Dave Thompson (Scottish politician)

David George Thompson (born 20 September 1949) is a Scottish politician. He was a Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) 2007−2016. He was first elected in 2007 as a Highlands and Islands, then elected for the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency in the 2011 election.

Dave Thompson
Convener of the Scottish Parliament Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee
In office
14 June 2011 – 7 November 2013
Preceded byGil Paterson
Member of the Scottish Parliament
for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch
In office
5 May 2011 – 24 March 2016
Preceded byJohn Farquhar Munro (as member for Ross, Skye and Inverness West
Succeeded byKate Forbes
Majority4995
Member of the Scottish Parliament
for Highlands and Islands
In office
3 May 2007 – 22 March 2011
Personal details
Born (1949-09-20) 20 September 1949
Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland
Political partyScottish National Party

Early life

Thompson was born in Lossiemouth, Scotland. Prior to entering politics, he had a long career in local government, ending as Director of Protective Services for The Highland Council.[1]

Political career

In 2007, Thompson was elected from the regional list as a MSP for the Highlands and Islands.[2] Thompson received some media attention in the aftermath of the 2007 election because he pointed out to the returning officer that the number of additional members for each party had been wrongly calculated.[3] The initial calculation would have given Labour four additional seats and the SNP none, which would have resulted in Labour gaining a plurality and winning the election. After Thompson challenged this calculation and the figures were correctly calculated, Labour were allocated three seats and the SNP two. This resulted in the SNP gaining a plurality of one seat and enabled them to form the Scottish Government.

In 2011, Thompson was elected for the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency.[4]

In February 2014, he was one of seven SNP MSPs that voted against allowing same-sex marriage in Scotland.[5]

In July 2020, Thompson quit the SNP to set up the Alliance for Independence, a new pro-Scottish independence party to contest the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, predicting the party could win up to 24 seats, and arguing that voting SNP with both constituency and list votes would "achieve nothing."[6] He told The National he believed the new movement could help create a "supermajority" in Holyrood at the expense of the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems.[7] In October, the party changed its name to Action for Independence,[8] a name that was approved by the Electoral Commission in February 2021.[9]

References
  1. Restan, Sue (19 July 2016). "Former MSP honoured by the trading standards profession". The Press and Journal. Retrieved 28 January 2021.
  2. "MSPs: Previous MSPs: Session3: Thompson, Dave". Scottish Parliament. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  3. Grandfather was SNP election hero BBC News, 5 May 2007
  4. "MSPs: Previous MSPs: Session4: Thompson, Dave". Scottish Parliament. Retrieved 27 March 2016.
  5. "Scotland's same-sex marriage bill: How MSPs voted". 4 February 2014 – via www.bbc.co.uk.
  6. Hutcheon, Paul (14 July 2020). "SNP veteran to quit to form Alliance for Independence party at Holyrood". Daily Record.
  7. "Ex SNP MSP defends new party that will create independence 'supermajority'". The National. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  8. Gordon, Tom (3 October 2020). "New Independence party forced to change 'misleading' name". The Herald. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  9. Gordon, Tom (5 February 2021). "New pro-Indy and pro-Union parties approved for Holyrood election". HeraldScotland. Retrieved 6 February 2021.


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