Anas Sarwar must set ‘red lines’ for post-2026 coalition negotiations, says former party leader

Scottish Labour must “think really hard” about what its red lines would be for post-election coalition negotiations, a former leader has said.

Wendy Alexander, who led the party between 2007 and 2008, told a room of delegates at a fringe event at the Scottish Labour conference that given the electoral system in Scotland it was important to think now about “non-negotiables”.

The former MSP served as a member of the first Labour Scottish Government between 2000 and 2003, which was a coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

The party has not been in power in Scotland since 2007 but leader Anas Sarwar is optimistic about his chances in the Holyrood election next year, insisting Labour “will win” in a speech earlier on Friday.

Alexander said that the “process of negotiation” that will follow the election will demand politicians to “think really, really hard about what are your red lines”.

“Going into those coalition negotiations, you have to think about – and this is a long time ahead – what is the stump speech, what is the delivery, we want to have made in 2031? That's the judgement that you will be making in May ‘26, of saying ‘what are our non-negotiables?’, because the civil service will then take that as the programme for government, if you will, and see that as what we're going to deliver,” she added.

Sarwar has previously ruled out entering a formal coalition with any other party following the election next year, instead saying he will aim to lead a minority Scottish Government.

However, as a minority government the party would still need to work with others to pass their legislative agenda.

Earlier this month he seemingly left the door open to working with Reform UK, who according to current polling are set to have a small number of MSPs.

He said: “We will not do formal coalitions. We will not work with a political party like Reform.

“But let me just be really clear – and this goes to whether it is an SNP politician, a Conservative politician, a Liberal Democrat politician, a Green politician, or anybody that’s elected in the parliament – if somebody has a good idea that can get the support of the majority of parliament, then I will not turn my back on a good idea, regardless of where it comes from.” 

Speaking at the same fringe as Alexander, UK energy minister Michael Shanks admitted the journey to re-entering power in Scotland would be “difficult”, particularly given the proportional electoral system.

But he argued the UK Government had started to “demonstrate change is possible”.

He also warned colleagues about the challenges of entering government after several years under another party. Reflecting on his first days in office, he said that “within hours” his priorities were “taken over by the 20 things that were initially from the previous government”.

He said this inheritance had “taken up extraordinary amounts of time” and this would be “something we're absolutely going to have to deal with when we form a government in Scotland”.