Some time back I submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament which called on them to make it a legal requirement that if an elected representative of a political party resigned mid-term or otherwise no-longer represented their party, that this should trigger an automatic by-election.
On too many occasions, we have seen the blatant hypocrisy spouted by political parties when one of their councillors or MP’s resigns, or when for example a disgraced MSP resigns only to continue to remain on the public purse until election time. Surely, all political parties would support a move to clean up this grey and shady area of politics? Of course not!
On 22nd February 2023, the Public Petitions Committee met to discuss this very issue,and the outcome was quick and clear: The Scottish Government stated they had no plans to amend this legislation. No MSP had any comment on this, either for or against. Conservative MSP Alexander Stewart called on the petition to be closed and the committee unanimously agreed. Unbelievably, the reason they closed it and unanimously agreed to doso was that the “Scottish Government had no plans to change the legislation”! Isn’t the point of the petitions committee to discuss the merits or otherwise of the petitions, and recommend to the parliament whether it should pursue them or not – not the other way round!
I was quite clear from the beginning when I submitted the petition that it would achieve no change, turkeys after all don’t vote for Christmas,and politicians ultimately look after No1 – that seat on the gravy train must be protected at all costs!
So they next time that there’s a call for a Councillor or MSP to “do the decent thing” and resign, point the hypocrites in the direction of this clip, and ask why they didn’t support it when they had the chance:
An Independent Scotsman 