AN SNP branch is said to be “in meltdown” after a majority of local executive committee members resigned in protest at the party leadership allegedly trying to parachute in its preferred council election candidate.
But the claim which centres on Loch Ness was strongly denied by Maxine Smith, the local SNP Group leader, who said the allegations were untrue and had been made by a “very aggrieved” former committee member, who was now no longer a member of the party.
“Meltdown is not something I recognise. Voting is going ahead and we have three great candidates. No one is being parachuted in. The SNP is going through its normal procedures. Whichever candidate wins the majority of the votes of the 350 members will stand in the by-election,” she explained.
The election as MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey of Drew Hendry, the former SNP Group Leader on the Highland Council, means there will have to be a local by-election in the Aird and Loch Ness ward, due in October.
But the source close to the local committee accused senior party figures of ensuring their choice of candidate was “parachuted into position by hijacking the local Loch Ness branch's exclusive constitutional right to select their own candidate without external interference”.
The source said: “The SNP Loch Ness branch executive committee, many of whom are new members following the referendum, are disgusted and shocked that SNP headquarters are allowing this travesty of an attack on local democracy to take place.
“Cries of ‘we thought this only happened in the Labour Party’ have been heard several times,” he added.
A flurry of emails between the branch and the party HQ forced the deadline for nominations to be put back but left the matter unresolved with the Loch Ness branch accusing senior figures of policy by “diktat”.
The source said six of the 10 members of the Loch Ness executive had now resigned in protest but others would soon follow. However, Ms Smith said that, as far as she knew, there were only four members of the committee.
An SNP spokeswoman added: “The SNP’s candidate selection is an internal democratic process where the decisions rest firmly with our membership. Local members are currently in the process of being balloted to select their choice of candidate."
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