The SNP, meeting on Saturday in Edinburgh, have announced the new candidate who will stand in Edinburgh Southern.
The new name on the ballot paper will be Deidre Brock who was until 2024 the MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, but lost to Tracy Gilbert the Labour candidate who took the seat with a majority of 7,268 votes.
Previously Ms Brock was an SNP councillor and Depute Lord Provost in Edinburgh. She had won the seat most recently with a 12,808 majority.
Ms Brock said: “I think the good people of Edinburgh Southern deserve a alternative candidate to a discredited Labor Party, and so I’m really looking forward to working with what are a brilliant bunch of activists.
“It feels to many people that Labour has lost its way. It’s no longer the Labour party it was, in that it is focused on big business and very much more on the very wealthy, as opposed to the people it was set up to support way back in the day.”
She continued: “It would be such an honour to serve in The Scottish Parliament and to continue to do the work I was doing for nine years, you know, as an MP and then eight years before that, as a councillor. I love getting involved in communities. I’ve always loved the that’s the side of the work that I really love helping folk and getting out and meeting folk and hearing whatever problems they have.”
Former MP in Edinburgh East, Tommy Sheppard, is at the top of the SNP list, so the two former MPs have a reasonably good chance of returning to politics, although this time at Holyrood.
The current MSP in Edinburgh Southern is Daniel Johnson who secured the seat with a majority of 20,760 in 2021.
The previous SNP candidate in Edinburgh Southern was dismissed by the party recently following allegations of benefit fraud.
