Labour calls on SNP to investigate candidate ‘rigging’ claims

LABOUR has called on the SNP leadership to investigate claims that a vote to select local election candidates was “rigged”.

Labour said yesterday the allegations should be examined by the Nationalists’ national executive committee after the claims were made by former SNP councillor Campbell Cameron, who represented the party for more than 20 years in North Lanarkshire.

Mr Cameron claimed that family and friends of his SNP rivals joined the party in the run up to the selection process and voted against him.

The two SNP council candidates, Patrick Rolink and Sophia Coyle, who defeated Mr Cameron, have insisted that the selection ballot was conducted properly.

Mr Rolink has dismissed Mr Cameron’s claims as “sour grapes”.

Yesterday, Jim McCabe, Labour leader of North Lanarkshire Council, said: “These are serious allegations and need to be investigated by the SNP’s national executive committee.

“It is predictable that the SNP try to brush this under the carpet, but it goes to the heart of local democracy. If they can’t be trusted to organise a selection meeting, what else can’t they be trusted with?”

Mr McCabe went on to refer to abusive online postings made by another SNP candidate Lyall Duff.

The SNP suspended Mr Duff last week after he went online to describe two Catholic midwives who took legal action for the right to boycott abortions as “money-grabbing old witches”.

Mr McCabe said: “The SNP’s troubled Lanarkshire campaign is lurching from crisis to shambles. By contrast, Labour’s team is working hard to get North Lanarkshire working again.