THE man who won Gordon Brown’s seat for the SNP is in talks to become a Holyrood candidate, The National can reveal.
Roger Mullin took the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat that had been held by Labour’s last prime minister in the SNP landslide of 2015.
Brown, who did not run in the election, had held the region for more than 20 years, making it Labour’s safest Scottish seat. It went back to the party two years later when Mullin was amongst the SNP members to lose their constituencies in the snap General Election of 2017, being defeated by just 259 votes.
Since then, he has served on the SNP’s Sustainable Growth Commission and published reports on Brexit and business through the consultancy he runs with fellow ex-MP Michelle Thompson, Momentous Change. Now he is eyeing a return to frontline politics at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.
The move is partly in response to the “patronising” ageism Mullin, 71, says he has seen in connection with the decisions of some long-serving MSPs to stand down, including Mike Russell and Bruce Crawford.
READ MORE: SNP member quits bid for Holyrood over alleged comments about women
He said: “People were saying that when you reach 65 you should step down for younger people to come in. I don’t think age is the most important characteristic, but over-65s have a right to be represented.
“The people leaving are taking with them a lot of ability in some areas in which I think I can contribute.”
Mullin, who has previously worked for the World Bank and UN agencies, says discussions have so far been “very informal” and he is “not chasing any particular seat”: “Local parties will have to make a decision about whether they want to have a contest, whether there’s an MSP in place or not. It’s essential to be a good constituency member, but that’s not enough. You have to be able to contribute to national policy in different ways.
“There’s a need to prepare for an independent Scotland. We need to establish how we develop and implement things like a foreign policy. I can contribute to that.”
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