The Herald
Former Orange Order leader Henry Dunbar elected as Scottish Labour councillor
6th May 2022
Photo of Henry Dunbar in Orange Order regalia alongside photo of Anas Sarwar giving thumbs up
Tom Gordon Profile Image
By Tom Gordon
Political Editor
THE former world leader of the Orange Order is now a Scottish Labour councillor in North Lanarkshire.
Henry Dunbar will represent the party for the first time in the Airdrie North ward.
He polled 1,170 of the 5,565 first preference votes, and was elected alongside Sophia Coyle and Richard Sullivan of the SNP and Independent Alan Beveridge.
Mr Dunbar's fellow Labour candidate, Peter Kelly, failed to get elected after getting just 463 first preference votes.
Ian McNeil, who has been executive officer of the Orange Order in Scotland since 2019, failed to get re-elected as a Labour councillor in neighbouring Airdrie South.
Mr Dunbar, 66, was Scotland’s most senior orangeman from 2010 to 2016, when he was Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland.
He was a prominent pro-Union figure in the independence referendum, helping to organise the biggest No event of 2014, when 15,000 orange men and women marched through Edinburgh the weekend before the vote.
A Channel 4 News report of the gathering showed him telling the crowd: “Mister Salmond, you will not con the loyal Protestant people of Scotland. No to independence and no surrender to separatism."
Thinking of all those times Labour selected Orange Order men as candidates for elections. No #sectarianism you say, Keir? It's your party who have form using "No Surrender" as a campaign slogan.