THE local Liberal Democrats have announced their nominated candidate for the general election.

John Watson, a resident of Inverclyde for over 25 years, has been put forward by their executive committee to stand in May’s poll.

Mr Watson said he was ‘excited and privileged at being nominated to fight the seat’.

The former charity and urban regeneration leader says this year’s election is one of the most important he can remember, following last year’s No vote in the independence referendum.

He said: “There’s been a fundamental change in Scotland and the UK with the referendum, where a majority of people used the democratic process to keep Scotland as part of the UK.

“We now need to use and test the extra powers coming to Scotland as a result of this.

“But this has to be balanced by improving the way the whole of the UK functions.

“We can’t allow Scottish MPs to become second class members at Westminster because of narrow Tory self-interest, nor for back door horse trading between Labour and the SNP which will risk the economic recovery by much higher borrowing.” The Lib Dem challenger intends to put regeneration at the heart of his campaign.

He said: “Inverclyde bore the brunt of the 1980s de-industrialisation overseen by the Tories and although there has been a huge amount of effort and investment, there clearly remains much more to be done.

“For that we need confidence and the Westminster and Holyrood governments focused on making life better for areas such as Inverclyde and not being frozen into doing the bare minimum because of their fighting endless referendum campaigns.

“We have seen how in Scotland the referendum totally preoccupied the SNP and in Westminster we would see any Tory government only interested in the unnecessary and potentially catastrophic European Union referendum.” He also highlighted global warming, building a ‘fairer’ economy, high quality health and social care and civil liberties as key issues.

He told the Tele: “The Lib Dems have shown at Holyrood and at Westminster that we can work effectively with other parties by putting the national interest first “What we need to do is to make sure that areas such as Inverclyde now become the priority.

“The Lib Dems have ensured through the ‘City Deal’ that £27 million will be jointly invested by the UK and Scottish governments and Inverclyde Council in the area on essential infrastructure that will help create further investment and jobs.” Local members will vote later this month to accept the unanimous nomination from the party’s executive committee to adopt Mr Watson as their local candidate.

Jean Stewart, chair of Inverclyde Liberal Democrat Association, said: “I am delighted that John has agreed to be our candidate and look forward to working with him.”