Political

Ian Blackford standing down as SNP MP

The BBC reports:

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s former Westminster leader, is to stand down as an MP at the next general election.

Mr Blackford has been the MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber since 2015, when he defeated former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy in a controversial campaign…

Mr Blackford’s campaign to replace Mr Kennedy as the MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber in 2015 became mired in controversy over online abuse aimed at the former Liberal Democrat leader and his long-running battle with alcoholism.

Brian Smith, who was convenor of the local SNP branch, later resigned after it was reported that he had called Mr Kennedy a “drunken slob” and “quisling-in-chief” in a series of more than 130 tweets.

“Controversial” is one way of putting it. Former Labour MP Brian Wilson wrote of that campaign:

This was a campaign of shame which should be neither forgiven nor forgotten; certainly not for as long as Mr Blackford occupies a place on the political stage…

He … adopted the unsubtle dog-whistle campaign hashtag: ‘Where’s Charlie?’ It wouldn’t have required much to find exactly where Charlie was, both physically and mentally. He was mourning the death of beloved parents; grieving the early demise of his best friend; fighting a horrible disease; struggling to hold a family together….

One of his closest associates, Brian Smith, convener of the SNP’s Skye branch, wondered online if Charles, ‘has “a problem” that stops you going to Westminster?’ Up to election day, Smith bombarded Charles’s social media sites with abuse, describing him as ‘our own arch-Quisling’…

There were vile anonymous messages attached to Charles’s car and pushed through his letter-box. When he returned home after the confirmation of his defeat, the bins had been emptied across his driveway. The level of sheer cruelty was beyond comprehension – and all totally unnecessary in terms of the election’s outcome.

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One response to “Ian Blackford standing down as SNP MP”

  1. Let’s Win this back for Charlie !! He was such a Lovely Man who I had the privilege of being with at the anti-Iraq War March and back stage with him also ..and my Dad Brian Cotter MP

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