A FORMER SNP Cabinet Secretary has backed calls for his party and Scottish Labour to consider a coalition after the next Holyrood election.
Kenny MacAskill said a deal was “long overdue” and would stop Ruth Davidson’s resurgent Scottish Tory party. He said: “If the SNP and Labour continue to knock themselves black and blue, the Tories will just overtake them.”
Devolution has been dominated by hostility between the two parties, ill-feeling caused by clashes on the constitution and rivalry over the pursuit of centre-left voters.
However, with support for the SNP falling, and the Tories north of the border on the rise, Conservatives are talking up the prospect of Davidson becoming the next First Minister.
Some senior SNP and Labour figures believe one way of stopping Davidson from entering Bute House is for both parties to put aside their rancour and consider a deal in the long term.
David Martin, the veteran Labour MEP, said recently: "We are far away from the next Holyrood elections, but I think the ground work should be being laid now for a potential SNP-Labour coalition that to many will seem unthinkable.”
Speaking to this newspaper, MacAskill, who served as Justice Secretary for seven years, said: “I agree with David Martin.”
He said a potential coalition between Labour and the SNP after the next Holyrood election was “common sense” and was the “logical relationship in Scotland".
He said the “election result might make it essential”, adding: “Such coalitions will have to be considered.”
MacAskill continued: “At some stage, it will have to come about. It is long overdue, The hatred is deep and the divide, as in Ireland, is over the constitution, not necessarily over policies.”
Davidson stands to benefit if Labour and the SNP fail to work together, he said: “The only winners are going to be the forces of reaction and the right.”
The model, MacAskill said, is in the capital, where both parties have formed an administration:
“They have done it in Edinburgh. We are now into a second SNP-Labour coalition. The only issue was who was top dog.”
Describing the hostility between Labour and the SNP, he said the “activist hatred” was “way out of kilter” with voters, who often flipped between voting for both parties.
MacAskill previously called for his party and Labour to form a “progressive alliance” at Westminster, rather than a coalition. However, his comments in relation to Holyrood go further than a loose arrangement.
An obstacle to any future deal would be the SNP’s approach to a second independence referendum.
If the pro-independence parties lost their Holyrood majority, a second plebiscite would be dead for five years and an SNP-Labour deal could be feasible.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said: "We do not support a deal, pact or coalition with the SNP – we plan on replacing the nationalists as the next Scottish government."
An SNP spokesperson said: “While we are always open to cooperating with other parties based on shared values, Labour remain obsessed with attacking the SNP instead of standing up to the Tories and their disastrous plans for an extreme Brexit.
"Labour's acceptance of the need to stay in the single market for at least two years should we have to leave the EU was a positive step – and hopefully they continue to follow the SNP's lead and commit to remaining in the world's biggest marketplace for good."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel