Jim Sillars should quit SNP and join RISE, says Edinburgh councillor

Former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars should quit the party for encouraging voters to back the left wing alliance RISE, an Edinburgh councillor has said.

In a letter published in the Scotsman this morning, Southside/Newington councillor Jim Orr was responding to comments made by Sillar's at the launch of RISE’s campaign in Glasgow where the SNP veteran said he “couldn’t care less” if he was expelled from the party.

“I really do hope that we have RISE MSPs, because we need an unambiguous socialist voice in the Holyrood parliament,” Sillars told the meeting.

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Jim Orr, who himself quit the SNP in 2014, wrote: “I have a lot of admiration for you Jim but I've lost faith in you. If you believe in RISE, then go and join them and put your heart and soul into helping them.

“If you're an honourable man you will do the decent thing and resign from the SNP rather than have the last years of your often distinguished career become synonymous with goading the SNP to dare to expel you.”

Sillars has spoken at a number of meetings of Radical Independence, the Scottish Socialist Party and the RISE coalition, after accusing the SNP of "soft-selling" independence.

It is against party rules to campaign for a rival, although leader Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC she was "relaxed" about Jim Sillars position.