Anas Sarwar has yet again been left humbled and humiliated

The National

4 days ago

THERE can be few working people who get as many holidays as Anas Sarwar, who is repeatedly forced into hiding as he attempts to evade scrutiny over the appalling decisions of an arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister to whom he is beholden.
Sarwar's problem is that everyone knows he's a spineless and powerless obedient minion of Keir Starmer, but Sarwar has to maintain the fiction that he has power, agency, and authority in his own right as the leader of an autonomous political party - so-called Scottish Labour - which is both capable of formulating its own policy positions, and of exerting real and significant influence on the policy decisions of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Westminster.
Even with the willing and eager collaboration of the anti-independence Scottish media, which has a vested interest in perpetuating Labour's false narrative, this was a difficult balancing act for Sarwar to pull off while Labour was in opposition to a Conservative government, but with Labour now in power at Westminster, Sarwar's powerlessness and lack of influence have been starkly exposed and he's left revealed as a bundle of empty boasts in a red tie.
READ MORE: Chancellor 'going nowhere', says No 10 after tears in the Commons
Sarwar has yet again been left humbled and humiliated by the chaotic scenes in the House of Commons yesterday when the Labour Government was forced to make up policy on the hoof and introduce last minute changes to its controversial bill to cut disability benefits in a desperate attempt to stave off a looming defeat at the hands of infuriated Labour back bench MPs.
Social Security Minister Stephen Timms took the unusual step of announcing major changes to the bill just over an hour before MPs were set to vote on it. These changes came on top of other concessions which the Government had made over the weekend, concessions which the Government had belatedly realised would not be enough to stave off a Commons defeat. Prior to these concessions, the tone deaf Starmer had infuriated his backbenchers by dismissing concerns raised by Labour MPs about the cuts as "noises off".
(Image: UK Parliament)
Timms told the Commons that the controversial changes to eligibility for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which would restrict eligibility so that disabled people would have to score at least four points on at least one measure of disability to qualify, would be shelved until he completed a review of the policy alongside charities. The Timms review is expected to report in autumn 2026.
The proposed change would have removed PIP from hundreds of thousands of disabled people, particularly those who have variable and fluctuating conditions, and was viewed with immense alarm by disabled people, many of whom rely on PIP to maintain a basic life.
To their eternal shame, Anas Sarwar and the majority of Labour MPs representing Scottish seats, backed the original form of the bill, which according to the Government's own figures, would have thrown 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty. Disability rights groups and anti-poverty organisations calculated that the true figure was even higher, in excess of 400,000.
Don't go holding your breath, but it would be nice if the Scottish media pressed Sarwar and those Labour MPs, Michael Shanks, Blair McDougall, my own MP Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock's Elaine Stewart, and the MPs parachuted in by Labour HQ, like Melanie Ward in Cowdenbeath and Imogen Walker in Hamilton and Clyde Valley, why they uncritically supported cruel and damaging benefits cuts which even their own government has now resiled from and at no point raised even the mildest of concerns about measures which were poised to throw hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people in society into poverty and despair.
Speaking to The National after debate, SNP MP Pete Wishart said: "After yesterday's humiliating and chaotic scenes at Westminster one person who stands out as one of the most humbled and compromised is Anas Sarwar.
(Image: PA)
'He backed these appalling benefit cuts from the very beginning and even when the whole enterprise started to collapse around him he was still trying to defend the indefensible.
'Even when his Labour colleagues were seeking concession after concession he was sticking to the original script of all of this being necessary. Anas must be feeling totally humiliated this morning and this shows that Scotland's disabled community will never be able to trust Scottish Labour again.'
Given that the entire raison d'etre of these so-called reforms was to save the government money and avoid the need to raise taxes on the better off, it's unclear exactly what the Timms review is meant to achieve, other than kicking the whole uncomfortable issue into the long grass and buying Starmer time. Anas Sarwar and the other crutch kickers of the Labour party in Scotland will be keeping a low profile until the news spotlight moves elsewhere - Oh look, a ferry!
At PMQs in the Commons today, a distraught-looking Rachel Reeves appeared to shed a tear when Starmer refused to confirm that she would keep her job. Reeves is the focus of much of the anger in the Labour party for the debacle over the disability benefits cuts and other unpopular measures such as the axing of the winter fuel allowance which have seen Labour plummet in the polls and many of the large cohort of newly elected Labour MPs left wondering if they can be reelected at the next general election or they are going to face the humiliation of becoming the Labour party versions of a one hit wonder, the Right Said Freds of politics, or in the case of Starmer's Labour party, the Right Wing Said Freds.
That's an alarming development for Starmer because backbench MPs who fear that they are going to lose their seats after one term, before they have a well-established political career, are MPs who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by rebelling on future government policies which are unpopular with the public.
(Image: Paul Currie/PA Wire)
This could pose a serious problem for Starmer as it will make it difficult for him to impose his authority over his party, and we could see more chaotic scenes such as yesterday's, which could pose a serious problem for a Prime Minister who came into office promising change from the dysfunction of the previous Conservative administration.
The British media and political parties continue to get themselves worked up about anti-Israeli army chanting at the recent Glastonbury festival. It would be nice if they exhibited even one tenth of the same concern about the annual hate parades in Scotland and Northern Ireland when members of the Orange Order sing songs about being up to the knees in the blood of Catholics. If they are not willing to take action against the Orange Order and its sectarian bigotry, spare us the pearl clutching about Bob Vylan and Kneecap.