THE former world leader of the Orange Order is now a Scottish Labour councillor in North Lanarkshire.
Henry Dunbar will represent the party for the first time in the Airdrie North ward.
He polled 1,170 of the 5,565 first preference votes, and was elected alongside Sophia Coyle and Richard Sullivan of the SNP and Independent Alan Beveridge.
Mr Dunbar's fellow Labour candidate, Peter Kelly, failed to get elected after getting just 463 first preference votes.
Ian McNeil, who has been executive officer of the Orange Order in Scotland since 2019, failed to get re-elected as a Labour councillor in neighbouring Airdrie South.
Mr Dunbar, 66, was Scotland’s most senior orangeman from 2010 to 2016, when he was Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland.
He was a prominent pro-Union figure in the independence referendum, helping to organise the biggest No event of 2014, when 15,000 orange men and women marched through Edinburgh the weekend before the vote.
A Channel 4 News report of the gathering showed him telling the crowd: “Mister Salmond, you will not con the loyal Protestant people of Scotland. No to independence and no surrender to separatism."
Mr Dunbar then went on to become the most senior orangeman in the world, after being elected as its Imperial President in 2015 for a three-year term.
The Orange Order describes itself as the “oldest and biggest Protestant fraternity in Scotland”, with members who are “bonded together to promote the ideals of our faith”.
However it is regarded by some as anti-Catholic.
After the Herald revealed in March that Mr Dunbar was a candidate, the Call it Out campaign against anti-Catholic bigotry in Scotland called it a “slap in the face”, while the SNP said Labour should choose a new candidate, calling the Orange Order “deeply divisive”.
A retired salesman, Mr Dunbar told the Herald at the time his religion was not relevant to his political role, and he would represent all constituents equally.
“I’m not standing for the Orange Order, I’m standing for Scottish Labour,” he said
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar later said he expected every Labour candidate to have
hatred against anybody in our communities, I will root that out. I won't stand for it.”
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel