EXC: The unplanned meeting will take place on Tuesday.
Anas Sarwar called on Keir Starmer to resign
Scottish Labour MPs will hold an emergency summit on Tuesday after Anas Sarwar called for Keir Starmer to quit as leader. The Scottish Parliamentary Labour Party (SPLP) will meet as calls grow for the Prime Minister to stand down over the Peter Mandelson scandal.
Starmer’s job is on the line after he appointed Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US, despite knowing of his continued friendship with billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The PM’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney quit on Sunday over the scandal and his executive director of communications Tim Allan resigned yesterday.
But it was Sarwar’s bombshell call for Starmer to quit, made at a press conference in Glasgow, that has turned the heat on the embattled PM.
Scottish Labour is nearly twenty points behind the SNP in the polls for the Holyrood election and party figures blame Starmer’s troubled start as PM.
Sarwar, who informed the PM of his decision on Monday afternoon, said there had been “too many mistakes” in Downing Street:
But Sarwar has not been backed up by senior colleagues, with Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander and Ministers Michael Shanks and Ian Murray backing Starmer.
READ MORE: Scottish politics today: Anas Sarwar drops bombshell as Keir Starmer rallies support
It has now emerged that Scottish Labour MPs will meet on Tuesday in an unplanned meeting.
The summit could lead to some MPs echoing Sarwar’s call.
Sarwar said his first priority is to Scotland and he would not “sacrifice” the country to a third decade of an SNP government.
“That’s why the distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change.
“It is so obvious that we desperately need change in Scotland and in three months time the opportunity to get rid of a failing SNP government is one that is too important to be missed.
“We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election in May is not without consequence for the lives of Scots.”
