Election / Eighth candidate joins race for MSP seat
AN EIGHTH candidate has joined the race for Shetland’s seat at Holyrood at next month’s Scottish parliamentary elections.
Peter Tait, from Walls, will stand as an independent candidate on a ticket to relocate the monarchy to Scotland amid calls for “constitutional reform”.
He stood on a similar proposal in the 2019 by-election to replace Tavish Scott as MSP, finishing tenth of 10 candidates and earning just 31 votes.
In 2021, Tait stood on a controversial ticket to oppose same-sex marriage. That time he earned almost four times as many votes – 116 – and finished fifth of the six candidates.
Tait will join a packed field of candidates for the 2026 election race, this time returning to his previous stance of attempting to move the monarchy to Scotland.
In an election manifesto released online, Tait said he wanted to see the monarchy moved “from the bias Protestant Court of St James to the bias Christian Court of St Andrew”.
“In the grand scale of things, it is a very small but necessary adjustment,” he wrote.
“I would not go any further. This is in the best interest of all the states in the union, and beyond.
“Every civilisation so far has collapsed, except the one that we live in, however, it would be a mistake to conclude that our civilisation, in the normal course of events, does not also have a shelf life.”
Tait wrote that there were a number of issues facing the world, including the prospect of nuclear war, pandemics, economic collapse, political unrest and “dust clouds”.
He said that nuclear war for instance “would possibly lead to no ferries and no oil”, adding the “consequences for our community would be unthinkable”.
In his manifesto, Tait said the “Civilisation of the Scot” was the first Christian based civilisation and is, “therefore, appropriately, the greatest civilisation ever in the history of the world.”
However he said its head was “in the wrong position”.
“The diagnosis is serious, but the solution seems simple and within budget,” he wrote.
“If your head was just a few degrees off-centre it would cause aches and pains all over your body and it would not be possible to define what was caused by the off-centre head and what was due to other issues.
“So, the off-centre head is the main problem.”
Tait wrote that the return of the monarchy to Scotland was the “greatest possible positive civilisation issue that could happen in our time”.
“I am giving you, the voters in this constituency the opportunity to vote for it,” he added.
Concluding, he wrote: “I hope I have made my case so clear that even the citizens of Ninevah could understand what I am saying.”
The full list of confirmed candidates for the election on 7 May, in alphabetical order, are as follows: Alex Armitage (Greens), Douglas Barnett (Conservatives), Vic Currie (Reform UK), John Erskine (Labour), Hannah Mary Goodlad (SNP), Emma Macdonald (Liberal Democrats), Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland).
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