General Election 2024: On the campaign trail in Glasgow with Scottish Labour Party leader Anas Sarwar

This election campaign sets the scene as Anas Sarwar plots a route to Bute House in 2026 in the second of Labour’s two-part push for power at both Westminster and Holyrood. Glasgow turning red and renewing its electoral contract with the Scottish Labour Party is an important part of that story. Poll projects suggest that Labour MPs will be returned in the majority, if not all, of Glasgow’s seats on Thursday. Sarwar projects confidence and a sense of purpose while taking every opportunity to say that no vote has been cast yet and this is not a time for complacency. His rallying call has been that his party needs every vote it can get to ensure this election banishes the Tories

The Scottish Labour leader set out the party’s manifesto, stating that more than 200,000 people in Scotland - including 40,000 young people - will receive a pay rise if Labour forms the next Westminster government, with the party committed to ending age bands and introducing a genuine living wage.

“No matter a child’s background they should leave education equipped with the skills they need for work and life” he said. “Labour will spread opportunity at every age, because every child should believe that success belongs to them.”

“Under the Tories, thousands are stuck in poverty pay – and under the SNP youth unemployment has risen, and opportunities have been taken away. I promise the young people of Scotland that this is not as good as it gets.

“This election is the chance to deliver a decade of national renewal, and this manifesto is a blueprint to a brighter future. It’s an opportunity to change Scotland for this generation – and the next. It’s an opportunity we need to make sure we don’t miss.”

Scottish Labour’s manifesto includes commitments to ban exploitative zero hours contracts and day one rights to sick leave, parental leave and unfair dismissal. The party has also vowed to introduce a permanent new mortgage guarantee scheme to support first time buyers who struggle to save for a large deposit with lower mortgage costs.

Labour has set out an ambition that every child, regardless of their background, should experience cultural activities with industrial support for Scotland’s creative industries, improved access to music and sport in schools and new consumer protections to crack down on ticket touts so the arts, culture, and sport are affordable for all.

The party has also called for a reset of the relationship with the EU, with Labour aiming to end unnecessary trade barriers, agree new arrangements for touring artists and seek a new security pact to help keep the UK and Europe safe.

A recent profile by Politico has a senior Scottish Labour Party figure referring to Sarwar as a “lucky general”. It sets the scene, with the last three years being in his favour: “In 2021 [Richard] Leonard was forced out by the new UK Labour Leader Keir Starmer. This time Sarwar swept to victory in the Scottish Labour leadership contest — and then watched as his SNP opponents fell apart before his eyes.

“And fortune smiled on Sarwar again this summer, when Rishi Sunak stood in a rain-sodden Downing Street and called the snap general election. The timing was perfect for Scottish Labour, with the SNP having only just appointed John Swinney as its new leader following Yousaf’s shock departure. 

“Initial thoughts that Labour might win back only a handful of seats have been blown away by surging poll ratings. Most observers now expect dozens of new Scottish Labour MPs to be returned.”

One of Sarwar’s recurring lines on the campaign trail in Glasgow has been that Scottish Labour now offers stability while both the SNP and Tories in Scotland are in turmoil.

The Scottish party leader has a broad palette of target seats in this election, but Glasgow has merited close attention during the campaign. Polls suggest it could take back all the Glasgow seats that the SNP has dominated at Westminster since 2015. The city is where Anas’ political career began - in 2010 Anas, still in his 20s, became Labour MP for Glasgow Central, the Westminster seat his father had held since Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 election victory. 

On the campaign trail in the West End

Anas Sarwar conducts a succession of interviews to camera at the Clarice Pears Building on Byres Road, home to the health research hub of the University of Glasgow. His delivery is slick and determined, addressing the question while hammering his message for the day.

“It's pretty clear that there's only one party that is not chaotic, not divided and that is stable, and actually looking to the future. That's the Scottish Labour Party. I hope on the 4th of July we can finally get rid of this Tory government, that's done so much damage to our country over the last 14 years. The lies, the corruption, the incompetence, the failures, the right wing policies, the conspiracy theories. People across this country, by voting Scottish Labour can make sure we get rid of the rot and put Scotland in the heart of the next government” he eventually says, warming to the theme while sitting at a table of assembled print journalists.

Due to the setting, health is a topic for the questions: What can you say to Scottish voters that want to be reassured that enough money will come through to Scotland to cut waiting list? Sarwar links this one to the Holyrood election in 2026 - health is a devolved matter - but the question is on funding from Westminster so relevant to this campaign now.

“The SNP have been in charge of Scotland's NHS now for 17 years. And on their watch, 840,000 of our fellow Scots are on NHS waitlists, there's more and more people having to turn to the private sector because the absolute mess they have made of our NHS, despite the best efforts of our fantastic NHS staff. And so on the 4th of July, we have the opportunity to start the process of change for Scotland NHS, but we have to obviously realise what the election in 2026 will do in terms of having a government that's competently able to address the challenges of our NHS for the future.

“So specifically on the point you raise, we are going to close the non-dom tax loophole poll straight away, and that's going to help fund 160,000 more NHS appointments every single year.

“Now our first steps are a down payment on what we believe a decade of renewal can look like for our country. We're not saying this is the entirety of change. What we're seeing is the scale of the damage done by the Conservatives for the last 14 years means, and I think the public understands this, it means we're not going to be able to fix everything straight away. We're not going to be able to reverse every rotten policy straight away, but what we are going to do is start the process.

“One of the reasons we are here today is the opportunity for Scotland in research and development through investment in health from across the UK into Scotland, we can create more jobs and we can invest in the health innovation and technology that helps improve the health outcomes and the scale of treatments to make them cutting edge and benefit people here in Scotland to cut health inequalities and to make our NHS stronger in the future.”

The political correspondents take the chance to quiz the Scottish Labour leader on seats that may be in play in the North East of Scotland and coax him to offer some damning commentary of outgoing Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross, who has had a dismal election campaign: “Douglas Ross has got three jobs. He's now obviously applying for a different job in the northeast and the constituency he's standing in. I've only got one job. My one job is to deliver change for people here in Scotland and to get rid of this rotten Tory government that's done so much damage to our country.” It’s a good line.

There’s some quick fire delivery of talking points to potentially populate tomorrow’s newspaper headlines, but I’m distracted. The Labour delegation, including Glasgow North candidate Martin Rhodes, had been introduced to the work at the Health Research Hub by some scientists. They chatted in front of a wall with a graphic mapping out the health inequalities in Glasgow.

It was a stark reminder of the endemic problems deeply engrained in some Glasgow communities, the ones that generations of politicians have been unable to confront. I ask a question.

I'm curious about the framing of Scottish Labour’s campaign. It's positioned as a decade of renewal and if Glasgow turned red again, if the voters in this city gave renewed that contract with Labour again after almost a decade, what could they expect in terms of tackling health qualities in this next parliament up? If you're a man that lives in Govan, health inequality means there's a good chance you're going to be dead by 65. They don't have 10 years to wait for action on the NHS. What can we do in this city if we put Glasgow at the centre of the next Labour government?

“I think it's important to recognise what change there will be if we get an incoming UK Labour government, but how that still relies upon delivering change in 2026 because of the Scottish NHS being a devolved responsibility of the Scottish government.

“In terms of the decade of renewal point, I don't think we can downplay the scale of damage done by this Conservative party over the last 14 years. And I think if we said to people that we can solve all the problems overnight and everything will be fixed straight away, people wouldn't believe us, particularly when trust in politics is at an all time low because of 14 years of failure from the conservatives and 17 years of failure from the SNP.

“We've been really upfront and open in this election to say we're only going to make promises we know we can keep. We're only going to make spending commitments when we know where the money is coming from. But we believe that by ending the chaos, delivering economic stability and growing the economy, we can develop and lift the tax take in terms of the growth in order to make those investments to invest in our public sector and our public services for the future.

And that's why as part of the early steps, we want to close the non-dom tax status and close the tax loopholes, clamp down on tax avoidance, introduce a windfall tax on the oil and gas giants, and that gives us additional money to put into our hospitals. It gives us additional money to put into our education system and it gives us additional money to help bring down people's energy bills and invest in the clean energy of the future.

“So that's what we get. We elect a UK labour government, but that's only one part of the change. If we are going to deliver change for Scotland's NHS, then there has to be workforce planning and there's been no workforce plan for the last 10 years under the SNP. It also means investment in digital innovation in tech, which is why we're here today because there's so much health innovation and I don't think we do enough of it here in Scotland to build that NHS fit for the future.

“t's also about reorganisation and how we deliver care. We've got a population of five and a half million people, but we have 50 boards. We're management heavy, we're bureaucrats heavy. We've got to reduce the number of chief executives. We've got to reduce the number of mandarins and instead put the money into frontline nurses, doctors, and consultants.

“I have one last point on the health inequalities, which I think is really important. We will give a pay rise almost immediately to over 200,000 Scots by making the minimum wage a genuine living wage. That in itself will help lift people out of poverty and help pull people out of in equality.”

Any discussion on recruitment and innovation in the NHS needs to start with immigration. In research, University of Glasgow needs international students and to attract the best international academics. If the NHS in Glasgow is going to fill more roles here, it needs people to come to the city. Scotland needs more people to move here, not less, that’s a fact of demographics. I ask Anas Sarwar what he would you say to people who are considering working or investing in Glasgow, considering Scotland against a backdrop of a toxic discourse about immigration at Westminster?

“It’s a really important question. I think if you look at our UK immigration system, it is clear that our UK immigration system is fundamentally broken, that the Conservatives have completely trashed it. The long waits, for example, around people in our asylum system, their failure to properly challenge the criminal gangs that are exploiting individuals who are risking their lives by crossing the channel and their dog whistling on immigration has had a negative impact, in terms of our standing in the world, attracting talent, but also in terms of delivery of services here as well.

“And therefore, having a immigration system that is fit for purpose, that is linked to our skill system because there's a complete disconnect in our skill system, means that we can look at UK net migration, which in my view is too high. But I think it's important to look at the different demands and challenges in different parts of the UK around immigration.

“So an immigration and skill system that meets the needs of London will be very, very different for what it means in Aberdeen. The Northeast will be very different for what it's for the Western Isles and our island communities. And so therefore, I think we do need to change our immigration system to make it fit for purpose and match it with our skill system.

“What I say directly to anyone that's thinking of coming here is one, we welcome migrants. We've always been open arms to migrants. Migrants have made a significant contribution to Scotland and they've helped to deliver quality public services and to help shape and develop our culture here in Scotland. And so we've got to end the dog whistle style politics, but that doesn't mean we don't need to have a grownup serious conversation about migration. And the reason why I think linking our immigration system to our skill system is so important.

“Of course, there'll be short-term demands because it takes time to train a nurse. It takes time to train a doctor. It takes time to train some of the skills we need here in the country. So there will be short-term demands on migration. We still need to make sure we're upskilling our young people here so that they can take those jobs in the future.

“And we have to have a race to the top around some of those skills rather than a race to the bottom, skilling up our own population instead of taking healthcare workers away from some of the poorest nations in the world who've got really struggling healthcare systems. That's all part of the renewal we need to see across the country.”