Tag Archives: holyrood elections 2016

Lloyd Quinan was an SNP MSP from 1999-2003. Since then, he’s left the SNP, flirted with the Socialists and caused controversy during last year’s independence referendum when he said that No voters were bad parents. From the Huffington Post:

Lloyd Quinan, who served as a MSP between 1999 and 2003 told a meeting in North Berwick on 9 June that the Scottish people “have an opportunity to change the lives and life chances of our children for he future”.

He added: “I will be partisan about it, if you vote ‘No’ you leave them with more of the same, then you’re a bad parent.”

Quinan quit the SNP after losing his seat in the Scottish parliament and was then briefly a member of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), before quitting that party too in 2005.

A spokesperson for Alex Salmond told The Herald: “Abuse has no place in the referendum campaign, whether from Yes or No supporters. Lloyd Quinan is not a member of the SNP – and indeed hasn’t been for over a decade.”

Note how quick the SNP were to distance themselves from him.  Nothing to do with us, they said.

Except, just 14 months later, he has gained approval as a parliamentary candidate for the SNP for next year’s Holyrood elections. So, they are quite happy to put up someone in my region who thinks that I and the majority of people who voted against independence are bad parents. Ok, so he’s 9th on the list so he has virtually no chance of getting elected, but that’s not the point. It’s his acceptance into the fold so soon after he expressed those views. We can’t even put that down to local mavericks. We know that the SNP has a deeply centralising candidate approval system. Remember when they rejected Craig Murray for being too much of a free spirit? They must have known of his comments yet chose to approve him anyway.