With the lack of self-awareness typical of the man, Anas Sarwar is all over the MSM with this sort of notion:
The winner of the SNP leadership race will have no mandate to govern as first minister, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has insisted.
Speaking to BBC Scotland’s The Sunday Show, he repeated his call for a snap Holyrood election.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-65080560
He probably does remember that Gordon Brown replaced Blair, unopposed, in June 2007 and was only forced to the polls in May 2010.
Some may remember that this did allow him to claim that he had ‘saved the world’ in 2008, by giving £137 billion to the banks to save themselves and him, after he had enabled them in the first place to create the mess by deregulation.
More on the above at: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse
Talking-up Scotland 
Next Liebour, HQ’d in London operating their branch office in Scotland, will tell us when there is an election, that they won even though the SNP secured many more votes and seats. I don’t recall there being a UK wide GE when Sunak was installed as PM in London, or did I miss something. Is he saying that Sunak has ‘no mandate to govern’, either, no he is not.
God forbid but could they be plotting something, a coalition with Tories to oust the SNP? It’s strange he is calling for an election when polls show his party is way down the scale of what the people of Scotland would choose in a democratic election. Hmm.
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Delighted to see further TuS blog posts focused on Labour. With the potential shifts in voting intentions in England as the next GE approaches, Labour – with some cause – clearly expects to see electoral benefit in Scotland. Whether this is just at the expense of the Tories/Lib Dems OR ALSO in part a shift from the SNP, time will tell. But let’s not be complacent!
Labour’s past record in Scotland; Labour’s co-operation with Tories in 2014 and also in local government in Scotland; the present Labour leadership’s aping of Tory policies for Westminster; the Labour leadership’s acceptance of Brexit; the Labour leadership’s support for nuclear weapons on the Clyde; the leadership of Labour in Scotland’s crass hypocrisy in condemning the Scottish Government’s record on public services whilst conveniently ignoring the (often worse) record of the Labour-run Welsh Government, another devolved government whose performance is constrained by Westminster. And more!
I look forward to reading more here which helps demonstrate that whatever the questions facing Scotland might be, the answer is NOT Labour under its present leadership!
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I’d say not Labour at all unless they register as a party in Scotland, becuase until then, they are an England HQ’d party operating in the next door country. Btw, who does fund ‘Scottish Labour’?
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Did McLeish and McConnell hold elections when they became leaders of the Labour party then elected FM by the MSPs in the Scots Parliament?
It is not the 1st time he has been caught spouting nonsense.
A few weeks ago when Labour had a 30 point lead over the Tories which would have given Labour about a 300 seat majority Sarwar was saying Scotland should vote Labour to ensure a Labour victory in a GE!!!!! Where do you even start with that one?
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Labour in Scotland is a lie they are partners of the better together campaign with the Tory party both are right wing politics protecting the rich and when the Tory party have wrung the public dry of everything they offer along come the Labour Party saying don’t give up giving we will protect you and then they apply the same cruel thieving formula as the Tory party
Labour are the demoralising party
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”Labour are the demoralising party’
I know – most folk in Scotland know – what a Tory is. Most people in Scotland have rejected Tories at elections for decades. In the next GE, the Tories are unlikely to be a substantial threat to the SNP.
Labour is different: there may still be residual ‘muscle memory’ in parts of Scottish society that Labour will seek to exploit. But Labour offers no long term solution to Scotland’s challenges – the Tories will be back soon after a period of Tory-lite Labour Unionism.
Labour offers the voters of Scotland and our elected Parliament no significant additional agency. How much closer to the full powers of an independent nation-state can Labour/Gordon Brown propose for Scotland whilst still denying the logic of full independence? The opportunity costs for Scotland of Labour ‘solutions’ just mount up!
And in its Unionism, what is it that Labour actually needs to be retained for England and why – Scotland’s energy resources; Scotland’s base for their weapons of mass destruction; something about protecting their precious Union’s international reputation – for what? – something else?
Many people across the UK – after more than a decade of austerity and poorer public services and a cost of living crisis – may decide to vote in the upcoming GE for change. There may well be an attraction to Labour as a much needed alternative. There will be much UK media amplification of Labour messaging, especially coming from a Starmer Labour that is considered as ‘acceptable’, non-threatening, unlike Corbyn’s relative radicalism.
There is the threat of a spillover benefit to Labour in Scotland – and of course any electoral shift of any size to any Unionist party away from the SNP will be proclaimed as victory for the Union.
For Scotland, Labour is the dead end party: the party whose Unionism trumps all and therefore the party that at best can provide temporary, minor amelioration of the damage of dependence on Westminster’s control. To repeat, the opportunity costs for Scotland of Labour – or any other Unionist party’s – ‘solutions’ just mount up and up!
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Another own goal. Looking for his own demise.
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Annas Sarwar’s nonsense:
First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones, announced his intention to stand down in April 2018.
On 6th December 2018 Mark Drakeford was elected leader of Welsh Labour. He became First Minister on 13th December 2018, following Jones’ resignation on the 12th.
The next election for the Senedd wasn’t till May 2021.
Did Drakeford, Sarwar’s fellow ‘branch manager’, govern without a mandate? Is Sarwar a gaslighting hypocrite or a silly sausage?
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Very good point. Mark Drakegord has already indicated an intention to resign his post some time this year (this was before the recent sad, and totally unexpected death of his wife). Let’s see what they do then.
On the other hand, is this a surprise? Is their policy not one of that whatever the SNP say/ do, we say/ do something something different. It’s cognate to project fear which no matter what always found fault – don’t do that, do this. Back then the ”that” was to vote for independence. Nothing’s changed, it’s just the same old nihilism, but how do you debate with it. Something to remember the next time Mark Smith bemoans the state of Scottish politics.
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Not to mention sunny Jim Callaghan in 1977 when Wilson called it a day
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It’s not a lack of self awareness. He knows full well what he is doing. He knows that Drakeford did it. He knows that Brown did it. He also knows that lies, spin and gaslighting are effective on a section of the population who are ignorant of the facts … Record & Sun readers for example.
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