Election / The ‘common sense’ candidate who says he “is in it to win”
Alliance to Liberate Scotland candidate Brian Nugent is under the spotlight in this latest instalment in our series of features on all Shetland election candidates
BRIAN Nugent freely admits that his family would prefer him spending his retirement playing golf or going fishing rather than dabbling in local and national politics.
But politics is his life, he says, and so the 73-year-old former college lecturer is standing yet again for a party with next to no prospect of influencing Scottish politics, at least not during the next five years.
It is no surprise that Nugent is challenging this slightly provocative introduction as we sit down for a chat at Mareel, insisting that he “is in it to win”.
And he is equally adamant that he is the only one of the eight candidates in the running to represent the islands in the Scottish Parliament who is really standing for independence.
“The point in me standing is this,” he says. “I do not believe that the SNP is in favour of independence. Each election they talk about it, and then for five years they do nothing about it.
“The Alliance to Liberate Scotland has a one-line manifesto which is: independence, nothing else, nothing less.
“In recent days the SNP was pushing for devo max; they are giving up on independence fairly early in the campaign.
“The Greens also came out with asking for further devolution, so they have also given up on independence half-way through the campaign. I am the only independence candidate.”
The former chair of Yes Shetland, the local group promoting independence in the run up to the 2014 referendum, is looking back over a long love/hate relationship with Scotland’s largest party.
Joining the Coatbridge branch of the SNP back in 1974, Nugent stood for the UK parliament in the early 1990s, was on a SNP regional list at the first Scottish Parliament elections in 1999, only to become disillusioned with the party and leadership.
In 2004 he was a founding member of the Free Scotland Party, advocating independence for Scotland outside the EU, with Nugent standing on that ticket in the Westminster election of 2005.
He briefly joined the SNP again in 2019 during the by-election during which then candidate Tom Wills came the closest ever to winning the seat from the Lib Dems.
Photo: Shetland News
But more frustration with the way the SNP is run led to the forming of yet another party in 2020: Restore Scotland, later to be re-named Sovereignty. That party is now the driving force behind the Alliance to Liberate Scotland, with Nugent becoming its chair. Needless to add that Nugent also tops the party’s list for the Highlands and Islands region.
One may question what is the point in all this when in previous elections, such as for Shetland Islands Council (2017 and 2022) and the Scottish Parliament (2021), his message did not mobilise the masses and saw him usually come last.
“I want a future for my grandson”, he says, “and what is happening in Britain at the moment is appalling. The Labour party has no idea what they are doing, and the SNP has been taken over by a cult.
“The opposition is fragmented – so it needs someone like me to occasionally point: you are wrong.”
He is convinced that he is the only common-sense speaking candidate and that more islanders agree with him than vote him, quoting his views on oil exploration (“closing down the North Sea is madness”) and net zero (“renewables are a con”) to make his point.
“You know what people in Shetland are like,” he said. “They don’t like to give an opinion, but I have been getting messages form people I have not been expecting saying that they will vote for me.
“Some people on social media said I was the only one who was speaking common sense. It might not be apparent at the moment, but maybe there is a revolution coming.”
“If oil is produced in Scotland, then people would earn a living and would be paying taxes,” he continues. “The Norwegian state company Statkraft is funding their country, why is Scottish oil not funding Scotland?
“Norway discovered oil at the same time as us, they got filthy rich, whereas we just got filthy – it doesn’t make any sense to shut down the oil fields.”
While this surely reverberates strongly with local public opinions, another Alliance policy might put off the same voters attracted by his stance on fossil fuels.
Should his party ever win a majority in the Scottish Parliament, they would not negotiate the right to hold a second referendum, but declare Scotland independent there and then.
“Don’t be a servant of your colonising power,” Nugent insists. “There are many countries that went through the UDI [unilateral declaration of independence] route, and the UK is on the record of supporting them when it suited them.
“They might not quite so supportive when Scotland, hopefully, tries it.”
Please also read our other features on the election candidates:
Become a member of Shetland News
Shetland News is asking its readers to consider paying for membership to get additional perks:
- Removal of third-party ads;
- Bookmark posts to read later;
- Exclusive curated weekly newsletter;
- Hide membership messages;
- Comments open for discussion.
If you appreciate what we do and feel strongly about impartial local journalism, then please become a member of Shetland News by either making a single payment, or setting up a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.
Already a member? Sign in to hide this message.
