SCOTTISH Labour are fighting for their survival in May’s election, the party’s new leader has claimed.

Anas Sarwar said there was a “mountain to climb” for his party to be considered relevant by voters. 

The chief also moved to distance himself from some of his predecessors.

Speaking to Times Radio on Sunday, Sarwar said: “You’ve had political leaders come on before and think they’ve got to act macho and spread their shoulders and claim that we’re on the cusp of a Labour government or a Labour first minister.

“I’m not going to do that, I’m going to be honest and say we’re in a really bad place.”

He added: “The most recent poll had us on 14%, I think we’re fighting for our survival, I think we’re fighting for relevance in Scotland, I think we’re fighting to be a credible opposition.

“I hope that having got ourselves back on the pitch and off our knees we can build the five years that follow to make ourselves not just a credible opposition, but a credible alternative so we can have a Labour government in the future.”

Sarwar was named as the party’s new leader on Saturday, winning with more than 57% of the vote, defeating Monica Lennon. 

The Glasgow list MSP replaces Richard Leonard, and is the party’s tenth leader since 1999. 

It’s been a difficult few years for the party. 

n 2019 they lost six of their seven seats at the Westminster election, and came in fifth at the European elections, taking less than 10% of the vote. 

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Show, Sarwar said Labour “haven’t been on the pitch” in the recent years.

He added: “Forget about doing the wrong moves on the pitch, playing the wrong passes or having one misplaced shot, we haven’t been on the pitch in recent times and that is not acceptable.”

The new leader said the party had spent more time looking “inward rather than outward”.

“We looked like we were talking about the past rather than focusing on the future,” he said.

“We haven’t been good enough and that’s why I’m going to work day and night to change that.

“I’m going to work day and night to get the Labour Party back on the pitch.

“I’m going to work day and night for us to survive as a movement, be relevant to the lives of people in Scotland, be a credible opposition and one day get the Labour Party back to where it belongs - being a party of government.”

Sarwar said  that while the “Twittersphere” may be talking about independence, most Scots voters are not.

“What people in their homes right now care about is keeping themselves safe, when they’re going to get a vaccine, their child’s education or mental health, a cancelled operation or not getting their cancer diagnosis if they missed out on a screening programme, protecting our planet for future generations... whether they’re going to get back to work after this pandemic is over,” he said.

“These are the big issues that people are worried about right now at home and they are the issues we as a political establishment have got to talk about.”

Sarwar said he believed Nicola Sturgeon was only agitating for indyref2 as a means of  managing the SNP.

He said: “The idea that we come through [pandemic] and straight into a divisive referendum campaign, I just don’t think it’s the right thing to do - instead I think it’s right that we focus on rebuilding our country.”

“I actually don’t think even Nicola Sturgeon would be advocating a referendum right now, but I think she’s more focused on healing the wounds in her political party than she is about healing the wounds in the country.”

Meanwhile, Labour’s Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham has accused his colleagues of being more invested in Westminster than the rest of the UK. 

Speaking at a English Labour Network conference, he likened the party to a gambler hoarding money for years and then thinking they could become a millionaire in one night.

He said Labour had “got ourselves into a mindset over the years of thinking that the way to advance our ideals is to wait every four or five years and then chance everything on a Westminster election”.

He said that power “hoarded” at Westminster is a barrier to “fairness and equality for all parts of that country”.

“If you run a country where power is hoarded in one place, the reality is that it’s not going to create fairness and equality for all parts of that country,” he said, in comments reported by LabourList.

“That is the reality. We have a political system that I would say is biased against the North.” He said that Labour’s support for centralising power in Westminster was “working against our historic mission to create a more equal country”.

“If the English regions have to go on bended knee to Whitehall to prise out any money out of them – that is the problem,” he argued, adding that the “tyranny of the bidding round with everyone with their begging bowl” must stop.

“We need to demand power out of Westminster to do more for ourselves, have our fate in our own hands, rebuild the regions of the country with the Labour Party at the heart of it – a strong network of Labour cities,” he said. “That’s why I left Westminster.”