Following the recent election to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Labour Party has spent the past week negotiating with the Scottish Liberal Democrats and with the Scottish National Party regarding the formation of a government in Scotland. Both sets of talks were productive and highlighted many policy agreements between our parties, and both talks successfully resulted in a coalition deal. The 2 deals were put to a vote of Scottish Labour party members on Sunday night, and I can now announce the results of the vote.

The party approved both its deal with the Lib Dems and with the SNP, but voted to go into government with the Lib Dems over going into government with the SNP or going into opposition. The Lib Dems have voted to enter government with us, and thus the next Scottish government will be a coalition government of the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats. I look forward to Scottish Labour’s continued progressive governance of the nation, and the government enacting our plan to make Scotland a fairer nation.

Last night, I communicated to the leader of the SNP that though they may be the largest opposition party to my incoming administration, I hope it will still be possible for our parties to cooperate on areas where we agree.

Scottish Labour will be forming government as the largest party in the Scottish Parliament, with the party winning 54 out of the 129 seats in the parliament. This is I believe the best result for the party ever in modern political history and is I believe the 1st time the party has been the largest party in parliament since 2007. I would like to thank party members, volunteers and our MSPs for helping deliver this impressive result.

I will be the government’s nominee for First Minister. You may have seen that I am not, however, a candidate in the current ongoing election for First Minister. This is because while I sent in my candidacy for the vote, during the nomination period I was not an MSP due to sending the party’s list of MSPs to speakership after the period had ended. This is my fault alone and I accept full responsibility for it. Scottish Labour and the Scottish Liberal Democrats will vote to re-open nominations in the First Minister election to force a second ballot in which I will stand and hopefully be elected First Minister. This will delay the start of the new government by at least a few days. This is fully my fault and I do apologise to my party, my future government colleagues and to voters for this.