THE balance of power on Midlothian Council was hanging on a knife edge last night after the Labour Party proposed a rainbow “non-coalition” with the Conservatives and SNP.
Labour won seven seats in the election last Thursday, with the SNP taking six and the Conservatives five.
As the party with the largest number of seats, Labour have the responsibility of trying to form the administration first and if they fail to do so, the SNP would then be given a chance.
At the weekend, Labour and the Tories met but were unable to thrash out a deal to run the administration between them. The National understands that the Conservatives wanted more committee chairs than Labour were prepared to give. Yesterday the SNP was contacted and the new council SNP group leader Kelly Parry is currently considering the offer which will be put to the SNP group at its meeting later today.
The National has learned that Labour want to form a minority administration and not a formal coalition, with the Conservatives and the SNP being given the chairs of one committee each.
SNP sources say these terms are unacceptable and they are also believed to be unacceptable to the Conservatives, who have also said that they will not sit in any committee involving the SNP.
“That is a nonsense, because at least one committee, planning, is an apolitical task in which party considerations are not supposed to take any part,” said an SNP member.
It all leaves Midlothian Council currently in a bit of a guddle but the matter of who takes control of the administration must be resolved by next week as vital committee meetings are supposed to start then.
Labour sources told The National their group leader Derek Milligan, who could not be contacted last night, was relaxed as to which party they could deal with, but the source admitted that there were problems in being seen to form a straight coalition with either the SNP or the Conservatives.
The SNP said before the election that they would not form a coalition with the Conservatives and that remains the stance of the party.
Parry told The National. “At this stage we have an offer of a non-coalition which we will consider as a group, but I have to say that it is not what we thought we would be offered given that we are the second largest party and have only one seat fewer than Labour.”
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