A FORMER UKIP candidate has won a seat as a councillor for the Scottish Conservatives in Irvine South.

Matthew McLean ran as the only candidate for the Scottish Conservative and Unionists.

He received 19.4 per cent of today's vote share, behind the SNP on 44.6 per cent and Labour on 32.4 per cent, picking up the final of the three seats in the area.

Though “Matthew McLean” has never run in North Ayrshire Council elections before, they were initially listed as Matthew Grainger before this was later corrected.

This led the new Conservative candidate to be identified as a previous hopeful from the 2017 North Ayrshire Council elections, running in the Kilwinning ward.

 

Though at this time he ran for a different party - the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP.

Before the election, North Ayrshire Conservatives were approached and Mr McLean provided some clarity to his switch of allegiances.

He said: “In terms of UKIP, very simply we achieved what we set out to do. I wanted to leave the European Union, it was a vehicle for doing it at the time."

Follow our live updates from the North Ayrshire elections here: North Ayrshire Council election 2022 results from the Portal