A “BATTLE of wills” is expected to take place in Labour over Anas Sarwar’s decision to rule out formal coalitions, as councillors across Scotland begin days of haggling to form administrations.
The election resulted in a total of 27 out of 32 councils with no overall control, with the SNP and Labour each securing a majority in one and independents forming a majority in three.
Now days of negotiations will take place in “the modern equivalent of smoke-filled rooms” over issues such as budgets.
One key campaign issue has been Sarwar’s hostility to coalitions with the SNP – despite the rival parties previously running councils including Edinburgh, Fife and Stirling – which was criticised by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon as “politically immature”.
Dr Jonathan Carr-West, chief executive of think-tank the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU), said local Labour leaders were likely to be taking a different stance from their leader.
He said: “The thing which is slightly strange is that although the Scottish system creates no overall control by design, you might think there would be some kind of system for how those negotiations work that was more formalised or more set out than in other parts of the UK.
“But actually there is not, so it all gets kind of opaque at this point.
“Essentially what people will do is disappear initially into their political groups to talk about what they think they can do and what they are willing and not willing to accept.”
He added: “There is additional tensions this year as the Scottish Labour leadership has been very clear that they don’t want to go into coalition with the SNP.
“But I suspect everything we are hearing from local leaders is that is not the attitude they are going to take.
“Much more, local leaders have been saying, ‘look, we will do what is best on the ground and make decisions on what works best for this place and what can happen’.
“So there could be an interesting battle of wills between the national leadership and the local leadership in Labour for some of these things.”
The SNP are the largest group in 21 local authorities and Sturgeon has said she is “open” to replicating the power-sharing agreement with the Greens at Holyrood in council chambers, but will leave decisions up to local leaders.
Yesterday, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford also said the party would seek to work with others who “have a progressive outlook”.
He told BBC Radio Scotland: “I think it’s quite clear when I use that word ‘progressive’ that there is one party which doesn’t fit that mode and that is the Conservative Party.”
The SNP could seek to form a coalition with the Greens in Glasgow and the continuation of a successful SNP and Labour coalition in Edinburgh is another possibility.
While in Fife, the success of the LibDems in gaining more seats could mean the SNP teaming up with that party instead of Labour as before.
Carr-West added: “People will disappear into the modern equivalent of smoke-filled rooms, they will decide what they think they will do and start negotiating with each other around this.
“I think we will tend to see [outcomes] in days rather than weeks.”
