Meet your Highlands & Islands list candidates: Socialist Party and Independents
We asked the parties’ top list candidates in the Highlands and Islands region, hoping to win your vote in the upcoming Scottish Parliament election on May 7, some tricky questions, and this is how they answered - or not.
Each person in Scotland is represented by eight MSPs – one ’constituency’ MSP and seven ’regional’ or ’list’ MSPs.
In the Holyrood election on Thursday May 7, voters in the Highlands and Islands will be asked, on the lilac-coloured ballot paper, to vote for one ’constituency’ MSP, representing whichever of the three constituencies they live in: Argyll and Bute, or Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, or Na h-Eileanan an Iar. Choose one candidate by marking ‘X’ next to your choice. The winner from each constituency will be decided by the first-past-the-post system. You can read profiles from your constituency’s candidates in our newspapers this week, as well as at www.westcoasttoday.co.uk.
On election day, voters will also be asked, on the peach-coloured ballot paper, to elect seven ’regional’ or ’list’ MSPs, representing the whole Highlands and Islands region. Before the election, each political party publishes a list of candidates for each region. The second ballot paper has a list of political parties. Voters put one ’X’ next to their choice of political party. The seven ’list’ MSPs come from the winning parties, decided by the complex Additional Member System. You can read profiles from each party, and from their top-of-the-list candidates, below, starting with the first alphabetically, followed by the others during election week.
We asked every party standing in the Highlands and Islands why voters here should mark an ’X’ next to their party on the peach-coloured ballot paper. Further, we asked: people feel rising costs, cuts to services, and threats to our security - what would their party do?
We also asked the same five questions to every candidate within the top three of the parties’ lists:
1. Why should we be stuck with you as our MSP for the next five years?
2. What do you promise to do, for c. £400k plus expenses over those five years, to make our lives better?
3. Do you commit to always telling the truth?
4. Do you commit to protecting every citizen, no matter their creed, colour, or religion?
5. Is man-made climate change real, and a threat to the lives of our children, their children, and so on?
Here is what they said...
Scottish Socialist Party
Vote Scottish Socialist Party against all parties of millionaires, multinationals, landlords and war-profiteers; for people, not profit. For a Socialist Action Plan to cut bills, raise incomes, vastly improve universal public services. The SSP demands free public transport for all, on expanded, reliable networks of buses, ferries and trains, built in Scotland, powered by green energy.
We will build ferries not warships; construct 100,000 high quality council houses for affordable rent; replace the unfair Council Tax with a progressive, income-based Scottish Service Tax that makes the super-rich cough up for services; guarantee an immediate £15-an-hour minimum wage for all aged 16-plus, rising with inflation; reverse NHS privatisation; create public ownership of energy, under democratic control by workers and communities - to end profiteering, slash heating bills and plan rapid transition to renewable energy production, creating 70,000 new jobs. Elect socialist MSPs who will live on the average skilled worker’s wage.
Willie Hamilton
1. I’m not in it for the money, nor to sit passively in parliament. I will tour the Highlands and Islands, hold surgeries, public forums, combine with community, trade unions and youth groups to demand fundamental change.
2. I will propose a Bill for a publicly owned People’s Transport Service - free at the point of use on buses, ferries, trains. To save over £1,400-a-year on bus fares to work; combat pollution; tackle the new Highland Clearances where lack of reliable, affordable transport (or housing) drives young people out of communities.
3. I’ve told the truth all my life, even when it’s not popular: resisting wars, opposing Trident nuclear weapons costing us £1.5m every day for 30 years; warning Starmer’s Labour would change nothing for the better, when many voters hoped it would.
4. I’ve educated and organised for unity against sectarian and racist divisions for 40 years. That’s needed now more than ever, with racist incitement and scapegoating of people fleeing wars, persecution and climate disasters. I stand for unity and socialism.
5. Profiteering by fossil capitalists and motor manufacturers causes climate catastrophe, threatening people’s lives. We need a worker-led transition to green energy production, and free public transport. Socialist change, not climate change.
Brenda Nicholson
1. I share people’s anger at the false promises, careerism and corruption of mainstream politicians. Scottish Socialist MSPs will reject the £75,000 MSP salary and instead live on the average skilled worker’s wage. To remain in touch with the people we represent.
2. I will demand a 5% wealth tax on millionaires, and immediate abolition of the unfair Council Tax, for an income-based Scottish Service Tax with 8 out of 10 paying less, but the 13,000 with annual incomes above £200,000 paying an average £77,000 each – doubling tax funds for local jobs and services.
3. I’m proud to have been honest all my life. I will always speak out for the working- class majority, against powerful vested interests: big business, big landowners and the state.
4. I will continue to campaign for working-class unity and genuine socialist change to provide decent jobs, homes, services and affordable public sector housing for all, regardless of creed, colour, or country of birth.
5. Pollution for profit by global multinationals is the root cause of increased weather chaos. 100 capitalist corporations have caused 71% of all greenhouse gas emissions since the 1970s. We need democratic public ownership of energy, transport, construction and banking to plan a Socialist Green New Deal.
The Workers Party of Britain’s only listed candidate in the Highlands and Islands region, Syed Hussain, did not respond to our request.
Independent, Duncan Macpherson
I never set out to be a politician. I am a husband, a father, and a grandfather. I was first elected to the Highland Council in 2017. I stood again in 2022 and trebled my votes.
The people of the Highlands are paying more in taxes and getting less in return. People are right to ask: where is the money going?
The NHS has never had a bigger budget, yet it’s under more pressure than ever and on the verge of collapse. We’ve been told for years that the A96 and A9 will be dualled, and the Nairn bypass is coming soon, yet nothing happens.
We need affordable housing fit for all age groups to attract key workers and grow our communities. The rising cost of living affects every household and especially hardworking families. Government decisions, especially rising taxes, are making that pressure worse.
All the main political parties have had their chance in government before. They blame eachother while nothing improves. Meanwhile, we all pay the price for their mismanagement and failures with little or no accountability.
Let’s end all the excuses and bring this circus to an end and finally get the things that are needed done.
Independent, Mick Rice
1. I believe that organised communities change the world. I will not be living the high life in Edinburgh pontificating and feeling important. No! I shall be on the road speaking in towns and villages across the region. I shall be doing stand-up and will bring a band with me for music.
2. I will become the organiser-in-chief for resistance to falling living standards that the billionaire class has foisted upon ordinary people. I have already launched International Reparations Day or Make Trump Pay. We should confiscate his assets in Scotland to give the money raised to the poor!
3. No! There is one exception. MSPs cannot take their seats unless they swear allegiance to the monarch and his heirs and successors. I am a republican, but I cannot force the electorate to have never-ending by-elections because I refuse to take the oath. I shall have to do it with my fingers crossed!
4. Is the Pope a Catholic? I am a socialist – everyone matters to me.
5. Yes, it is. We must do all we can to promote sustainable energy. In Scotland we are already self-sustaining on renewable energy. We must export energy, manufacture and export recyclable equipment. Cut Scottish energy bills to the cost of production.
Full list of party candidates in the Highlands & Islands region
Advance UK
Matt Sheppard
Steve Skerrett
Alliance to Liberate Scotland
Brian Nugent
Andrew MacDonald
Kenny Mackenzie
Laùra Hänsler
Allan Duffy
Flora Badger
Independence for Scotland Party
Fiona Nelson
Independent Green Voice
Nicola Siddall
Reform UK
Vic Currie
Max Bannerman
Amanda Hampsey
Fred Campbell
Malcom McTaggart
Jon Whitton
John Coupland
Scottish Christian Party
Donald Boyd
Scottish Conservative & Unionist
Tim Eagle
Jamie Halcro Johnston
Helen Crawford
Ruraidh Stewart
George MacPherson
Peter Wallace
Donald MacKenzie
Douglas Barnett
Scottish Family Party
Kenny Stone
Allan MacEachen
Rachel Gibson
Eva Morrice
Harriet Woolmore
Scottish Green
Ariane Burgess
Kristopher Leask
Kate Willis
Draeyk van der Horn
Alex Armitage
Anne Thomas
Julie Christie
Scottish Labour
Isla McCay
Donald MacKinnon
Eva Kestner
John Erskine
Mike Macleod
Callum George
Shaun Fraser
David Blair
Scottish Liberal Democrat
Morven-May MacCallum
Alan Reid
Declan Gallacher
Angela Maclean
Denis Rixson
Guy Grieve
Fiona Bennett
Scottish Libertarian Party
Nathan Lumb
Scottish National Party
Maree Todd
Robert Leslie
Emma Roddick
Hannah Goodlad
Eilidh Munro
Jérémie Fernandes
Scottish Rural Party
Alasdair Fletcher
Ruaridh Ormiston
Scottish Socialist Party
Willie Hamilton
Brenda Nicholson
Workers Party of Britain
Syed Hussain
Independent
Duncan MacPherson
Independent
Mick Rice
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