ANAS Sarwar is under pressure to reveal whether his elevation to the House of Lords is a reward for betraying Keir Starmer, amid calls for his salary to be donated to charity.
The former Scottish Labour leader will quit his position to take up a seat in the unelected upper chamber in Westminster after leading his party to its fifth humiliating Holyrood defeat in a row in May.
He will join Andy Burnham’s government as a junior minister and will enjoy a job for life in the Lords, which he has previously argued should be abolished.
Speculation is rife that the Glasgow MSP – who will need to resign his seat when he takes up his peerage – has been rewarded for becoming the first senior Labour figure to call for Starmer’s resignation in February.
He previously ruled out becoming a Lord before his party’s defeat in the Scottish Parliament elections earlier this year. Asked by The Herald if he would accept a peerage if he lost, he said: “No. I'm focused on being first minister of this great country.”
The SNP have demanded Sarwar donate his Lords salary to charity. Though peers are technically unpaid, Sarwar would be entitled to a salary of up to £81,485 as a minister outside of the Cabinet.
SNP MSP George Adam said: “Anas Sarwar promised he would never enter the House of Lords so it’s only right he donates his bumper salary to charity.
“It’s hardly like Anas Sarwar is shy of cash so it’s only fair he does the right thing given his broken promise to the Scottish public.
“The Labour Party and Anas Sarwar repeatedly denied and lied to the people of Scotland about Anas Sarwar’s intentions – the fact he will now be prancing about in ermine robes won’t be forgotten.
“Andy Burnham promised a new kind of politics, but he has kicked off by furnishing the undemocratic House of Lords with its latest member – the failed leader of the Scottish Labour Party.”
The Scottish Greens branded Sarwar was a “chancer” who “has gone from promising to scrap the House of Lords to taking a seat in it”.
Gillian Mackay, the party’s co-leader, said: “He has spent years attacking the very institution he is now preparing to join. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
“If he cannot stand by his most basic political principles when power is on offer, why should anyone believe a word he says about anything else?
“By grabbing a place on the unelected red benches, he's ensured that he gets all of the power and privilege without having to worry about what voters might think.
“This is bigger than Anas Sarwar. It is about the contempt that the system shows for democracy. It is clearly not right or fair for politicians who have been rejected by the country to end up as law makers for the rest of their lives safe in the knowledge that there is nothing anyone can do to stop them.”
She said that one of “the many joys of independence will come” when the House of Lords can be consigned to Scotland’s history and the country could “build a modern democracy”.
Reform UK Scotland – whose leader Malcolm Offord stepped down from his seat in the Lords to head up Nigel Farage’s operation north of the Border – have called on Sarwar to “come clean” on whether his appointment was a reward for turning against Starmer.
Thomas Kerr, the party’s deputy leader, said: “Anas Sarwar has serious questions to answer about his judgement, his ethics and whether voters can trust him. Just 76 days ago, he asked the people of Glasgow to elect him as their MSP. Now he is walking away from Holyrood and from the responsibility they gave him.
“That raises serious questions that the voters who trusted him deserve answers to. When exactly was this decision agreed? When did Sarwar first know he would be leaving Holyrood? Who knew about it? Was it agreed before or after he publicly called for Keir Starmer to resign?
“Was his attack on Starmer connected in any way to what happened next? Was this his reward for turning on his own party leader? And why should anyone believe Sarwar’s promises about his political future now?”
Kerr pointed out that it was “not so long ago” that Sarwar had committed to abolishing the House of Lords.
Speaking in 2022, Sarwar said: “The House of Lords, in its current form, as an institution has no place in 21st-century politics. It is unacceptable, and has been for far too long, to have unelected representatives wielding such power.
“The House of Lords must be abolished and replaced with an institution which better reflects the makeup and the identity of the United Kingdom.”
In 2024, he repeated this position, telling the Scottish Labour party conference: "Every layer of our democracy is broken. That’s why we must replace the House of Lords."
Scottish Labour were approached for comment.
