ALEX Cole-Hamilton has said he wants to be Scotland’s next deputy first minister and that he would be open to serving under Anas Sarwar in a coalition with Scottish Labour.
In an interview with the Daily Record, the Scottish Liberal Democrats leader added that a coalition government with Scottish Labour would not be tarnished if any Reform UK MSPs were to vote to put them in power.
A recent survey by Norstat, published last month, found that SNP remains on course to win the Holyrood 2026 election, with 34% of voters planning to back them.
Seat calculations by John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, predicted that if the polling numbers were repeated in seven months' time, the SNP would emerge with 59 seats, six short of a majority, with Labour returning 20 MSPs and Reform 19.
Meanwhile, the LibDems would have 10 seats and the Scottish Greens seven.
Despite recent polling, Cole-Hamilton has not ruled out his own hopes of becoming deputy prime minister come next year.
He told the Daily Record: “Of course I'd like the opportunity to walk the corridors of power, to make demonstrable changes, particularly for Scotland's looked after children, particularly for those young people facing domestic violence or child poverty.
“That's what gets me out of bed in the morning, and you don't get to make those changes without sometimes taking the levers of power.
The Scottish LibDems leader added: “So yes, I have the ambition to be deputy first minister of Scotland.
“It's not my primary motivator. My primary motivator is to improve the lives of Scots across the country, to offer them a compelling vision.”
When asked if he would make a deal with Labour if it meant the two parties could form a pro-Union government, Cole-Hamilton said that if there was enough of a “common ground” between the two parties' manifestos, he could see a “stable coalition” being built.
“I'm not going to hide from that,” he added.
Asked if Reform UK votes would tarnish any Labour and LibDem administration, Hamilton was adamant it would not.
He said: “Not if we had not solicited those votes…they will be free agents. I am a democrat, I recognise if they're elected to this parliament, they have every right to take their seats and they have every right to cast the votes as they see fit. I will not solicit those votes, but if they vote for us, I don't think it tarnishes [it].”
Cole-Hamilton added: “I wouldn't want any kind of formal deal with the Conservatives, or Reform. I wouldn't even speak to them about that. But who they vote for, for first minister, will matter greatly, but that's up to them.
“They'll have to look into their souls and decide whether the SNP deserve a fifth term in office. I think that most people will come to the same view as I have on that.”
Cole-Hamilton also confirmed his party would not make any deal with John Swinney’s SNP next year as he claimed any support is “overpriced”.
“I am detecting there are still obviously lots of SNP votes out there. They are very depressed,” he said.
“They do not believe that this election is a frontier of independence.
“They certainly don't think it's the final heave in that course. So I think a lot of them will just stay at home.”
Cole-Hamilton added: “For all the questions that Scotland faces, I don't think that many people believe the answer to that is a third decade of SNP administration in Scotland.
“There is a democratic imperative to refresh and change our politics and that means giving the SNP members a period of quiet reflection on the opposition benches of the Scottish Parliament.”
