Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement today announced their candidate for the forthcoming Glenrothes By-Election.  

Louise McLeary

Louise McLeary from Kirkcaldy, works as a volunteer for an Edinburgh based drugs agency and is on the management committee for the Fife Independent Disability Network. Louise has been a member of Solidarity from its inception and lives in the part of Kirkcaldy which is in the Glenrothes constituency.  She is 30 years old and has been an activist since the age of 19.

Louise has been involved in campaigning from a socialist perspective at both local and national level. Nationally she campaigned to scrap the council tax; introduce free school meals and free prescriptions (long before the SNP even thought about these issues).   

She is a passionate anti war campaigner and was in London in 2003 with over a million people calling on Tony Blair to pull back from his mission to invade Iraq .  Locally she helped set up the Fife Stop the War Coalition and was one of the four people who occupied the then MP and junior defence Minister, Lewis Moonie’s office to highlight his part in the war.  

She has been also been involved in the Fife-wide campaign to stop the building of schools under PFI.   Louise, who is visually impaired, has been a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Charges group in Fife since it was set up in November of last year in the light of the SNP and Liberal Democrats coalition’s decision to hammer elderly and disabled people with yet more bills by increasing their homecare charges from £4 per week to anything up to £11 per hour.  

Louise said;   “I am proud to have been selected as The Solidarity candidate for this by-election. I have been an activist and a campaigner in my community since I was a teenager. Once the media circus that will surround this by-election dies down, I and other members of Solidarity will still be here campaigning for socialist policies to improve the lives of people in Fife , Scotland and beyond”  

Solidarity Co-Convenor Tommy Sheridan said;   “We are delighted to have Louise as our candidate. She is a passionate and committed campaigner for the socialist cause.   This by-election comes at a time when socialist arguments have never been more relevant. The world financial markets are in meltdown whilst at home ordinary people pay the price for the credit crunch with rising food and fuel bills.   Throughout her time as an active socialist, Louise has campaigned on the issues that matter and are important to ordinary people, she has never flinched from taking sides.   She is a credit to her community and Solidarity is proud to have her as our candidate.”