diff --git a/sdk_container/src/third_party/coreos-overlay/sec-policy/selinux-base/selinux-base-2.20200818-r2.ebuild b/sdk_container/src/third_party/coreos-overlay/sec-policy/selinux-base/selinux-base-2.20200818-r2.ebuild
index 6546c608fb..f862dcd542 100644
--- a/sdk_container/src/third_party/coreos-overlay/sec-policy/selinux-base/selinux-base-2.20200818-r2.ebuild
+++ b/sdk_container/src/third_party/coreos-overlay/sec-policy/selinux-base/selinux-base-2.20200818-r2.ebuild
@@ -31,7 +31,11 @@ RDEPEND=">=sys-apps/policycoreutils-2.8
 	>=sys-apps/checkpolicy-2.8
 "
 DEPEND="${RDEPEND}"
-BDEPEND="sys-devel/m4"
+# flatcar: BDEPEND on python3[xm] - normally pulled in through policycoreutils
+# but we made that dep conditional on USE=python
+BDEPEND="sys-devel/m4
+    >=dev-lang/python-3[xml]
+"
 
 
 # flatcar changes