Anas Sarwar
Minister of State for Trade Policy of the United KingdomWikipedia
40
MENTIONS
16
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12
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Search complete. 40 mentions across 16 episodes found for "Anas Sarwar".
Sep 17, 2026
John SwinneyPANELIST
And my final point, Presiding Officer, is this.
John SwinneyPANELIST
Every single thing, every single thing that Jackie Baillie said there, her predecessor in that office, Anas Sarwar, said to me week after week, month after month, in the run-up to the election, and the Labor Party went down.
Jackie BailliePANELIST
Yeah.
John SwinneyPANELIST
They went down to 17 seats.
Dan VeversGUEST
being slightly flippant there, but obviously we've talked before, many people have talked at quite a lot of length about how Labour has sort of collapsed in relevance, it's collapsed in popularity in Scotland, you know, it's been losing votes in seats at every election since 2007, I'm guessing, in Scotland.
Dan VeversGUEST
And in terms of who's going to succeed Anas, Michael Marra, a safe pair of hands, he's been in Parliament before.
Dan VeversGUEST
Joe Fagan, I spoke to him recently in a story for the Sunday Mail.
Dan VeversGUEST
We interviewed him and he seems like a serious guy.
Chris McCallHOST
Michael Marra has been around Scottish Labour a long time.
Chris McCallHOST
I would assume he's maybe met him at some point.
Chris McCallHOST
I don't get the impression it's not going to be the kind of relationship we saw in the run up to the 2024 election between Anas Sarwar and Keir Starmer, where there was a very conscious effort.
Chris McCallHOST
Keir Starmer made a lot of appearances in Scotland.
Fraser ThompsonHOST
It must be very wounding to people to realize how quickly they've moved from being sort of pivotal within their own idea of themselves and their own circle to being completely superfluous.
Fraser ThompsonHOST
I mean, I don't know if anyone's bothering to ring Anas Sarwar up for anything now, but I mean, the only news there is with Keir Starmer, uh, who, who apparently is still billing about being given the chop af- two years after his big election result.
Fraser ThompsonHOST
He's still not sort of getting it.
Fraser ThompsonHOST
But he's now created [laughs] what, what many people are sort of saying will be the, the sort of determining by-election for the left in Britain for quite some time.
Matt FordeHOST
Today's guest is Michael Marra, one of the two men standing to be the next leader of the Scottish Labour Party.
Matt FordeHOST
Anas Sarwar, who led the party for the last few years, obviously is now in the Lords and is a minister in the UK government, a trade minister.
Matt FordeHOST
So that leaves a vacancy of the two candidates, Michael Marra and Joe Fagan, and the ballot closes on the 17th of September 2021.
Matt FordeHOST
The result will be announced on the 19th of September.
Matt FordeHOST
I've wanted to have him on the show for a while because he's a very thoughtful politician, very diligent and really stood out in Holyrood in the last few years for Labour and is well regarded in Scottish politics.
Matt FordeHOST
And now he is standing to be the next leader of Scottish Labour.
Matt FordeHOST
And we talk about why, about what he would do differently to Anas Sarwar, what he would do differently to his opponent, Joe Fagan, and just about his life.
Matt FordeHOST
And he's led a fascinating life, worked in Malawi for Oxfam, and he has many, many interests, which is awesome.
Kezia DugdaleHOST
So I'm not sure you even have to wait until next year to see the next year's local government elections to see the politics play out.
Kezia DugdaleHOST
I think you can see it happening already in the Labour leadership contest for who's going to replace Anas Sarwar.
Kezia DugdaleHOST
So at the start of this race, you would have thought that Michael Marra was an absolute shoo-in for this role, given his standing in the party.
Kezia DugdaleHOST
But Michael, being the author of the Scottish Labour Manifesto in this year's election, accepted the need to make a the number of quangos, reducing public sector headcount, looking at health boards.
Mina RzoukiHOST
The WFP says it urgently needs an additional $386 million over the next six months to support about 2 million people across the West Bank and Gaza.
Mina RzoukiHOST
The UK could be ready to sign a long-awaited trade deal with the Gulf within weeks despite the continuing Iran war, Trade Minister Anas Sarwar told The National.
Mina RzoukiHOST
The agreement with the GCC was reached in May after almost four years of negotiations and is now awaiting signature.
Mina RzoukiHOST
Mr Sarwar said Britain sees the Gulf as a key partner for trade, investment and economic security and wants to deepen ties despite the conflict.
Xander ElliardsHOST
It's like they're just saying the same nonsense platitudes that we've been hearing from Scottish Labour for God knows how many years.
Xander ElliardsHOST
while saying that they're going to rejuvenate the party and make it new and could be back in power and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah yeah it's just it's just a waste of everyone's energy i think and like if you really not as a party grapple with this i think you should no introspection monica lennon was on the BBC before Sarwar resigned, I think it was.
Xander ElliardsHOST
And she was talking about, has Scott Schaber going to do a big review of all these policies and stuff over the summer? The BBC presenter was like, pushing us specifically on a route to a second independence referendum.
Xander ElliardsHOST
She was like, Scott Schaber is going to review all of this stuff over the summer.
Joe FaganGUEST
Yes.
Joe FaganGUEST
No, I think the SNP strike me as a very sort of directive party in the way that their sort of culture of leadership is and the culture of politics in the Scottish National Party seems very different.
Joe FaganGUEST
I don't think that's served the SNP, or might have served the SNP well in a strategic sense.
Joe FaganGUEST
I don't think it's serving the Scottish Parliament well in the sense that I think it's important that you have strong committees and strong backbench scrutiny.
Joe FaganGUEST
One of the reasons that I put my name forward for this is I kind of did that when I was in local government.
Joe FaganGUEST
You had to manage interests within your own party and I had to lead an administration that It involved other parties, but also didn't have a majority.
Joe FaganGUEST
So there is a skill, I suppose, to that kind of leadership.
Joe FaganGUEST
And I think you need to be a bit of a consensus builder and a collaborative leader.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
From the Herald Scotland, Sunday 23rd August 2026, from the Politics section, The next Scottish Labour leader faces all the old problems by political editor Andrew Learmonth.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
Anas Sarwar may be away from Holyrood and Scottish Labour's top job, but the legacy of the soon-to-be peer looms over the race to replace him.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
While the contest is a debate about the future of the party, before Michael Mara and Joe Fagan get on to that, they need to discuss the past and May's disastrous election.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
The next Labour leader's difficulty, however, is that they face all of the problems Mr Sarwar faced and fixes are not obvious.
6 MINS LATER
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
But having a mainstream leader who can hitch his wagon to a more popular UK Labour government, as the constitutional issue continues to fade in relevance, is probably the most likely way to do it, he added.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
Will whoever wins even get along to make their case? Andy Burnham has ruled out an early general election, but with Labour ahead of reform and the new Prime Minister keen to free himself of tax constraints of 2024's manifesto, speculation about a snap vote continues to mount.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
If he does go early, Scottish Labour's new leader could find themselves fighting a UK campaign within months of taking the job, with barely any time to show what, if anything, they would do differently from Anas Sarwar.
Ian McKennaNARRATOR
This article was written by Andrew Learmonth and read by Ian McKenna.
Fraser ThompsonHOST
Well, [laughs] I don't-
Lesley RiddochHOST
Anas Sarwar? You know-
Fraser ThompsonHOST
Yep
Lesley RiddochHOST
... who bothered to put his, "Well, you know, four and a half days into the job, and I'm really enjoying helping to push, you know, Britain's trade," or whatever it is he's doing, which produced [laughs] thousands of negative comments and about four people who liked it.
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