Easdale Brothers Back Anas Sarwar After Starmer Resign Call

James and Sandy Easdale

Three of Scotland’s largest and most influential Labour donors have expressed strong support for Anas Sarwar, following the Scottish Labour leader’s call for Sir Keir Starmer to resign over the Peter Mandelson scandal.

Mr Sarwar faced sharp criticism from other senior UK Labour figures after calling for the Prime Minister to stand down on Monday. Party sources in London indicated that Labour’s Scottish leader had been left isolated when an expected wave of similar calls failed to materialise.

Now, the multi-millionaire brothers Sandy and James Easdale, who donated a substantial six-figure sum to Scottish Labour last month, have stepped in to back Mr Sarwar.

The brothers, who own a transport and property empire and are major investors in cancer biotech drugs said: “We are happy to say that Anas Sarwar has put Scotland First and in so doing, has shown that he is clearly his own man. He made a decision for Scotland’s sake and for that he must be admired.”

Another Labour backer, Paul McManus, the multi-millionaire international quarry investor and drummer in rock band GUN, said: “Sarwar had to isolate from Starmer to stop Starmer isolating Scotland.”

The news that three of the party’s most influential supporters in Scotland have pledged their support for Mr Sarwar’s decision to call for his boss’s resignation will quell any jitters among the party’s Holyrood MSPs before the start of the campaign for the Scottish elections in May.

In an exclusive interview with The Herald last month, the Easdale brothers announced spoke of their reasons for backing Scottish Labour.

They had never backed any political party prior to the interview. Sandy Easdale said: “It's time to speak up. If the SNP had been successful, we wouldn't be here now, but they've not been successful. It's now time to draw a line in the sand for change. And the best change available, we believe, is Anas Sarwar.”

They also indicated that a portion of their donation would be conditional on Mr Sarwar forging a uniquely Scottish identity for the party leads going into the Holyrood elections.

Mr Sarwar’s position on his boss is also backed up by a series of opinion polls, including one published by The Observer, that found 55% of UK voters felt Sir Keir should resign over the Mandelson scandal.

The Prime Minister was forced to issue a public apology last week as he admitted to a serious error of judgment in appointing Mr Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington, despite knowing of his links to the convicted paedophile and sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

He claimed not to have known the extent of Mr Mandelson’s friendship with the paedophile and accused the peer of lying to him about it. The true depth of this friendship only became apparent with the latest tranche of Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice. These included intimate photographs of Lord Mandelson in his underwear at a property belonging to the paedophile who committed suicide in his prison cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.  

The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, widely credited as the architect of Labour’s landslide triumph at the 2024 UK General Election, resigned on Monday for his role in advising his boss to make appoint Mr Mandelson to the UK diplomatic corp’s plum posting.

In his resignation statement, Mr McSweeney said: “The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself. When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life, responsibility must be owned when it matters most; not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside.”

Last night, a senior Scottish Labour politician said that the party in Scotland was united behind Mr Sarwar and that his decision to call for Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation was “unequivocally the right call”.

They added: “It also means that we can develop policy and messaging without having to run it past London all the time. I hope Anas is emboldened by this. It took guts and showed real leadership. Now he has to continue in the same vein. It’s also time for other prominent Labour MSPs to step up too.”

This article appeared in The Herald.