Unionist politicians are warming up for what they hope will be one of the biggest opportunities of the past two decades to undermine the independence cause. Whoever wins the SNP leadership contest today is taking over a party that doesn’t know its own kind any more – and a government that’s struggling to blame its record entirely on Westminster.
That’s one of the reasons Anas Sarwar has called for a snap Holyrood election. The Scottish Labour leader today argued that the new First Minister would have to seek their own mandate, saying:
This is an SNP that screams about mandates: let’s be honest, the next SNP First Minister will not have the mandate. They’ll have Nicola Sturgeon’s record; they won’t have Nicola Sturgeon’s mandate – a mandate given to her in a pandemic election when she asked people to support her for five years to get her through the pandemic and lead us to a national recovery.
Sarwar took over a Scottish Labour party that was demoralised and confused.
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