1.5m over the past year.

Damningly for the branch office’s claim to being a proper grown-up political party, the figures also show that the wages of core staff are paid by the UK Labour party in London and not by the Scottish branch office. Sarwar wasn’t even responsible for employing his own staff in the supposedly most difficult job in British politics.

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Someone in the Labour Party needs to mount an intervention and tell Sarwar that it wasn’t the job that was impossible, it was him. If you can’t successfully manage what is essentially nothing more than the Scottish front operation for a British political party, you should probably have stuck with your old job.

Perhaps the real reason the former dentist was chosen is because “Scottish Labour” is nothing more than a set of political dentures for a party which would otherwise be toothless in Scotland.

The accounts filed with the Electoral Commission suggest that “Scottish Labour” is nothing more than a brand name for an astroturfing exercise in Scotland by the UK Labour Party.

Were it not for the injection of cash from London, Labour’s Scottish branch office would face serious questions over its ability to continue as a going concern. Its core staff are employed and paid by the UK party.

NO wonder Labour representatives in Scotland insist that the country can’t stand on its own two feet without the injection of a subsidy from London – Labour’s Scottish branch office certainly can’t.

In the contest to replace Sarwar, it’s looking increasingly difficult for Lennon to reach the threshold required to get on the ballot. Candidates require the nomination of at least three MSPs and three MPs, plus the backing of at least three affiliate organisations too, two of which must be trade unions.

Both the other declared candidates, Michael Marra and Jackie Baillie’s wee pet Joe Fagan have secured the necessary nominations. Lennon has so far only secured the backing of two MPs and two MSPs. She requires the backing of one more MSP and one more MP if she is to secure her place on the ballot by the time nominations close. Her big problem is that only two MSPs have yet to make a declaration, one of whom is Jackie Baillie, who as acting party chair during the contest is likely to follow convention and not back a candidate. Although everyone knows she favours Fagan.

That just leaves Carol Mochan, who is known to have profound disagreements with Lennon on the topic of LGBT rights.

If Lennon cannot secure her backing she will fail to make the ballot and will certainly blame the old Labour hierarchy for stitching up the contest for their favoured candidates – the deeply uninspiring nuclear energy fan Marra, who wrote the Labour manifesto for the recent Holyrood election and the Lanarkshire Labour machine candidate Fagan, who has been accused of presiding over a culture of “severe bullying” during his time as the Labour group leader on South Lanarkshire council.

Despite their manifest shortcomings, neither Marra nor Fagan will threaten the positions of the real power brokers in the branch office, the uber-Unionist faction represented by Baillie, Sarwar, and most of the 2024 intake of Labour MPs, or will stand up to the branch office’s London paymasters.

That is precisely why they have secured their place on the ballot. Both men are continuity candidates and both will simply preside over Labour’s continuing slide into irrelevance in Scotland.