SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has insisted that Scottish Labour is “100% unified” as the party reels from this week’s public spat between Sarwar and the Prime Minister.
Mr Sarwar has faced a week of significant pressure since his call for Keir Starmer’s resignation on Monday (FEB 9), with the Prime Minister’s cabinet coming out in vocal support of him during Sarwar’s speech.
A number of MPs and MSPs within Scottish Labour have not yet commented their thoughts on the rift between Starmer and Sarwar publicly. This includes Scott Arthur, MP for Edinburgh South West, and Tracy Gilbert, MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, neither of whom have commented.
Sarwar said: “We are all 100% unified, 100% hungry, 100% energised and 100% determined to win this election on the seventh of May we all know we’re in the fight of our lives, but it’s a fight we believe that we can and that we will win.
“So let me just be really, really clear about this, so no one has any doubt: this is an election that I intend to win.
“This is an election that Scottish Labour believes it will win.”
MSP Daniel Johnson, who has publicly backed Sarwar, was also there to support the Scottish Labour leader.
His comments came at a press conference in Edinburgh‘s Holyrood Marriott hotel on Friday, when he attacked John Swinney and the SNP on various issues.
Polls have shown Labour to be averaging third place, trailing behind the SNP as well as dropping points to second-placed Reform UK.
Both Sarwar and the Prime Minister have been facing questions about the relationship of Labour party members with the convicted paedophile and former Labour councillor, Sean Morton.
Sarwar told reporters at the press conference that he suspended Pam Duncan-Glancy “the same day” as “new information” came to light, which was also the same day the investigation on her links to Morton began.
In December 2025, Duncan-Glancy admitted “serious error of personal judgement” after emerged that she had maintained a relationship with Morton after his 2017 conviction which involved indecent images of children.
The Daily Record has since reported that she had continued her friendship with Morton after he was jailed for 16 months in January 2025.
Labour had earlier removed the whip in the House of Lords from Matthew Doyle, Sir Keir Starmer’s former director of communications, to allow an investigation into his links with Morton.
Doyle was appointed as a peer in December 2025, but it later emerged that he had campaigned for Morton, even after charges were brought in 2016.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “All complaints are assessed thoroughly in line with our rules and procedures.”
