Anas Sarwar has said he wants Reform to get “absolutely pumped” at next month’s Holyrood election, as he again dismissed claims he had offered to work with Lord Malcolm Offord to oust the SNP.
Speaking on BBC’s Question Time programme on Thursday, the Scottish Labour leader said it was “nonsense” to suggest he would have offered a deal to a party that had spent thousands on adverts questioning his loyalty to Scotland.
He also said there are “lots of families” across Scotland that are afraid of Reform’s politics, and called on voters to “utterly reject” the party on May 7.
“There are lots of families right now that are fearful of the prospect of Reform politics and Reform being anywhere near politics,” he said.
“And for all those families I want Scotland to utterly reject Lord Malcolm Offord and Reform on May 7.”
Lord Offord previously claimed Mr Sarwar had approached him while the pair were on an earlier episode of Question Time, which was being filmed in Paisley Town Hall.
Asked about this by host Fiona Bruce, Mr Sarwar responded: “The idea that a Question Time green room, with six political parties, all the Question Time staff, is the place to have secret talks with Lord Malcolm Offord, who spent tens of thousands of pounds, his party, targeting me, saying I’m not even loyal to my own country Scotland, is utter nonsense.
“Let’s make it really clear, I want Reform to get absolutely pumped in this election”.
Lord Offord, who was sitting next to Mr Sarwar on the panel, proceeded to reiterate his claim the Scottish Labour leader had approached him.
“I told the story that in the green room…just at the end, after Anas had lambasted me on the show, it was my first time on the show, and called me an odious man, etc, a very personal attack on me,” he said.
“At the end of it you bounced up as if you were a long lost friend and said, ‘well, you’re going do very well in the election. We need to work together to beat the SNP’.”
Mr Sarwar responded: “I want you to get hammered. I want you to get utterly hammered.”
Other issues covered in the show included whether taxpayers are getting value for money from local and national government, and whether there should be more fossil fuel drilling in the North Sea.
Asked about her views on the latter, SNP housing minister Mairi McAllan said all decisions should be “led by evidence” and considered on a “case-by-case basis”.
“The facts of each opportunity need to be considered against climate compatibility, which remains an obligation, and energy security, which is a moving picture,” she said.
Asked by host Fiona Bruce whether she thinks further drilling should take place, Ms McAllan said: “If it can be demonstrated that it’s both climate-compatible and required for energy security, then yes it should”.
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay criticised John Swinney’s decision not to appear on the show, saying he should “answer to the people of the north east”.
“I suspect he can’t look the people in this area in the face, because what he’s been doing in the last few weeks is pretending that the SNP have somehow softened or changed their position,” Mr Findlay said.
He added: “What we should be doing … is given the wake-up call right now, the volatility in our world, the fact we can’t rely on allies as we once did, makes energy security absolutely critical.
“We need to drill for everything we have in the North Sea, we need to get behind the renewables industry … and we need to back new nuclear.”
Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay disputed whether more drilling was “compatible either with the climate or with energy security”, and said the focus should be on the transition to renewables.
“We should have been funding this transition properly,” she said.
“We should have been saving the jobs that have been lost in Aberdeen and Grangemouth, where I’m from, decades ago.
“The next best time to start that transition is right now, so that we don’t lose any more of the jobs that we have here in Aberdeen, so that workers do have the time to transfer their skills across, to learn those new skills.”
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said any decision on new drilling should involve an “environmental assessment” as to whether it is greener than importing oil and gas.
He also pointed to the need to make the transition to renewables easier for those currently working in oil and gas.
“I met a rig worker who was qualified for high work in the oil rigs. He wanted to move into the turbine sector, but had to completely retrain for the health and safety certificates for exactly the same kind of work,” he said.
Addressing Ms McAllan he added: “Nothing about what your government is doing is making it easy to change.”
