Anas Sarwar concedes defeat in Scottish Parliament election: 'My party is hurting'

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said his “party is hurting” as he effectively conceded defeat in the Holyrood election.

Sarwar’s comments came with more than 120 seats still to declare.

In the final days of the campaign he continued to tell voters he could be the next first minister.

But arriving at the count centre in Glasgow with his wife Furheen, he told reporters it would be a “disappointing result” for Labour. He said: “We argued the case for change but ultimately it is an argument we lost.”

Scottish Labour’s campaign asked Scots to give them five years to “sort out the mess” after almost two decades of SNP government.

Sarwar urged wary voters to “hold [their] nose” and vote for him. He also tried to distance himself and his party from Keir Starmer’s government, urging the prime minister to step down and asking him not to campaign in Scotland.

The early comments come after Starmer insisted he will not walk away despite punishing results in the English local government elections.

The party has suffered huge losses there and been pushed into third place behind Reform UK, the Lib Dems and the Tories.

It is also expected to lose control of the Welsh Senedd for the first time in the history of devolution.

Sarwar said Scottish Labour had suffered as a result of a “national disappointment”.

He told reporters: “Throughout this election campaign, I have tried to make this election about Scotland. I'm not going to change that today. Is there a national wave though, that we've tried to overcome but failed to do so? Yes, but right now, my focus is on what this election means.”

When asked if he holds Starmer responsible for the Scottish results, he said: “I said what I said back in February and I stand by that, but I'm going to focus on what this means for my party here in Scotland.

“My party is hurting today and it's my job to hold it together.”

Pollsters suggest this result will be the party's worst under devolution. Deputy leader Jackie Baillie appeared tearful at a campaign event on the day before ballot boxes opened.

Asked if Scottish Labour had got its strategy wrong, Sarwar said: “We were right to focus on making this a constituency-based election campaign because I was very clear when I took on the leadership five years ago that my ambition and my intention was to change the government here in Scotland and to get to work to improve the outcomes for people right across this great country. And that's the ambition we had going into that election. That is clearly an ambition we have not made.”

Shortly after Sarwar was speaking, Labour secured its first win of the contest, with candidate Donald MacKinnon taking Na h-Eileanan an Iar from the SNP with 4,665 votes.

Incumbent Alasdair Allan, a former government minister, saw his vote share slip by 14.9 per cent.

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