DISAFFECTED party members are planning to disrupt the SNP’s conference in Glasgow today in a bid to have the leadership investigate alleged corruption in North Lanarkshire and the power of the so-called Monklands McMafia.
About 30 members, wearing T-shirts saying “no corruption”, are expected to protest by standing silently in the main conference hall at some point between speeches.
One of the protesters told The National: “We’re all very much still pro-SNP, pro-indy supporters, every one of us.
“What we’re doing is going to be just a silent protest because the level of corruption within the Monklands is totally unacceptable. It stinks.”
He said the protest would not be aggressive, but that “the group will make its presence felt”.
“Hopefully we’re not kicked out – but if we are, so be it, we’ve had enough. We want to continue within the SNP and fight from within the SNP, but the people of Scotland deserve better than the corrupt politics of the Monklands.”
The campaigners also hope to have Fulton MacGregor, the party’s candidate for Coatbridge and Chryston, de-selected.
In a letter to SNP HQ seen by The National, protesters claim MacGregor’s performance as a councillor “is failing his constituents and we consider that this will bring the SNP into disrepute locally in the run-up to the Holyrood election”.
They claim he attended fewer than half of all meetings at North Lanarkshire Council and often fails to attend advertised surgeries. The letter goes on to state that reception staff at Coatbridge Municipal Buildings have complained to officials at North Lanarkshire Council that elderly members of the public have been left waiting for MacGregor to show up.
They also say that MacGregor’s brother Fraser, who claims on his personal website to be the Liberal Democrat branch secretary for Motherwell North and has stood for the LibDems as a candidate, joined the SNP, registering at his parents’ address, so that he could vote for Fulton to become a branch officer at the inaugural branch meeting of the new Coatbridge North and Glenboig branch.
The letter, signed by “concerned members of the SNP in Coatbridge and Chryston”, concludes: “We therefore have no confidence in Fulton MacGregor to represent the SNP … at the forthcoming Holyrood election and request that he is removed as the candidate immediately.”
Tensions have been simmering in the party for some time. They boiled over earlier in the year when councillor Julie McAnulty was suspended from the party after she was alleged to have made a racial slur.
McAnulty who works for Phil Boswell MP, was accused of the slur by Sheena McCulloch, who works for Richard Lyle MSP. The report to SNP HQ was made nine months after the date the slur was supposed to have been made and was leaked to the Daily Record.
McAnulty denies the claim and believes it all comes down to her investigations into possible corruption over multimillion-pound deals.
According to The Sun, McAnulty was interviewed by police and accused colleagues of bribery, corruption and drug dealing.
Recently the Airdrie and Shotts SNP took to their blog to hit back at some of the allegations: “Since the referendum the party locally has been blessed with a large increase in its membership, like most other branches across Scotland. It is unfortunate that this has been blemished by a small group of self-serving individuals with their own agendas. These fifth columnists have thankfully now left the local branch.
“People generally join an organisation because they identify with it, and not to radically change it. Many would argue that people need to accept when they can’t have their own way that they do not behave in a deceitful, disruptive or underhand way.”
Neither Fulton MacGregor or the SNP responded to The National’s request for a comment.
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