ANAS Sarwar’s Labour party are being challenged to ditch making pacts with the Tories for their new year’s resolution.
The party’s collaboration with the Tories in the wake of May’s local council elections made headlines after Labour and Conservative councillors made deals to keep the SNP out of power in several authorities.
The two parties ended up co-ordinating support in Edinburgh, Fife, Moray, South Ayrshire, West Lothian and Stirling.
And in Edinburgh, two councillors who were elected as Labour representatives were suspended from their party by Sarwar for refusing to vote for a deal with the Tories.
Meanwhile nine Labour councillors in Aberdeen, who were suspended for entering a coalition with the Tories in 2017, were allowed to stand for Sarwar’s party in the 2022 council elections.
This came after Sarwar promised there would be “no formal coalitions” for his party in the run-up to the elections, something Nicola Sturgeon described as "politically immature".
Commenting, SNP councillor Kelly Parry, who co-ordinated the SNP council election campaign, said that Sarwar had “talked a good game during the council elections about locking out the Tories” but that his “rhetoric quickly disintegrated as one by one Labour councillors carved up backdoor deals with the Conservatives”.
She added: “Scotland hasn’t voted for the Tories in General Elections since the 1950s - so it’s unbelievable that Labour would wish to deny democracy to the point of putting the Tories into power.
“The Scottish Labour leader needs to wake up to the reality of his dodgy Tory power-sharing deals.
“These No campaign coalitions must be consigned to the dustbin of history and left in 2022. It’s time for Scottish Labour to commit to a new year’s resolution of working with progressive colleagues to lock the Tories out of power in Scotland.”
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: “This is desperate stuff from the SNP.
“Their pathetic sniping won’t kick this morally bankrupt Tory government out of office – but a Labour government will.
“While the SNP play petty political games, Labour are focused on forming the next government and delivering the change Scotland needs.”
