Nicola Sturgeon to launch SNP council election manifesto

Nicola Sturgeon - Image credit: David Anderson/Holyrood

Nicola Sturgeon has portrayed the council elections as a “clear choice” between her party and the “single-issue” Conservatives in the forthcoming council elections.

She said the Tories had become a “Brexit-at-all-costs machine” while the SNP stands for “strong and vibrant local communities”.

The SNP leader will join council candidates in Edinburgh this morning to launch the SNP’s manifesto for the local government elections on 4 May.

In the last local government elections in 2012, Labour not the Tories was the main opposition to the SNP.

In those elections the two parties were neck and neck, with the SNP gaining 32.3 per cent of the vote and 425 seats across the country, with Labour on a 31.4 per cent share of the vote and 394 councillors.

Labour, however, currently controls more councils, either as a single-party administration or in coalition with others.

Ahead of the launch, Sturgeon said: “The council elections are a clear choice between the SNP who stand for strong and vibrant local communities – and a Tory party which has become a single-issue, Brexit-at-all-costs machine.

“SNP councillors will always put their local communities first – they are not there to simply make up the numbers and be used as a proxy war in national political games.

“From the abolition of ring-fenced funding and our transformational Community Empowerment Act, the SNP has a long track record of pushing power down to local communities.

“Every vote for the SNP on May 4th is a vote against Tory austerity, and a vote to protect vital services and jobs.

“All of our candidates are working hard every day to earn the trust of the people they want to represent and after the election will continue to work every day to preserve it.”