Scottish Labour leadership candidates Michael Marra and Joe Fagan are being challenged to rule out deals with Reform UK or the Conservatives.
The SNP has demanded clear commitments from both candidates as the contest to replace outgoing Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar continues.
It claims questions remain over Labour’s willingness to work with other parties at Holyrood and council level.
The attack on Marra centres on his senior role during Labour’s election campaign and the SNP’s claim that Sarwar had been prepared to work with Reform to secure power at Holyrood.
The SNP is now asking what role Marra played in those discussions and whether he would rule out any future working arrangement with Nigel Farage’s party.
Fagan faces a different line of attack.
The SNP points to his position on Labour’s ban on formal council coalitions and his previous reliance on Conservative votes in South Lanarkshire.
Fagan became leader of South Lanarkshire Council in 2022 with support from Conservative councillors.
The SNP argues that his willingness to remove Labour’s restriction on council coalitions could open the door to further agreements with the Conservatives after next year’s local elections.
It wants both leadership candidates to make their positions clear before Scottish Labour members choose between them.
SNP MSP Calum Kerr said:
“Michael Marra worked hand in glove with Anas Sarwar and we all know they’d have done a deal with Farage to force entry into Bute House.
“That much was exposed in the election campaign and the Scottish public rightly and resoundingly rejected that prospect.
“Meanwhile, Joe Fagan carefully procured Tory votes in South Lanarkshire to seize control of the council with informal deals operating across Scotland between Labour, the Tories and Reform.
“Whether it be within Holyrood or after next year’s local elections, Michael Marra and Joe Fagan must rule out any working relationship between the Labour Party, Nigel Farage and the Tories.
“The public deserve straight answers about these slimy backroom deals because when push comes to shove, the Westminster parties are all the same, denying democracy to the Scottish people comes above any notion of principles.”
The intervention brings another potentially uncomfortable question into a Scottish Labour leadership contest already attracting attacks from its political opponents.
Council politics makes the issue more complicated because parties can find themselves relying on votes or working arrangements with opponents without entering formal coalitions.
But that distinction does not remove the political question the SNP is putting to Marra and Fagan.
It wants both men to say explicitly that Scottish Labour under their leadership would not enter a working arrangement with Reform UK or the Conservatives.
Neither candidate’s response to that challenge was included in the material provided.
Until they answer it, the SNP has given both men a question likely to follow them through the leadership contest.
