THE SNP has demanded Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar “call off his attack dogs” on journalists amid accusations that he tried to strike a deal with Reform.

Reform’s Scottish leader Malcom Offord claimed Mr Sarwar had approached him offering to work together to “oust the SNP.”

The claims have dominated the week’s Scottish Parliament election campaigning, despite Mr Sarwar repeatedly branding Mr Offord “a liar.”

Scotsman journalist David Bol was drawn into row on Wednesday — weeks after he had reported that Labour strategists had indeed sought such a deal — when Scottish Labour frontbencher and Renfrewshire West and Levern Valley candidate Paul O’Kane dismissed the reports, which also appeared in the Telegraph and Daily Record, as being reliant on “source quotes.”

Hitting back on social media, Mr Bol said: “It’s disappointing that a Labour MSP has suggested I am a liar for reporting what his party strategists have told me. 

“It is a fact, simple arithmetic, that Sarwar cannot be First Minister without unionist parties, including Reform making it so.”

Accusing Labour of “Trumpian tactics in attacking the media,” SNP Edinburgh Central candidate Angus Robertson said: “Sarwar needs to call off his attack dogs now. 

“Everyone in Scotland knows Labour is so desperate that it is willing to do a grubby deal with Nigel Farage and Reform UK. 

“The cat is well and truly out of the bag. Now Labour is sinking to attacking the journalists who first exposed the plot.

“That is bad enough coming from junior Labour party bag carriers. 

“But when we have a senior member of Mr Sarwar’s front bench essentially calling a well-respected journalist a liar, just for reporting the facts of Labour’s grubby deal with Reform, we are entering very dangerous territory.”