Scottish Labour's Anas Sarwar admits Starmer 'not popular with public right now'

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has admitted that Keir Starmer and the UK Labour Government are “not popular with the public right now”.

Although Sarwar said Starmer and his Government have made great strides, he said there are still many challenges that the party must confront.

“I welcome the fact that we got rid of the Tories, I welcome the fact that wages are £1,800 higher and mortgages are more than £1,500 lower, and I welcome the fact that energy bills are coming down,” Sarwar told STV News on Monday.

“But I’m not going to close my eyes to the reality that the UK Prime Minister and the UK Government are not popular with the public right now.”

He added: “But neither is [John Swinney’s] SNP Government.”

With just five months to go, Scottish political leaders made speeches on Monday to appeal to voters ahead of the upcoming Holyrood elections.

First Minister John Swinney kicked off the SNP’s 2026 Scottish Parliament election campaign and outlined the opportunity for a fresh start with independence.

The SNP leader used his New Year speech to declare there is “hope for a better future for Scotland”, but he told people across Scotland that they “have to go out and vote for it”.

Independence, he said, would be “the best thing we can do for Scotland’s health service” as well as the “biggest step” to cutting energy bills and the “best way to make daily life more affordable for people”.

With polls showing Labour trailing behind the SNP, however, Sarwar accepted that he is the “underdog” going into the election, and he admitted that the UK Labour government “haven’t got everything right”.

“I know that across Scotland people are angry, frustrated and impatient with the pace of change at Westminster,” Sarwar told party supporters on Monday.

“I do believe that no Labour Government at Westminster, however well intentioned, principled or capable, could have undone the damage of two decades in just two years.

“I know the Prime Minister and the UK Labour Government are not popular with the public right now. So, I am not running to be Scotland’s First Minister in denial of that truth. I am running to be Scotland’s First Minister in defiance of it.”

He added: “Over the next four months I will be making a case to the people of Scotland that, despite what John Swinney and the SNP tell you, this election is not about Keir Starmer, Westminster or Nigel Farage. It’s about Scotland.”

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay used his speech to hit out at Labour and the SNP for imposing “higher tax rates in order to fund an ever-growing benefits bill”.

He vowed the Conservatives would seek to change this, saying they wanted to cut taxes for those higher earners paying the 42p rate of income tax in Scotland’s devolved system, saying this would be done by increasing the threshold for the tax band in line with inflation.

Tories also want to cut income tax to 19p for lower and middle-income earners, with Findlay’s party further pledging to increase the threshold at which people start paying the income tax in line with inflation for every year of the next Holyrood term, with similar increases also planned for the various tax bands.