A Scottish Lib Dem leadership contender has signalled support for a future coalition with Labour as part of a “progressive alternative” at Holyrood.
Alex Cole-Hamilton said he is “good friends” with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and claimed he is looking forward to working with him.
He also rejected calls for indyref2 and dismissed claims the SNP has a mandate for a referendum.
Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, is likely to be elected to the role unopposed after Willie Rennie’s resignation.
Launching his leadership bid in an Edinburgh cafe, Cole-Hamilton heaped equal blame on the Tories and the SNP for divisions in Scottish politics: "In recent times Scotland has been gripped by a clash of nationalisms. Of course the Scottish nationalism of the SNP but also the British nationalism of Boris Johnson’s Brexiteers.
"People are desperate for an alternative.”
He also harked back to a time when Labour and the Lib Dems ran Holyrood for eight years in a coalition.
He said: “I want Liberals to be in power because without power you can’t change things effectively.”
He reached out to Sarwar: “If we are to see a change in Government from the SNP, who have stagnated for 14 years in power, then we need to seek out a progressive alternative. And that might be a coalition with Labour.”
May's Holyrood election result shows the massive gains the Lib Dems and Labour would have to make if they were to have a chance of a coalition in the future.
Holyrood requires 65 MSPs for a majority, but the combined total of both parties is currently a lowly 26.
The leadership candidate contrasted Sarwar with Scots Tory leader Douglas Ross, who he said was “part of the problem” due to his party’s embrace of “toxic British nationalism”.
Cole-Hamilton also questioned whether the SNP can legitimately call for indyref2 in the current term:
“Any mandate they have is tainted because halfway through the [election] campaign the First Minister pivoted onto ‘who do you want to lead us throughout a pandemic?’.”
He also said the Scottish Lib Dems would “absolutely not” take part in a “wildcat” referendum organised by Holyrood.
“They [voters] would not forgive us if we embarked on this vainglorious attempt to rig some kind of result in the same way that they did in the north of Spain.”
Lib Dems publicly admit their plight at Holyrood - they only have 4 MSPs - reflects a long-standing voter backlash at the party’s coalition with the Tories at Westminster in 2010.
Cole-Hamilton conceded this coalition had harmed his party at the ballot box, but said he had “no involvement” in the decision to join forces with the Tories.
He also claimed he would have “pushed back” on policies such as the bedroom tax had he been “in the room.”
