The Independents seem set go into a coalition with Labour and the Liberal Democrats to form an administration to run the Highland Council, it is claimed.
If confirmed it would mean the SNP and Tory councillors along with the sole Green Party member would be the opposition.
The SNP were the largest party political grouping following last week’s elections with 22 councillors, but as usual the Independents dominated, albeit in a reduced state with 28. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats both got 10, and the Greens one.
There has been no official statement about an agreement, but SNP leader Maxine Smith said there was little doubt, and she was critical. The Independents had not given the SNP an opportunity to negotiate, despite the fact that for the past two years the SNP group had effectively kept a minority Independent administration in power.
“Instead of being rewarded for that trust, we have been kicked aside in favour of a three way alliance.”
“We are a Group of 22 and they are a Group of 28 and together we would have formed a robust, stable and experienced coalition, which would have remained in place for the five year term. Given that our vote stayed high and the Lib Dems, Labour and Independents all lost seats to the Tories, this does not make sense and is a betrayal of the public vote. “
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here