Scottish Greens announce Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election candidate after Labour challenge

The Scottish Greens have announced their candidate for the Rutherglen and Hamilton West be-election one day after Labour challenged the party to enter the race.

Cameron Eadie, 20, will try to win the Scottish Greens' first Westminster seat in the upcoming vote, which is expected to happen in October.

No date has yet been set as a result of the summer recess period, but it is expected that the SNP will move the writ to start the process within days of parliament's return.

Eadie was announced by Greens co-leader Lorna Slater one day after Labour challenged the party to stand against its Holyrood partners, the SNP.

Yesterday Scottish Labour depute leader Jackie Baillie accused the Greens of having "taken Humza Yousaf's shilling" and shown themselves to be "nothing less than an SNP branch office".

The Scottish Greens confirmed they would fight the election just minutes later, inviting press to meet Eadie today. 

He said: "It's my generation and the next being left to deal with the carnage caused by successive Tory and Labour governments and their failures on climate.

"In fact, it is worse than failure, they are actively causing climate breakdown."

He went on: "Every single vote for the Scottish Greens will be a vote against the Westminster status quo, a vote for change and a vote for people and for planet."

Eadie, who joined the party two years ago, grew up in East Kilbride and Hamilton before taking up social and public policy at Glasgow University.

He was previously an intern at its John Smith Centre, working with now-first minister Humza Yousaf to focus on his specialist interest in health policy.

He stood as a council candidate in the East Kilbride West byelection in July, in which he secured 3.8 per cent of first preference votes against Labour winner Kirsty Williams' 40.3 per cent.

Slater said: "We are at a crossroads where cynical politics of the past are being replaced by a new, positive vision of what the world should be, and we are so lucky to have Cameron championing that shift.

"By standing he will make sure green voices and concerns for our climate and environment will be heard in this election with a positive vision of a fairer, greener and thriving Scotland for all."

The contest comes after 11,000 local voters signed a recall petition to unseat their independent MP Margaret Ferrier, who was found to have broken standards rules. She has since confirmed she will not stand in the byelection.