Sarwar: Independence won't drive young voters in 2026 Scottish election

Anas Sarwar stood before journalists on the final day of Scottish Labour's conference in Glasgow with a straightforward prediction: when voters cast ballots in 2026, the question of Scottish independence will not be what moves the youngest among them. The Scottish Labour leader was making a demographic argument. Today's twelve-year-olds, he noted, will be eligible to vote in that election. But in 2014, when Scotland held its independence referendum, those same voters were only four years old. They have no memory of the campaign, no lived experience of the constitutional debate that has dominated Scottish politics for nearly a decade.

"Are we honestly saying that generation are going to base their politics on what happened when they were four?" Sarwar asked. "No, they're not. They're going to base their politics on what politicises them, what energises them, what enthuses them right now and over the next four years as well." His argument carried an implicit challenge to the Scottish National Party, which has built much of its political identity around the independence question. If Sarwar is right, that foundation may not hold with voters who came of age after the referendum.

The remarks came as Scottish Labour, under Sarwar and UK party leader Sir Keir Starmer, worked to reposition itself toward the political centre. The three-day conference marked a deliberate shift away from the Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Leonard eras, with the party emphasizing what it called a "pro-business, pro-growth and pro-jobs" platform. Sarwar suggested that younger voters were hungry for something different from what previous generations had offered. "Their form of aspiration is really, really different from my generation and our parents' generation," he said. Young families, particularly young mothers, would be a key target for Labour's organizing efforts.

Sarwar also addressed the mechanics of power. He said his personal view was that Labour councillors should avoid formal coalitions with either the SNP or the Conservative Party, instead making decisions on individual issues based on what served local communities. But he stopped short of ruling out working arrangements altogether. "I'm not going to get into this game of rule out coalitions with one party but accept coalitions with another," he said. The distinction mattered: Labour wanted flexibility without appearing unprincipled.

The larger ambition was unmistakable. Sarwar said he wanted to position himself as a credible alternative for First Minister by 2026. He criticized the previous election cycle, when only Nicola Sturgeon could realistically claim she would lead the government after the vote. "That's an embarrassment for our national politics," he said. Building that credibility would require sustained work over the next four years, he acknowledged, but it was work he believed Labour could do.

Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie reinforced the message in her closing speech to delegates on Sunday. The party's job, she said, was to ensure working families across Scotland understood that Labour had their interests at heart. "We are not here to play at politics," she told the conference. "We are here to help those in need and build a fairer society for all." She called on the party to challenge both the Tories and the SNP, framing the 2026 election as an opportunity to build something better. The conference had laid out Labour's strategic bet: that by 2026, the political conversation would have shifted from constitutional questions to the bread-and-butter concerns of families trying to get by, and that Labour could credibly offer itself as the party ready to address those concerns.