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by Our News Desk
AN SNP landslide at the general election could disenfranchise the working class, new research from the GMB union suggested yesterday.
GMB Scotland carried out an analysis of the occupational background of SNP candidates for the general election and the party’s MSPs and MEPs, only to find over 90 per cent came from the top three groupings — manager, director and senior official, professional and associate professional and technical.
GMB officer and blacklisted construction worker Mick Dooley asked: “Who will represent Scotland’s workers if over 90 per cent of their elected members were to be drawn from the top three occupational groups?
“Not a single person is from the shop floor. How does it help to replace a former shop floor worker and union representative like Jim Sheridan with a senior exec from McDonald’s?”
Mr Sheridan’s SNP challenger is Gavin Newlands, a business manager with McDonald’s.
Incumbent Labour MP for Glasgow South West Ian Davidson “chaired the Scottish affairs committee that was crucial in exposing the blacklisting of 3,213 workers by construction firms.
“I am one of the 582 of these workers that are from Scotland,” Mr Dooley said. “Who will take over the job of getting compensation for these workers if he is not returned?”
Mr Davidson told the Star the union’s findings showed the SNP did not represent the working class.
“Labour is and has always been the party of trade unions and working people,” he said. “The SNP tries to ignore class divisions.
“This examination of candidates shows they overwhelmingly represent the better off.”
The SNP said on May 2 that membership of its trade union group exceeded 15,000 — more than the entire membership of Scottish Labour.
“More and more Scots recognise that we are the party of working people in Scotland,” SNP trade union group secretary Chris Stephens argued.
But Young Communist League Scottish organiser Johnnie Hunter said: “Never mind the ‘red Tories’ — this report reveals that the SNP have too easily been allowed to shrug off their ‘tartan Tories’ status.
“The SNP needs to be judged on deeds not words — happily passing on Tory and Lib Dem cuts, privatisation and voting down the living wage twice.”
