When Sir Keir Starmer was elected to Downing Street less than two years ago, it was the first part of Anas Sarwar’s plan to return his party to power in Scotland.
He described change in Scotland – where the SNP have been in power for almost 20 years – as being a “two-part process” with the first part being for Labour to win power at Westminster.
The 2024 Westminster election saw Scottish Labour win 37 of the 57 constituencies north of the border, in a victory Mr Sarwar hoped would pave the way for him to become the country’s next first minster.
But with Sir Keir’s government proving unpopular with voters, the second stage of his plan – winning a Holyrood election – became increasingly harder for the Scottish Labour leader.
His unhappiness with Labour’s leadership at Westminster reached the point where Mr Sarwar called for the Prime Minister to quit in February.
Taking the dramatic step, Mr Sarwar said there had been “too many mistakes” in Downing Street.
And as the Holyrood election campaign continued, the Scottish Labour leader repeatedly made clear a vote for his party on May 7 would not be an endorsement of the Prime Minister.
But despite his efforts to distance himself from the UK Labour leader, Mr Sarwar saw his party stubbornly lag behind the SNP in the polls.
When all the results were in, Labour were tied in second place with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK for second place at Holyrood, with both parties returning 17 MSPs.
For Labour this total was down on the 22 seats it had won five years ago, in what had been the first election campaign Mr Sarwar fought as party leader, when he took over after Richard Leonard quit the post earlier that year.
The former NHS dentist had actually stood against Mr Leonard for the leadership of the party in 2017, but ended up taking on the job four years later, becoming the first Muslim to lead a political party in the UK.
His rise to power came after Sir Keir succeeded Jeremy Corbyn to become UK Labour leader in April 2020 with Sir Keir and Mr Sarwar initially allies seeking to move the party towards the centre ground of politics.
Their relationship changed when Mr Sarwar called for the Prime Minister to step down. And while Sir Keir came to Scotland during the campaign to visit servicemen at the Faslane nuclear submarine base, he did not campaign with Mr Sarwar.
Undeterred, Mr Sarwar insisted the election was not about the Prime Minister, with the Scottish Labour leader stressing the contest was instead about his bid to replace the SNP and First Minister John Swinney.
His failure to remove the SNP leader from Bute House comes just over a decade after Mr Sarwar lost his seat at Westminster.
He had entered elected politics as the MP for Glasgow Central – the seat his father Mohammad Sarwar had previously held – in 2010.
But he lost it five years later when an SNP landslide in 2015 saw the party – then led by Nicola Sturgeon – win all but three seats in Scotland
After being voted out of the Commons, Mr Sarwar swapped Westminster for Holyrood in 2016, being voted in as an MSP on the Glasgow regional list.
He was returned as an MSP on the Glasgow list in 2021 and for a third time in Thursday’s election.
But his failure to defeat the SNP at Holyrood election may leave him facing a leadership challenge of his own.
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