Leading SNP councillor quits

Move sparked by mass resignation at North Ayrshire local authority

ONE of the SNP’s most senior councillors has announced he is to quit politics just months after his administration, which included Nicola Sturgeon’s mother, resigned en masse while he was on holiday.

Willie Gibson, until recently leader of North Ayrshire Council and the SNP’s chief councillor on local government umbrella body Cosla, said the decision by his colleagues to resign “didn’t help” when considering his political future, suggesting at one stage he considered walking away from the party.

The SNP relinquished control of the council after the First Minister’s father Robin failed to win a local by-election.

It meant the local party lost its majority on the council and gave up power amid claims Labour was primed to oust Ms Sturgeon’s mother Joan from her position as North Ayrshire’s Provost.

Mr Gibson’s announcement comes barely a month after Joan Sturgeon also announced she was quitting politics, having served two terms, with SNP sources claiming the impact of a tumultuous summer had taken a toll on her appetite for office.

Mr Gibson said being in opposition, which would have led to a major loss of salary, had “been a nightmare”. The saga had unfolded when the former teacher was at his holiday home in Italy.

Sources say the episode had left Mr Gibson badly bruised, with the decision to exit frontline politics now likely to open the door to Mr Sturgeon to become local SNP leader if elected on the second time of asking.

Mr Gibson said: “Being in opposition has been a nightmare for me. It’s not the way I would have wanted to move and I think that is pretty obvious. I was on holiday at the time and my thoughts were to wait and see, give it time and wait until the next election and have time to speak to people.

“I wanted to have the time to negotiate and see how things would go but the group took a different route and I had to make a decision at that point ‘Do I stick with it? Do I stick with the party?’ and that’s the decision I took.

“It didn’t help. I would say to go from leader of the council and working basically seven days a week and working with senior officers and working at Cosla with Government ministers at that level to suddenly being in opposition and not only that, to be so close to the next election and watch all the fruits of our labour being claimed by a party who didn’t set any of it, I found it very difficult and it certainly didn’t help.”

In an interview with The Herald’s sister paper, the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, Mr Gibson said his interest in local affairs superceded that of national politics.

He also said he had faced criticism for not defending the Scottish Government enough.

An SNP spokesman said: “Councillor Gibson has been a passionate and hard-working representative for North Ayrshire over the past decade and his contribution will be missed by his colleagues.”

‘‘ Being in opposition has been a nightmare for me. It’s not the way I would have wanted to move