Holyrood 2016: Anas Sarwar among four Labour list MSPs for Glasgow

Anas Sarwar has returned to elected politics a year after losing his seat at Westminster, becoming a new Labour MSP for the Glasgow region.

Labour MSP Anas Sarwar at the count. Picture: John Devlin

The 33-year-old former dentist had followed in the footsteps of his father Mohammad Sarwar, the UK’s first Muslim MP, when he won the Glasgow Central constituency in the 2010 general election.

But after five years at the House of Commons, where he served on the International Development Select Committee, he lost the seat to the SNP.

Glasgow was the first area to declare its list MSPs for the region, with Labour taking four of the seven places.

Sarwar was elected to Holyrood on the list along with former leader Johann Lamont and party colleagues James Kelly and Pauline McNeill.

The Tories gained two more MSPs, with Adam Tomkins and Annie Wells both elected, while Green co-convener Mr Harvie was again returned as an MSP for the city.

Mr Sarwar has been a member of the Labour Party since he was 16 and was the number one candidate on the regional list for Glasgow in the 2007 Holyrood election, but failed to get elected that time.

When Johann Lamont was elected leader of the Labour Party in December 2011, Mr Sarwar was voted in as her deputy, winning more than half the votes.

As part of that role, the Glasgow University graduate headed up Scottish Labour’s campaign to keep Scotland in the UK, United with Labour.

After Ms Lamont quit as leader in the wake of the 2014 referendum, Mr Sarwar took on the role of acting leader of the party.

But at the Labour Party gala dinner in October that year, he announced he too would be standing down, to allow party members to elect a new leadership team.

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