Labor head rules out coalition with Scots

LONDON — Labor leader Ed Miliband ruled out a formal coalition with the Scottish National Party after the head of the pro-independence party offered to help him “lock the Tories out” of government after May’s U.K. election.

“Labor will not go into coalition government with the SNP,” Miliband said in West Yorkshire in northern England.

Tory Prime Minister David Cameron accused Miliband last week of being “despicable” for not ruling out working with the SNP after the election, in which neither the Conservatives nor Labor are likely to win a parliamentary majority. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Sunday that his Liberal Democrats won’t be party to an arrangement that puts the SNP into government.

Miliband’s declaration blocks Labor from a formal partnership with the SNP but still leaves open the option of an informal partnership. Polls show the SNP, whose support has surged in the wake of last year’s unsuccessful independence referendum, is on course to win the bulk of the 59 Scottish seats in the 650-member House of Commons.

Miliband spoke hours after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP wouldn’t join a Conservative-led government.