SNP has highest percentage of gay and lesbian candidates

A KaleidoScot survey shows the Scottish National Party (SNP) has the highest number and percentage of out gay and lesbian candidates of any Scottish political party.

Eight percent of the SNP candidates identify as out gay or lesbian, followed by six percent of the Scottish Green Party (SGP), five percent of Scottish Liberal Democrat Party (SLDP), five percent of Scottish Conservative Party (SCP), three percent of Scottish Labour Party (SLP) and two percent of UKIP.

Five SNP candidates out of 59 standing for election as MPs openly identify as gay, two SGP out of 31, three SLDP out of 56, three SCP out of 59, three SLP out of 58 and one UKIP out of 42. The Scottish Socialist Party filed only four candidates and non identify as gay or lesbian.

KaleidoScot obtained these numbers by asking each Scottish political party for the data, we excluded candidates who we know are lesbian, gay or bisexual but are not out from this analysis.

Every party answered our query with the exception of UKIP, and we only know of David Coburn, who is openly gay, standing for elections as an MP.

There was not a single candidate who openly identifies as bisexual, transgender or intersex.

The total of 16 candidates identify openly as gay or lesbian which makes just over five percent of the total number of candidates.

This shows the number of gay and lesbians adequately represent a similar percentage of the population, with surveys and sociological estimates pointing to around 6% of the population are gay, lesbian or bisexual with usually less than half openly identifying as such.

National surveys have only identified 1.3% of the Scottish population identifying openly as LGB (transgender and intersex were, unfortunately, not used as a category in most surveys), although there have been criticism of such survey’s methods and accuracy.

However KaleidoScot found that there were no bisexual, transgender or intersex representation whatsoever in the candidates standing for elections as Scottish MPs, and we urge all parties to consider addressing this in the future.

Women are still under represented as candidates with just under 27 percent, while Black, Asian and other Ethnic Minorities (BAME) are just about adequately represented (slightly less than) 4 percent of the population of Scotland.

KaleidoScot also notes that not a single Scottish candidate identified openly as HIV positive, unlike several candidates who have recently done so in England.