LABOUR would be better off working in coalition with the Conservatives than they would with the SNP, according to a senior party figure.

In an exchange on Twitter yesterday, Labour peer Lewis Moonie – a Labour MP between 1987 and 2005 and a former UK defence minister – said he believed that a governing pact with the Tories “would be better than one with the SNP”. 

The remark comes just days after a senior Scottish Labour party member encouraged Scots to vote tactically for the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats against the SNP in a range of Scottish constituencies.

On Sunday, Robert McNeill, a member of Labour’s Scottish Policy Forum and vice-chairman of the East Lothian Constituency Labour Party, tweeted an image of a chart showing the 16 Scottish seats in which either a Tory or LibDem candidate is better placed to defeat the SNP than a Labour candidate.

The chart carried the strapline: “Tactical Voting General Election 2015”. At its centre was a bullseye emblazoned with the words: “For all other constituencies vote Labour”. McNeill has since suspended his Twitter account.

The SNP said Baron Moodie’s remark was further evidence that Labour’s General Election campaign, which is based on the message that voting for the SNP in May makes the re-election of the Tories more likely, is unravelling.

“Labour’s General Election campaign in Scotland is in meltdown,” SNP MP Pete Wishart said. “Unless [Scottish Labour leader] Jim Murphy publicly distances himself from Baron Moonie’s preferred coalition with the Tories, the only conclusion people in Scotland will be able to draw is that he too advocates cuddling up to the Tories, which would make the re-election of David Cameron more likely.

“This pro-Tory attitude seems to be pervasive throughout the Labour Party in Scotland, having been hand in glove with the Tories for two-and-a-half years in the No campaign“No wonder more people in Scotland now trust the SNP rather than Labour to keep out the Tories. The SNP will never do a deal that puts the Tories back into power – by contrast, both at Westminster and in Scotland, senior Labour figures are cuddling up to the Tories and suggesting working with them.

“The call by a member of Labour’s Policy Forum for people in Scotland to vote for more Tory MPs at the General Election was a major headache for Jim Murphy – and now it is even worse, with a Labour lord saying he backs a coalition with the Tories in preference to working with the SNP.”

With the General Election less than three months away, Labour and the SNP are locked in a fierce battle for centre-left votes. Murphy intends to win back the 190,000 or so Labour supporters who voted Yes to independence in September.
In recent weeks the Scottish Labour leader has rolled out a serious of policy initiatives, including plans to hire 1,000 extra Scottish nurses and reintroduce alcohol to football grounds, which he hopes will persuade voters – particularly working-class voters – to shift back from the SNP to Labour.

In reality, Labour may only need to win back a section of the so-called Labour-SNP "switchers" in order to avoid a rout at the hands of the nationalists. If Murphy can narrow the SNP’s lead to 10 points by May, he may salvage the bulk of Labour’s 40 Scottish seats. Current polls suggest the SNP could take as many as 30 or 35 seats from Labour in May.

Earlier this week, in an appeal to Yes voters, Murphy said: “I read the opinion polls just like everybody else. They don’t make happy reading just now. Not just for my party, but for Scotland. Because as things stand, it could be Scotland that sends David Cameron back to Downing Street by accident. Just imagine that. The country that fought so hard against Mrs Thatcher.”