17:36

Nine Labour councillors in Aberdeen face explusion from the party after their disciplinary case for agreeing a coalition with Tories in the city was considered by the party’s ruling national executive on Tuesday.

One of a slew of internal disciplinary cases handled by the NEC, it referred their cases to the party’s national constitutional committee for a final ruling. The Scottish Corbynite blog redrobin tweeted that this “will likely mean their expulsion”.

The Red Robin (@redrobinscot) BREAKING: Aberdeen Labour Councillors reported to the National Constitutional Committee by the ruling @UKLabour NEC. This will likely lead to their expulsion.

All nine councillors, including Aberdeen’s former council leader Barney Crockett, were suspended from the party last May for agreeing a deal with Scottish Tory councillors to run Aberdeen city, against the express orders of then Scottish leader Kezia Dugdale.

Crockett and his colleagues insisted that deal would honour a strict no cuts and no redundancies policy designed by Dugdale to prevent Labour-Tory coalitions in Scottish councils in the run-up to last June’s critical snap general election.

Badly burnt by the heavy criticisms and defections the party faced for working with the Tories in opposing independence in the 2014 referendum, Labour has been scared of such deals largely because the Scottish National party has very effectively weaponised anti-Tory sentiment in Scotland.

Until 2014, all parties did local power-sharing deals with each other, including the SNP and Tories, because the proportional voting system used for Scottish council elections largely prevents one party majorities.

Alex Salmond’s first SNP government in 2007 succeeded largely because he did repeated deals with the Tories at Holyrood, enabling in part his landslide Scottish parliament elections victory in 2011 which in turn enabled him to stage the 2014 referendum.

The Tory-Labour deal in Aberdeen, which saw Labour occupy the coveted Lord Provost, or Lord Mayor role, boxed out the SNP. The SNP has since demanded the nine councillors were expelled from Labour.

Before today’s NEC meeting, Maureen Watt, the SNP MP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, had said their “grubby coalition” had seen cuts to services and jobs. “This is a key test of Richard Leonard’s leadership, and so far he’s failing miserably,” she said referring to Dugdale’s successor as Scottish leader.