Scottish Labour’s leader has insisted he will stay in post ‘to hold my party together’ following last week’s Holyrood election humiliation, as he stood by his call for Sir Keir Starmer to resign.

Anas Sarwar said he ‘absolutely’ intends to remain in post but wouldn’t say how long for and refused to say he intended to lead his party into the next Holyrood election.

He again blamed a ‘national wave’ across the UK for Labour slumping to its worst ever Scottish Parliament election result last Thursday, when it returned 17 MSPs.

His comments came in a BBC interview on Sunday after he came under fire for going into hiding since his own election result was confirmed on Friday afternoon.

Mr Sarwar said the election result was ‘disappointing and hurtful’. 

He said: ‘There was a national wave, you can see that right across every part of the United Kingdom, but I’m not going to shy away from my share of the responsibility.

‘Of course I take my share of the responsibility, my fair share of the responsibility, for the outcome we got which ultimately was not the one we wanted, was not my ambition and was disappointing.’

Labour lost five seats compared to the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, which was its previous worst performance.

Its vote share was 19.2 per cent on the constituency ballot, down 2.4 percentage points on five years ago, and 16.0 per cent on the regional list, which was a 1.9 percentage point decline.

On whether Sir Keir needs to resign as Prime Minister, he said: ‘I said what I said back in February, I’m not recoiling from that.’

He said he was ‘absolutely’ going to stay in post but it was ‘no secret’ that he believes Sir Keir should not.

Addressing his own future, Mr Sarwar said: ‘I see my job as holding my party together and making sure that we play our part in parliament in the national interest to hold this government to account.’

Asked if he intends to lead his party into the next election, he said only: ‘I’ve got a job to do and I intend to do it.’

Pressed on how long he would do it for, he said that he is the longest-serving leader in the Scottish Parliament.

Some Labour figures have suggested that the party’s campaign focused too much on constituencies and not enough on the regional list.

Mr Sarwar admitted that the party felt it could replicate a successful campaign in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, when it unexpectedly defeated the SNP.

He insisted that his party had proposed ‘big ideas’ but that ‘this election didn’t come down to big ideas it came down to big national wave and a general vibe that we couldn’t change’.

Mr Sarwar said he won't work with Reform UK but will work with other parties who share his views to 'make sure there is a credible opposition that hold the SNP's feet to the fire'.

In a scathing analysis in the Sunday Mail, Paul Sinclair, who was a senior adviser to former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont, blamed current deputy leader Jackie Baillie and called for her to go.

He claimed she and Mr Sarwar hadn’t put in enough work to enter Bute House and that the party had become ‘Sarwar and Baillie’s fantasy project’.

Mr Sinclair said: ‘Senior figures in the Scottish Labour party often quip Baillie has been responsible for the removal of more Scottish Labour leaders than anyone else since devolution started – sometimes by plotting against them, occasionally by getting them to follow her advice. Sarwar, I fear, falls into the latter category.

‘Her election as one of just three Labour constituency MSPs assures her of another five years at Holyrood. Her role, however, must come to an end if the Scottish Labour party is ever going to move on and reinvent itself.’