A FORMER SNP MSP will contest a key General Election seat for the Alba Party.
Jim Eadie, who was an MSP from 2011 to 2016 for Edinburgh Southern, will look to secure the new Rutherglen constituency for Alex Salmond’s party.
Currently the area falls into the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat, which is held by Labour’s Michael Shanks after he won a by-election last October.
The by-election was held as a result of former SNP MP Margaret Ferrier being kicked out of her post by the electorate in a recall petition after breaching Covid regulations during lockdown.
Eadie left the SNP to join Alba in 2021 stating that he believed his former party had allowed independence to be dropped as a priority.
On being selected as an Alba candidate, he said: “At the upcoming General Election only the Alba Party will be offering the people the choice to vote for independence.
“The SNP strategy for the General Election is incoherent and recently the Greens have said that independence is no longer a red line for them and that they would even be happy to prop up a unionist Government at Holyrood.
“Scotland is country with enviable natural resources but in the Rutherglen constituency, similar to across Scotland, we have too many families and children living in poverty and far too many people unable to afford to heat their homes.
“That is unacceptable and with the powers of independence we can end the absurdity of fuel poor Scots in energy rich Scotland.”
While an MSP Eadie was convener of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee of the Scottish Parliament between 2014 and 2016.
Before entering politics he worked for the Royal College of Nursing and STV before becoming the head of the Scottish branch of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Association Industry (ABPI).
Since leaving the Scottish Parliament he has been the housing policy lead for Age Scotland and worked for the Peoples Postcode Lottery before working for MPs Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey.
Alba have been unveiling a string of candidates in recent weeks include in Dundee, Glasgow and Inverclyde.
The party’s general secretary Chis McEleny is set to stand in Inverclyde where he used to be a councillor.
