'I want Reform to get absolutely pumped in his election'
The Scottish Labour Leader roasted Reform UK on Question Time last night, saying he wants Nigel Farage’s party to get “absolutely pumped” at next month’s Holyrood election.
Anas Sarwar also dismissed claims that he had ever agreed to do a deal with Reform UK to oust the Scottish National Party (SNP).
Speaking on BBC Question Time yesterday, Sarwar said it was “nonsense” to suggest that he would work with Reform after the party spent thousands of pounds on adverts questioning his loyalty to Scotland last May.
He said to the SNP Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan, “To think that a political party that has targeted me and my family in a very personal way, are somehow the same people that I am in secret cahoots with, I think actually you should look in a moral mirror.”
This comes after Reform alleged that Sarwar had said on three occasions that he would be willing to make a pact with the hard-right party in order to get the SNP out.
Sarwar then tore into Reform UK: “There are lots of families right now that are fearful of the prospect of Reform politics and Reform being anywhere near politics.”
To applause from the audience, he said that “for all those families” he wanted Scotland to “utterly reject” Lord Malcolm Offord and Reform at the upcoming Holyrood elections on 7 May.
On the last Question Time show Offord and Sarwar appeared on last December, the Reform leader in Scotland alleged that the Scottish Labour leader had spoken to him about working with Reform to “get the SNP out”.
The host of Question Time, Fiona Bruce, pressed Sarwar on this.
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.
To laughs from the Question Time audience, he said: “Let’s make it really clear, I want Reform to get absolutely pumped in this election”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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