News / Armitage announced as Green candidate for Scottish elections
ALEX Armitage has been officially announced as the Scottish Green Party’s candidate for the Scottish Parliamentary elections in May.
It had been widely expected that the Shetland South councillor, who stood in the 2024 UK general elections for the party, would be the party’s choice to battle for the MSP seat at Holyrood.
The news was confirmed at a party event held at Islesburgh in Lerwick this afternoon (Saturday).
Armitage finished third in the 2024 UK general election race for Orkney and Shetland, behind only the Liberal Democrats and SNP, earning over 2,000 votes and an almost 10 per cent vote share.
He said last month that he had put himself forward for selection for this year’s Scottish elections because he cared “deeply about Shetland”.
The paediatrician added he wanted to “disrupt the powerful, corporate interests that seek to extract ever more resources from our people, our communities and our environment”.
“We need a departure from the status quo, and I can be the voice of challenge and change the Shetland desperately needs,” he said.
“We need to discover a new sense of hope in our politics. Folk are turning to the Greens because of our focus on people and planet, because we stand up for the marginalised, and because of our commitment to justice.”
Five candidates have now officially put their names forward to replace the outgoing Beatrice Wishart as Shetland’s MSP.
They are in alphabetical order: Alex Armitage (Greens), John Erskine (Labour), Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP), Emma Macdonald (Lib Dems) and Brian Nugent (Sovereignty).
Reform UK is understood to have plans of announcing a candidate later this month.
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