NORTH Ayrshire could see tactical voting along constitutional lines as the area battles high levels of poverty and the impact of the cost of living crisis.
As Green candidate David Nairn said: “There are people starving who can’t keep their houses warm and the constitutional bun fighting that goes on takes away time and resources from all that. I lay that at the Tories door.”
The current council is run by a Labour minority, but the local Tories frequently back up the administration along constitutional lines.
The area has one of the highest levels of deprivation in Scotland, with 27.9% of children estimated to be in poverty in 2019/20.
READ MORE: South Ayrshire council election: Hopes partygate will hit Tory vote
And there are fears that the pandemic has made the problem worse, with the knock-on effect of the incoming cost of living crisis set to send more people in the area into poverty.
Both SNP and Green candidates in the area lamented the fighting along constitutional lines – which they say comes from the Union backing Tory and Labour parties.
In 2017, when the minority Labour administration took over from the SNP, one of the first motions to be passed was from a Tory councillor – who demanded the removal of the saltire from the council’s HQ Cunninghame House, in Irvine, and a Union Jack flag be flown instead.
Labour amended the motion to only allow both flags to fly on special occasions, and at the discretion of the Provost.
Tony Gurney, SNP candidate for Ardrossan ward, said that he believes it shows the Tories weren’t taking the problems in the area seriously.
He said: “It doesn’t matter what you vote at the local election, that [independence debate] will happen somewhere else.
“What you need is good people with good policies to create good outcomes for North Ayrshire. And while you’re busy shouting about whether you’ve got a union jack outside Cunninghame House, that isn’t going to happen.”
Marie Burns, SNP group leader in North Ayrshire, added: “The first year or two was particularly difficult because the entire Tory campaign was about independence, they had nothing else on the leaflet, no other message, just stop the SNP.”
The Tories jumped from one councillor in 2012 to seven in 2017, but it appeared to be a surprise even to them. One councillor, Margaret George, was dubbed “Scotland’s laziest” after only sending one email per week during her five year term.
George told the Daily Record she was “horrified” to be elected, having been told she would only be a paper candidate, and didn’t want to call a by-election due to the high costs.
Nairn said he has seen plenty of “constitutional bun fighting” during the last administration’s term.
He said: “What you’re finding is it’s not the SNP that are raising these issues, it’s either the Conservative or the Labour party, but mostly the Tories to try and get some point scoring in. It’s easy to see what they’re doing and people are waking up to it, they’re just sick of it.”
Independence referendum aside, the area has big problems to contend with, stoked by the pandemic and the cost of living crisis hitting homes across the council area.
North Ayrshire foodbank saw demand for their services quadruple between March and August 2021, providing over 20,000 meals for those in need.
It is estimated around 2000 people in the area are dependent on food banks, but current dual crises of the pandemic and cost of living could force more on to the breadline.
Neil Cowan, Policy and Campaigns Manager at Poverty Alliance, said: “The pandemic has really swept more people who weren’t in poverty into hardship, and for those who already live in poverty [the pandemic] has tightened cash in their lives.
“I think that will be the case for a lot of people in North Ayrshire, as it’s been the case with a lot of people across the whole of Scotland.”
Seven community larders have popped up in the area, where residents can pay £2.50 for around £15 worth of food. But many are still forced to use food banks.
Cowan added that the Poverty Alliance favour cash-based solutions rather than food bank referrals for those in need.
He explained: “Their [food bank’s] existence is a moral outrage but in many ways the fact that food banks are responding to people in a crisis embodies the compassion that exists in North Ayrshire.
“But they shouldn’t be needed and it’s a failure of our economy that they are needed.”
Burns, SNP candidate for Irvine East, said that the pandemic revealed the scale of the problem.
She said: “I think one of the lessons from the pandemic, we worked really quickly to set up local community hubs to get food out to people during lockdown and some of the feedback from the community reps we got was that they didn’t realise how bad things were until they started taking food to people’s houses and realising how difficult their lives are.
“We’ve already had some conversations about what we’ve learned from that and how it can be used in the future to tackle some of the worst cases.”
Gurney added: “Twelve years of austerity has had an effect – people are getting poorer, it’s getting worse.
“We’re trying to help, we’re doing everything in our power to help, but we are substantially limited. Until that change comes from the source of the money and they start to care about people instead of donors, then all we’re doing is changing at the edges.
“We’ll do the best we can and put resources where we can but it is just tinkering at the edges.
“We need that support from Westminster to make those changes in people’s lives.”
The SNP are bidding for all 17 candidates over nine wards, 10 of which are women, they’ve put up for election to win, to give them an overall majority on the council.
READ MORE: East Ayrshire council election: SNP set sights on majority this time round
Burns added: “In theory that’s enough to form a majority. I’m not saying that will happen but that’s the game plan, to get as many of the seventeen as elected as they can.”
The Greens on the other hand are hopeful, if realistic, about their chances, and are standing three candidates in North Ayrshire, but none in neighbouring South Ayrshire.
Nairn added: “I think we’ve got a decent voting base there and with proportional representation it looks good.
“I think we’re in with a chance.”
Alba are standing one candidate in North Coast ward, Jane Fraser. The Tories are standing 11 candidates across nine wards, doubling up in North Coast and Garnock Valley. Labour are standing 14 candidates, also doubling up in certain wards – including Irvine South and Irvine West.
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