THE SNP’s ruling body has ordered the party’s most dysfunctional council group to appear before a special vetting session to weed out the worst offenders.
The party’s National Executive Council (NEC) has summoned the SNP opposition in North Lanarkshire to attend an all-day meeting at a hotel in Bellshill this Sunday.
Councillors were told the NEC wanted the candidate assessment panel under SNP National Organiser and former MSP Fiona McLeod to interview all 22 sitting councillors in person.
In recent years the SNP in North Lanarkshire has become a byword for feuds and infighting, giving Labour hope that it can keep control of the council in May’s local election.
Much of the conflict is linked to the so-called “Monklands McMafia”, an SNP old guard around Alex Neil and Richard Lyle, the MSPs for Airdrie & Shotts and Uddingston & Bellshill.
The group is reportedly engaged in a turf war with a clique around Phil Boswell, the new SNP MP for Coatbridge, Chryston & Bellshill.
The factionalism prompted SNP HQ to suspending the Coatbridge branch in February last year until after the Holyrood election.
The then SNP National Secretary Patrick Grady MP said "a culture of mistrust" had created a "toxic" environment in which "the level of discord is intolerable".
The suspension followed a party meeting ended in walk-outs and members calling each other "animals", "misogynist" and "racist".
A secret recording of the event featured Fulton MacGregor, subsequently elected the MSP for Coatbridge & Chryston, complaining the feuding had made him physically “sick”.
The North Lanarkshire Council group has been equally turbulent.
One councillor, Julie McAnulty, is suing one of Mr Lyle’s employees for £100,000 for defamation after being accused of racism.
While another councillor, Dr Imtiaz Majid, was recently criticised by a sheriff for trying to cheat his ex-wife out of a fair divorce deal.
He was ordered to pay £150,000 after hiding assets and claiming he gambled away a fortune, and is now appealing.
Despite the scathing judgment by Sheriff Morag Galbraith, which referred to his ex-wife going to a “women’s refuge”, Dr Majid was never suspended by the SNP.
SNP group leader David Stocks has also come under fire for accepting hospitality from the Orange Order, despite its vehement opposition to the SNP and the independence movement.
He was a guest at the Order’s annual lodge awards, known as the Orange Oscars.
SNP branch meetings have also descended into chaos, with the police called on one occasion, and the SNP hiring bouncers to patrol an event which was designed to ease local tension.
A senior SNP source said a purge of the McMafia was long overdue.
“The vetting meeting is an indictment of what passes for the leadership locally, but at least headquarters is finally doing something about the McMafia.
“This is a critical time. These problems have been ignored for years.
“HQ has started doing the right thing. It now has to see it through.”
A Labour spokesperson said: "The SNP group in North Lanarkshire are rarely out of the headlines and have been a headache for Nicola Sturgeon for months and months.
“While Labour candidates are already campaigning against SNP cuts to vital local services, Nationalist HQ is checking if their existing councillors are up to the job. What a mess.”
The SNP declined to comment on an internal party matter.
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