Anas Sarwar 'right to speak his mind' on Keir Starmer, says Jack McConnell

Lord McConnell, who was the Labour first minister of Scotland between 2001 and 2007, said the decision by Anas Sarwar was “brave”.

Speaking to Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC, he said: “I think it does show that he's his own man.”

However, he stopped short of calling for the Prime Minister to go himself, citing a lack of alternative candidates.

Mr Sarwar became the most senior Labour figure to call for Sir Keir to resign on Monday amid the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal. He said there had been “too many mistakes” in Downing Street.

READ MORE: Sarwar open to campaigning with Starmer despite urging him to quit

Scottish Labour is suffering in the polls due to the unpopularity of the UK Labour government and Sir Keir, and is on course to lose the upcoming Holyrood election to the SNP.

Lord McConnell said the implications of Mr Sarwar’s intervention are unclear.

But he added: “If he wants to be First Minister, he wants to be First Minister on his own terms and he's very clear that that is not a substandard job.

“It's a huge job and it's one that needs somebody who can fill the shoes. So I think he showed that. He showed that on Monday and I actually think probably over the next few months it will be seen to be a moment when he kind of came into his own after a couple of years when life has been dominated by UK politics.”

Lord McConnell, who was the last Labour first minister of Scotland before the SNP took power in 2007, said Mr Sarwar was right to speak his mind.

“If this is what he believed and he was no longer prepared to say that he thought the situation was saveable, then, yeah, it was right to say it,” he told LBC.

“He should speak his mind, he should tell the truth. He's not anybody's poodle and he certainly doesn't need permission from anybody.

“And if he genuinely believed that was the right thing to say, whether or not others maybe let him down on Monday afternoon, I think he should say the honest thing rather than the concocted thing.”

He said he would be “surprised” if Mr Sarwar had acted without some indication others would join his call.

“I would be very surprised if he had done that without some indication that there were others who were prepared to fall in behind over the course of the afternoon,” he said.

“And of course, absolutely nobody of any significance did. So I suspect that there were quite a number of people who let him down. I don't know that for certain. I haven't spoken to him, but if they did, they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Asked if Mr Sarwar was right to call for the Prime Minister to resign, Lord McConnell said: “I would only ever answer that question in the affirmative if others, and probably, you know, more than one other, was stepping up with the vision and the organisation and the discipline and the courage to show that they can fill the shoes more successfully.

“To me, that's at least one of the main issues at the moment, which is that if you're going to change, you're going to make a change after everything that's happened, then somebody needs to step up and fill the shoes.

“And at the moment, quite clear, particularly from what happened on Monday, that the courage, the politics, the organisation that is required to become Prime Minister is not yet obvious in any of the potential contenders.”