CHANGE UK’s lead candidate in Scotland for this week’s European elections has written an open letter to his fellow party candidates urging them to consider following his action and voting for the Liberal Democrats or other pro-Remain, pro-Union parties.

In a damaging blow for the new party, David Macdonald announced last week that to avoid splitting the pro-Remain, anti-independence vote in Scotland, voters should instead back the LibDems.

Macdonald, an independent councillor in East Renfrewshire, said it was important to “shore up the Remain vote”. He recommended that in other places where Change UK were polling at low levels, voters should switch to other Remain parties.

In his open letter to the candidates, Macdonald, who has not spoken to the LibDems or any other parties, said that because it was too late to remove his name as a Change UK candidate he would be “doing the unprecedented, so far as I am led to believe, in a European election”.

He wrote: “I will be entering the polling booth and will vote for a party that my name is not attached to whilst at the same time seeing my name attached to a party I have now no intention of voting for.

“There comes a point in a political campaign where one realises that there are not enough resources, support or time to turn things around. The only thing I can do at this stage is to do the reasonable thing and to try to convince voters to not vote for Change UK and to now back the leading contender, here in Scotland, the Scottish Liberal Democrats.”

Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon was in Aberdeen campaigning with the SNP candidate Christian Allard, a former MSP.

Ahead of a visit to a seafood processing plant, she said she wanted Scots to vote for her party on Thursday “to stop Brexit and ensure Scotland remains in the single market to trade freely with Europe”.

The SNP believe the EU is key to the success of the economy and leaving the single market would cut Scotland’s GDP by around £9 billion by 2030 and risk some 300,000 jobs.

“The free movement of goods and people across Europe is vital for Scotland’s economic success. But those benefits that we all enjoy are plunged into peril by Brexit,” she said.

“The EU accounts for more than half of Scottish exports – worth £15.7bn to our economy. Blocking Scotland from trading freely with the EU post-Brexit will be catastrophic to businesses here.”