SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has said Scots have "the right to wish a referendum at some point in the future".
Speaking to the Herald, the Scottish Labour leader reiterated his opposition to independence, but said that “doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to support independence, or the right to wish a referendum at some point in the future”.
The comments come into disagreement with his party leader and boss, Keir Starmer, who in an interview in 2022, said Labour will continue to oppose a second independence referendum even if Supreme Court judges gave the green light to another vote.
Sarwar said: “I’ve been really honest with people. I don’t support independence; I don’t support a referendum.
“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to support independence, or the right to wish a referendum at some point in the future.
“I have an open-arms approach towards people who don’t share our view of the constitution.
“The Tories say we’re weak on the Union, which is nonsense, and the SNP say we’re hostile to people who support independence. I’m not hostile to anyone.”
Sarwar said he was not trying to persuade voters they were “wrong on independence”, but he was trying to convince them that “Labour can provide good governance for Scotland”.
He added: “I won’t pretend that Labour has not been in a divided, toxic place in the last 10 years, but I don’t think anyone can say I’ve been factional and tribal in my leadership.
“I think people can see that the Labour Party is back on the pitch and that we’re competing to win elections again.
“And that we can get rid of this rotten, economically illiterate, morally bankrupt Tory Government.”
The comments come after former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale admitted she can no longer argue for the Union as she did in 2014.
Dugdale – who left the Labour party four years ago – appeared as part of a panel alongside journalist and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where she was asked about her views on independence and whether she thought there would be another referendum in Scotland in the next decade.
The former MSP admitted she had “moved” on the independence issue and said she could not stand up for the Union in the same way as she did as part of the Better Together movement in 2014.
Voters, he added, were coming back to Labour to send a message to the SNP.
“I think there’s a large chunk of people who would have been hostile to us around 2014-2015 and who would have been strong supporters of independence,” he said.
“But they’re now saying openly that while they still like and support the idea of independence and want a referendum at some point in the future, the SNP has lost its way, and that it’s time for a change.”
Sarwar was speaking as his party campaigned in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, with Labour and the SNP expected to be the frontrunners in the upcoming by-election.
The contest is a key indicator of any potential Labour revival north of the border, with a YouGov poll this week putting the party just four percentage points behind the SNP at a Westminster election.
