SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar has conceded that he is “not yet” a candidate to be first minister.

Mr Sarwar said he does not believe he can “turn around the decline of the Labour Party in Scotland for the last 20 years” before the May 6 Holyrood election, adding that he is “not naive about the scale of the challenge” he faces.

Support for Scottish Labour declined in the aftermath of the 2014 independence referendum, during which it worked with the Conservatives in the Better Together campaign.

Labour is now fighting to replace the Tories as the main opposition party at Holyrood, having lost that position in 2016.

Mr Sarwar insisted that Scotland deserves better than “a cheap game-playing opposition like we have had from the Conservatives.”

Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, he said: “I would love to be a contender for first minister. If people choose to vote on May 6 for me to be first minister, I would be very, very proud, but I am also a realist.

“And I am not naive about the scale of the challenge. Three days before I became leader, we were at 14 per cent in the polls. We’re making progress on that over the last five weeks. We still have three weeks to go until the election.”

But he said that when Scots cast their ballots, they are also “voting for an opposition” as well as electing the next government.

Mr Sarwar said he wants to stop the SNP from winning an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament “so they aren’t blindsided by their weakness on the constitution” with a second independence referendum and can instead be “focused” on the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.