![\"Scottish](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/0_proxy-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMichael Marra and Paul Sweeney are the MSPs party insiders say could square off if there is a vacancy.<\/p>\n
14:19, 10 May 2026Updated 14:19, 10 May 2026<\/p>\n
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Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar accompanied by Deputy leader of the Scottish Labour party Dame Jackie Baillie(Image: PA)<\/p>\n
Anas Sarwar\u2019s departure as Scottish Labour leader is inevitable<\/a>.<\/p>\n Leaders cannot survive the sort of drubbing he presided over on Friday and his five years in charge will end sooner rather than later.<\/a><\/p>\n The failures of Keir Starmer were the overwhelming cause of Labour\u2019s Holyrood election defeat<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Sarwar ran a poor campaign and with leadership comes accountability.<\/p>\n His \u201csafety first\u201d manifesto was tepid and focusing on 38 seats was a strategic blunder.<\/p>\n A better campaign may only have secured a couple of extra seats, but Sarwar knows he needs to own his mistakes.<\/p>\n The question is who will bid to succeed Sarwar after he completes his unfinished business with Scottish Labour.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Scottish Labour MP urges Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie to quit after election ‘disaster’<\/a>READ MORE: John Swinney vows IndyRef2 bid restart within days after SNP sweep to victory<\/a><\/p>\n Although deputy leader Jackie Baillie is formidable, she is a major shareholder in Sarwar Inc and would be seen as the continuity candidate.<\/p>\n The two most likely contenders are MSPs who snuck back into Holyrood on Friday by fine margins.<\/p>\n Dundonian Michael Marra, a List MSP in the North East, was a left-winger as a student who was opposed to Tony Blair and the Iraq War.<\/p>\n The 46 year old was even a member of the Campaign for Socialism, an internal group widely loathed by party moderates.<\/p>\n But Marra has unquestionably moved rightwards since his student days, although one ally says he remains on the \u201cpragmatic\u201d Left.<\/p>\n Michael Marra(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n Paul Sweeney<\/p>\n If he was leader, he would be less of a populist than Sarwar and more willing to adopt controversial positions.<\/p>\n As a sceptic of the SNP\u2019s gender recognition Bill, it is not impossible to imagine him apologising for Labour\u2019s previous support for the legislation.<\/p>\n Allies would also expect him to champion the oil and gas industry, rather than fudge the issue.<\/p>\n Sweeney, 37, is another MSP who has been on a political journey during a career that has spanned Westminster and Holyrood.<\/p>\n The Glasgow MSP was a critic of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn before partially buying into a project that was rejected by voters.<\/p>\n He is now seen as being on the party\u2019s soft Left.<\/p>\n Sweeney\u2019s admirers say he is a good communicator with the skills to reach younger voters who do not give Labour a second look.<\/p>\n He also has distance from the Sarwar project and could credibly portray himself as the clean hands candidate.<\/p>\n Others say he needs to talk less about Glasgow heritage – a niche issue for most of the country.<\/p>\n Regardless of who succeeds Sarwar, the real issue for Scottish Labour is who and what they stand for.<\/p>\n Reform UK picked up sizable support last week from older voters who are fed up with the mainstream parties.<\/p>\n The Greens did likewise with younger people while the SNP still have a lock on a large chunk of the pro-independence vote.<\/p>\n Who does Labour stand for in 2026? And how can any message connect to voters while they are tied to the UK party?<\/p>\n Answering those questions will be the job of Scottish Labour\u2019s eleventh leader in the devolved era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Marra and Paul Sweeney are the MSPs party insiders say could square off if there is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6289,12071,140,2332,15626,31,42,15627,2236,3497,91,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-33534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-anas-sarwar","9":"tag-dundee","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-independence-referendum","12":"tag-jackie-baillie","13":"tag-labour-party","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-racing-tips","16":"tag-scottish-labour","17":"tag-scottish-national-party","18":"tag-tony-blair","19":"tag-uk","20":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116555329309174235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Michael](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1_Scottish-Daily-Politics.jpg\")
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