WHEN Scottish Labour named Anas Sarwar as their new leader in February this year, the Glasgow MSP has set a political precedent by becoming the first non-white and also first Muslim leader of a major political party in the UK.

He follows in the footsteps of his father Mohammed, who was the UK’s first Muslim MP after being elected from Glasgow Central in 1997, a seat he held till 2010 when his son succeeded him. Sarwar was elected a list MSP for Glasgow in 2016, and a year later he has launched his first bid at party leadership, which was unsuccessful, though.

The 37-year-old won the race this time, and has an onerous responsibility of reviving Labour’s flagging fortunes in Scotland, which he admits is not going to be an easy task.

“I want to say directly to the people of Scotland – I know Labour has a lot of work to do to win back your trust because if we’re brutally honest you haven’t had the Scottish Labour party you deserve,” he has said after the party elections. “With rising injustice, inequality and division, I’m sorry we haven’t been good enough. And I will work day and night to change that, so we can build the country we all need.”

Before venturing into politics, Sarwar worked as a dentist in Paisley for five years and has spoken about how his father’s experiences had initially “put him off” being in politics.

“[My father] faced a lot of prejudice and abuse, a lot of negativity and controversy,” he has once told Eastern Eye, revealing the extent of hate crime directed at him, a second-generation Pakistani-Scot, saying he and his family experienced Islamophobia on a “daily basis”, receiving death threats and hate mail.

Obviously, addressing this issue has been a top priority