Anas Sarwar set to launch bid to become MSP

FORMER Scottish Labour deputy leader Anas Sarwar is set to launch a bid to stand as a candidate for the party’s regional list in next year’s Holyrood elections, The Scotsman has learned.

Sarwar lost his Westminster seat to the SNP in May. Picture: John Devlin

Scottish Labour members have been invited to put their names forward for a deadline of 23 November as part of an attempt to attract talent to the party in the Scottish Parliament.

Mr Sarwar, who lost his Westminster seat to the SNP in May, said “people are encouraging me to stand” for Holyrood and stated that he would make a final decision in the next few weeks.

He said that he was a “Glasgow boy”, suggesting that he would seek a place on Labour’s regional list for Glasgow - the city he represented at Westminster in the last parliament.

He said: “I’ve still not made my mind up. Any decision has to involve consideration of my family as well as of the Labour Party.

“People are encouraging me to stand. A lot of people have been saying things to me.

“I’m a Glasgow boy and Glasgow is where I’ve lived and worked.”

Sarwar was viewed as one of Labour’s rising stars at Scottish and UK level after his election in 2010 as an MP for Glasgow Central – the constituency his father Mohammad Sarwar previously represented.

However, there is expected to be fierce competition for places on Scottish Labour’s regional list in Glasgow, as well as in regions such as the north east and south of Scotland.

Labour is expected to win most of its seats in the regional list section of the 2016 election with opinion polls suggesting that the SNP is on course to take most of the constituencies.