SNP activists in Falkirk are suggesting voters in next month’s local government election give their lower preference votes to the pro-independence Scottish Greens in a bid to stop Labour and the Tories regaining control of the council.

SNP councillor David Alexander said in one ward there were 10 candidates standing from different parties including two from his party. He believes it makes sense that after supporting his own party’s cand-idates voters back others which are pro-Scottish independence.

Under the single transferable vote system, voters rank their candidates by preference with their favourite candidate given the ranking of number one. But they can then continue to place less favoured candidates in descending order, from two and three onwards, until they have no cand-idates they would like to vote for.

“In the Denny ward there are 10 candidates, two SNP, two Labour, the Greens, the independents,” Alexander told The National.

“What we are suggesting is that people vote for the SNP candidates at one and two and then, if they want to vote for another party, to give their next preference vote to the Greens.

“Where we believe the Greens have a reasonable chance we are asking SNP supporters to put the Greens as their third choice.

“Whether it does any good or not, I don’t know, as the Greens are not very well established in our area.”

Chris Marsh, lead candidate for the Scottish Greens in the May 4 election said he believed the stance being taken made sense for both independence parties. “There is widespread support for the SNP so we are hoping that voters who give their first two voting preferences to SNP candidates will give their next preference votes to the Scottish Greens as the other pro-independence party,” he said.

However, the approach being taken in Falkirk by the SNP does not seem to be happening in other local authority areas.

In East Lothian, which has a sim-ilar Labour, Conservative, independent administration in place to that in Falkirk, the SNP are not keen to adopt such a strategy. “We are sticking with the line that voters should support just the SNP candidates,” said SNP councillor Stuart Currie.

“Our concern is that the system can be quite complex and such a message could complicate it further.”

East Renfrewshire, where a SNP/Labour coalition is in place, the party were not keen on such a strategy, while in Edinburgh there was a degree of hostility towards the Scottish Greens, who currently have five councillors.

“I wouldn’t see it as being that easy for them to fall in with us,” said one SNP source. He added that while both parties backed Scottish independence and EU membership, there were important other issues on which they disagreed.

Earlier this week, Scottish Greens co-convenor Maggie Chapman presented an olive branch to the SNP by suggesting her party may not put up candidates in Tory marginal seats at the General Election – including David Mundell’s Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, and neighbouring Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, where the SNP’s Calum Kerr beat John Lamont from the Tories by just 328 votes in 2015.

Mundell won his seat by 728 votes, giving the Tories their single MP in Scotland. The Greens stood in the constituency, polling 839 votes and losing their deposit.

The Greens later played down Chapman’s comments.

A spokesman said: “Our national party will set a strategy for the UK election over the coming weeks, and it will be for our local branches to decide how to implement it. The Scottish Greens have always been a democratic party where the members make decisions, and local branches are responsible for choosing which constituencies to contest.

“We have neither made nor are we seeking any arrangements with any other parties in Scotland about where to stand. Whatever our local branches decide, as a party we will support them. They will no doubt be aware of the desire to stop Tory MPs. But right now we are focused on winning more Green councillors.”