ANAS Sarwar has rejected calls for him to back the SNP campaign against outgoing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross – despite Labour not standing a candidate in the constituency.
Ross is standing for Westminster in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East after the Scottish Tory management board ousted former minister David Duguid on health grounds – grounds which he has refuted.
Labour have no official candidate in the north east constituency after suspending Andy Brown due to social media posts that questioned Russia’s involvement in the Salisbury poisonings.
On Tuesday, Stephen Flynn wrote to Sarwar urging him to back the SNP campaign if he is serious about wanting to remove the Tories.
Flynn added: “If he refuses, it will lead to real questions about whether Labour would prefer to see their former Better Together allies winning seats over the SNP.”
Responding, Sarwar refused to back the SNP campaign against Ross, saying he wanted “people to vote Scottish Labour”.
The Scottish Labour leader was pushed on how people could do that in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East considering the party does not have a candidate during a visit to Inverclyde on Tuesday.
He said the area was a "specific issue” due to Brown’s suspension, and his “only regret” is that voters there do not have the chance to support his party.
Sarwar further said Flynn and the SNP view Scotland as “one big tactical block”.
He added: “[They believe] somehow Scots don’t have an opinion of their own or Scots don’t have a view of their own, or Scots haven’t lived the consequences of 14 years of the Tories or 17 years of the SNP.
“The reason why so many people are moving away from both the Tories and the SNP is because they look at two governments that have utterly failed the people of Scotland.”
Sarwar later told the PA news agency he would “let [the SNP] play the protest here”.
The Scottish Labour leader's comments come after one of his party's candidates was caught on camera saying they had hoped the Tories would beat the SNP in 2019.
Labour deliberately did not campaign in Aberdeen South in order to give the Conservatives a better chance of winning, candidate Tauqeer Malik said.
Scottish Tory chair Craig Hoy said: “Pro-UK voters in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East know that only the Scottish Conservatives can beat the SNP and end their independence obsession for good.
“This seat will be extremely close, and a vote for any party other than the Scottish Conservatives – including Reform, Labour or the Liberal Democrats – just increases the chances of the SNP sneaking in by the back door.
“The same applies in key seats up and down Scotland where it’s a head-to-head between the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP.”
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Previously, Flynn had said that “of all the Tories who have shamed Scotland over the last five years of this UK Government, Douglas Ross has been the worst of all”.
Calling for support for the SNP’s Seamus Logan, he went on: “[Ross] has backed every disastrous Tory prime minister and every policy which has caused so much misery across Scotland.
“Now he has topped it off by shamefully forcing out a colleague who was in a hospital bed in order to impose himself as the candidate in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East.
“At this election we have the chance to give him the electoral defeat that he deserves – but that will need everyone who wants to see the Tories beaten to unite behind the SNP.”
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