Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Scottish Labour Leader Calls for PM to Quit
The leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, has called for British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to resign. He said at a press conference yesterday, "The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.”"He said the PM has made "too many mistakes," and his continued presence at Number 10 will cost the party in th elections coming in May. The catalyst of this was the Epstein Files release and big role Labour grandee Peter Lord Mandelson played in it. That plus the usual difficulty any government has 18 months into a parliament has put Labour at a disadvantage in Scotland. This demand from Mr. Sarwar is all about stopping another SNP government in Edinburgh.
The Scottish people go to the polls on May 7 to elect 129 members of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish National Party has run Scotland since 2006. One party rule tends to be bad over time, and the SNP has has more than a spot of bother over financing matters. By rights, they should be in trouble in the polls.
The Guardian stated:
Recent opinion polls show Labour trailing in third place behind the Scottish National party and Reform. Sarwar and his advisers have calculated it will be impossible for Starmer to recover after the scandal over Peter Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein . . . .
Polling by More in Common found on Friday that Labour had fallen four points in the Holyrood constituency vote, slipping behind Reform into third place, and was also a point behind Reform on the list vote.
That really gets up Mr. Sarwar's nose because in the last general election, Labour took 37 of the 57 seats in Scotland. He felt, and one can see why, that Labour should have a good shot at taking over from the SNP as the governing party of the northern kingdom. That the party is not ahead, that it trails the yahoos in Reform, suggest the problems lie to the south.
What Mr. Sarwar has tried to do is separate the Scottish Labour candidates from the London Labour government. The SNP, Reform, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens and the Raving Monster Looney Party will all try to hang Sir Keir and the mess in Westminster around the necks of every Labour candidate in Scotland. By calling for the resignation of the PM, Mr. Sarwar is trying to gain a bit of daylight between the Scottish election campaign and the Cabinet Office in Whitehall.
Down in the Palace of Westminster, Labour are sitting on amajority of 170 or so. That means that unless the party tosses him out, Sir Keir has nothing to fear in serving this entire parliament as PM. The Loyal Opposition has no real leverage apart from whining. Thus far, the opinions of the Scottish Labour Leader have not spread in Cabinet. Indeed, Sir Keir held a meeting with MPs yesterday, and he received wide-spread support.
There is a by-election toward the end of the month, on the 26th to be precise. The constituency of Gorton and Denton (near Manchester) was held by Labour. Andrew Gwynne resigned over contents of a WhatsApp group of which he was a member that was full of racist and sexist commentary and general boorishness. He had a healthy 13,000 vote majority coming out of the general election. In 2024, 80% of the constituency voted for a party on the left. That means that the only way Reform can take the seat is if the Labour and Green Parties split the vote right down the middle.
The Greens are probably in a better position to win the seat. Their candidate is Hannah Spencer, a local woman, and a woman plumber at that. The Labour candidate, Angeliki Stogia, has to deal with the party's image and situation, putting her at a disadvantage. Reform is sending a non-local, Matt Goodwin, who hopes no one will notice he is a GB News commentator, part of the establishment Reform is supposed to hate.
If Ms. Stogia wins, Mr. Sarwar will not be alone in calling for Sir Keir to quit.
© Copyright 2026 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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