UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has surprised the pundits and called a snap General Election for 4th July 2024.

Why did he do so? There are different theories why he did not use the next six months to try to turn round the dismal record of his Conservative Party, trailling more than 20 points in the Opinion Polls. Evidently he did not think he could do so, or else he would have hung on. His various attempts over the past year have proved “not to move the dial” in the Polls.

The man who triggered the downfall of Boris Johnson’s popular Premiership, who delivered the largest Tory majority in the House of Commons in many decades, has now reached his nadir with the possible legacy of the worst Tory General Election result in many decades. His comeuppance is almost total. His sudden and unexpected launch of the General Election campaign in the pouring rain outside 10 Downing Street has been mocked even by the foreign press. Within a week of its announcement, 78 Tory MPs have decided to stand down and not fight this election and sets a new post-war record, surpassing the record number in 1997.

Nigel Farage, the kingmaker, whose decision in the 2019 General Election that Reform UK would not challenge the Conservative Party in certain seats, helped Boris Johnson to gain the largest Tory majority in decades, has decided not to stand as a candidate because he said that six weeks is too short a period to campaign for a Westminster constituency.

The Scottish Christian Party has asked me to stand in the Western Isles constituency where we have had our best results in the past. This is my mother’s native isle that I have known all of my conscious life and the Scottish National Party is in disarray with Angus MacNeil having left the SNP. This means that the Scottish separatist vote is likely to be split between the SNP, Angus MacNeil who is standing as an Independent, Alba and the Scottish Greens. Only last month a similar split in a Highland Council by-election led to an Independant defeating the SNP candidate.

The SNP collapse after the Nicola Sturgeon fiasco and during her chosen successor Humza Yousef’s one-year tenure as First Minister of Scotland has left the SNP in disarray. From an early date the Scottish Christian Party focused attention on Nicola Sturgeon’s promotion of gender issues and also noted her announcing as First Minister that she would put gender issues at the centre of her election campaign for the next SNP administration. Her decision and lack of imagination proved to be her undoing and only last month the SNP tried to roll back from the effects of such a decision by cutting its power-sharing links with the Scottish Green Party and the new SNP First Minister is not even a month in post.

With such disarray, the Scottish Christian Party is well-placed to come through the middle in the Western Isles where voters have consistently supported the Scottish Christian Party over the past few decades. If even 50% of Christians would vote for Donald Boyd this is likely to secure victory to give a Christian Voice promoting Christian values as the solution to the many problems that are destroying the foundations of UK society and damaging its children.

The House of Commons needs to have a Christian Voice at such a time as this, and Western Isles voters have the opportunity to provide this. Having been an ecclesiastical representative at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg, I have a wide knowledge of the interaction between Christianity and politics, which would serve the Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency well in the next UK Parliament

Those who would like to help in a practical manner can contact the Head Office by email headoffice@ukchristianparty.org or telephone 01597 825 151 and 07927094718.