Vote Labour, Get Tory … Or maybe even Reform!

As we approach next year’s Scottish local elections, voters across the country face a vital choice about who runs their essential community services – from local schools and social work to refuse collection and local road maintenance.

But behind the promises and campaign literature lies a clear and recurring pattern of political betrayal: When given the chance, Labour in Scotland will do whatever it takes to lock out the SNP, even if it means propping up the Tories or cutting deals with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Recent reports have laid bare the reality. High-level scheming reveals that Labour politicians are plotting a rival Westminster party pact to keep the SNP out of power. It’s a damning indictment of the Labour party that protecting power at Westminster means more to them than the welfare of local communities in Scotland.

This news item serves as a urgent and timely warning since Labour’s leadership is already laying the groundwork for this strategy.

During the Scottish Labour leadership contest, Michael Marra confirmed that Labour is open to discussions with others for council deals.

While he claimed that he would rule out formal arrangements with Reform UK, voters are right to ask: How can anyone trust those promises?

The reality on the ground already tells a very different story. In Fife, Labour has already passed council budgets with Reform UK support. As the SNP leader on Fife Council, Cllr Craig Walker, rightly pointed out, it is clear that Reform UK councillors now hold a “disproportionate influence over the direction of Fife Council.”

And during the recent Scottish Parliamentary elections, we saw Labour routinely tying itself in knots over whether to take power with the help of Reform UK. Indeed, reporting in The Scotsman revealed that high-ranking members of Anas Sarwar’s team were openly briefing journalists that Reform UK support was their only hope of power.

None of this should come as a surprise. Time and again, reports document how Labour in Scotland cosyies up to the right-wing Westminster party parties:

• Reports confirmed that Labour was willing to work with Reform UK to oust the SNP.

• Party insiders admitted Scottish Labour was “open to good ideas” from Reform UK.

• Anas Sarwar himself “left the door open” to working with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on a case-by-case basis.

• And this sequence of events culminated in Reform UK’s Malcolm Offord publicly revealing that Sarwar had bound up to him to offer a Reform-Labour pact.

If Labour’s openness to Reform is alarming, their history with the Tories proves that their word means nothing at election time.

Heading into previous local elections the blunt pledge was that Scottish Labour would rule out council coalitions with both the SNP and the Tories.

On the very day of the local elections, Sarwar penned an article in the Daily Record urging voters not to ‘reward the toxic, out of touch, corrupt Tory Party with your vote‘ and called Douglas Ross’s defense of Boris Johnson “disgusting” three separate times.

Yet, immediately after the votes were counted, Labour abandoned those promises and struck numerous backroom deals with Tories across Scotland – actions that led former Labour MSPs Neil Findlay and Mercedes Villalba to publicly blast the ‘shameful‘ Tory council deals.

Look at their record across Scotland’s local authorities after the previous council elections in 2022:

Stirling: Despite finishing third with just 16.2% of the vote – half the support of the first-placed SNP – and having served in coalition with the SNP for five years, Labour cut a deal with the Tories. The Tories boasted online about taking the Lord Provost role and noted Labour would have to rely on Tory votes to pass anything.

Edinburgh: After working with the SNP for five years, Labour came third in votes. Yet, Labour took control of Edinburgh as a minority administration relying on Tory votes, handing senior roles to Tory councillors in return. To enforce this Tory deal, Labour suspended two of its own councillors for abstaining on the vote.

West Lothian: Even though the SNP gained seats while Labour lost votes, Labour took control of West Lothian Council by giving Tories nine council convenerships and vice-convenerships.

East Renfrewshire: Labour formed an administration despite coming third with 20.2% of the vote, relying on Tories who boasted about blocking the SNP as their only aim in that election.

South Lanarkshire: The Tories similarly celebrated blocking the SNP purely constitutional grounds rather than local community needs, installed via backroom votes.

Fife: After coming a poor second and losing 4 seats, Labour ended a 5-year partnership with the SNP to form a minority administration backed by Tory votes, prompting accusations of trampling democracy.

South Ayrshire: Despite having the numbers to vote down the Tories, Labour abstained, allowing Tories to take control of South Ayrshire.

Moray: Again, by abstaining, Labour walked away from showing they would block a right-wing takeover to let the Tories into power through the back door.

Dumfries & Galloway: The Labour leadership were accused of attempting to sabotage a prospective SNP/Labour deal that would keep the Tories out of power.

This record of duplicity and political expediency shows why voters cannot trust Labour with their vital local services.

Whether it is local education budgets, social care provision, or essential bin collections, Labour has repeatedly demonstrated that its top priority is not delivering progressive local government, but playing games to keep the SNP out. Keeping power at Westminster and thus its control of Scotland is their priority.

The lesson for the upcoming local elections is stark: Vote Labour, Get Tory … or even Reform, as Fife shows.

If Labour in Scotland is willing to hand power to the Tories in local chambers and entertain deals with Nigel Farage’s party to keep power embedded in Westminster, they cannot be trusted to protect Scottish communities.

That unholy alliance is precisely what is at stake at the ballot box next year.