Can poor Anas Sarwar take any position Keir Starmer won't undermine?

POOR Anas Sarwar, he's like the attention-seeking kid at school who's always boasting about his influential and powerful mates who conveniently go to another school. All he's got to do is to pick up the phone and his pal in the big boy trousers will immediately do what Anas tells him.

The problem for the Labour party's Scottish branch manager is that, time after time, his big boy pal demonstrates that not only will he not do Anas's bidding, he rarely even seems to pay the slightest bit of attention to anything Anas says. There was that whole debacle with the cruel and inhumane two-child cap on benefits, which Labour's Scottish branch office said it was going to oppose when campaigning in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election – only for the victorious Labour candidate Michael Shanks to seamlessly morph into a compliant Starmer yes-man the second that the ballots were counted.

There's as much chance of Shanks opposing any of Starmer's right-wing policies as there is of Scottish Tory MSP Stephen Kerr winning Holyrood's Mr Congeniality award.

Then there's the – literally burning – issue of the day, the continuing catastrophe in Gaza. Starmer, in the big boy trousers, has consistently refused to issue a call for a ceasefire that was not hedged about with caveats and conditions, and has equally consistently refused to issue a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the war crimes being committed by Israeli forces against the civilian population of Gaza.

At their recent conference, the Labour party in Scotland voted to call for an immediate ceasefire in the devastated Palestinian territory, something that Anas Sarwar has previously called for. Yet a few days later, when MPs were supposed to be given the opportunity to debate and vote upon an SNP opposition day motion calling for an immediate ceasefire, Keir Starmer deceitfully leaned on the Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle to change long-standing parliamentary convention. Hoyle effectively pulled the rug out from underneath the SNP, preventing the vote on their motion from taking place and conveniently rescuing Starmer from an embarrassing rebellion.

Sarwar did not utter a peep about the underhand machinations of his boss.

READ MORE: 'Unforgivable': Stephen Flynn tells Speaker to quit after Diane Abbott snub

Now, he has been undermined by Keir Starmer yet again, this time on the issue of assisted dying. Speaking to ITV, Starmer said he would act in the first parliamentary term if he wins the next General Election to legalise the practice of allowing terminally ill people to choose the time and method of their death.

In a phone call with broadcaster and campaigner Esther Rantzen – who is battling terminal illness and has expressed her own wish for an assisted death – Starmer said he was "personally committed" to a change in the law.

It is currently illegal to help someone take their own life in the UK, although there is a proposed bill at Holyrood to legalise it in Scotland. This bill, proposed by LibDem MSP Liam McArthur, the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, has so far received support from a number of MSPs from across the political spectrum, including 19 SNP MSPs, seven Tory MSPs, three Greens and six Labour.

However, speaking to The Scotsman last year about the proposed bill, Sarwar said: "I'm yet to be persuaded on the legislation. I don't instinctively support [it]."

Starmer's comments undermine the Labour leader in Scotland and demonstrate that he pays no attention to positions Sarwar adopts.

Starmer told Rantzen: "I’m personally in favour of changing the law, I think we need to make time. We will make the commitment. Esther, I can give you that commitment right now."

When pressed by ITV News on whether he’d like a vote to take place within the next parliament, Starmer replied: "Oh yes, definitely."

Prime Minister's Questions

Prime Minister's Questions were dominated by the issue of the racist and inflammatory comments made by Tory donor Frank Hester, who had said that Labour's Diane Abbott made him want to hate all black women and that he wanted her to be shot.

The Tories have refused to return Hester's donations – even though it was just the other week after the SNP Gaza ceasefire motion was pulled amidst much hand-wringing about the safety of MPs. Yet here we have a Tory donor calling for an MP to be shot and the Conservatives refuse to disassociate themselves from him.

It's quite amazing what donating £10 million to the Conservative party will buy you.

Despite Sunak clearly being desperate to move on from the story, the Scottish Conservatives have escalated the issue by calling for their Westminster counterparts to "carefully review" the donations that they have received from the controversial Yorkshire businessman. The comments came in response to a letter from Scottish Labour's deputy leader Jackie Baillie urging Douglas Ross not to use funds donated by Hester.

In response, a Scottish Conservative spokesperson said: "These comments were racist and wrong."

They added: "The Scottish Conservative Party has never accepted a donation from Frank Hester and the UK Conservative Party should carefully review the donations it has received from Hester in response to his remarks."

Spineless and irrelevant, or racist enabling, roll up and take your pick of what the main British parties offer Scotland at the next Westminster General Election.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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