Jim Bollan (born c. 1950) is a councillor in

West Dunbartonshire West Dunbartonshire (; , ) is one of the 32 Local government in Scotland, local government council areas of Scotland. The area lies to the north-west of the Glasgow City council area and contains many of Glasgow's commuter towns and villages. ...

, representing the West Dunbartonshire Community Party. Until 2016 he was a member of the

Scottish Socialist Party The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political party campaigning for the establishment of an Scottish independence, independent Socialism, socialist Scottish Scottish republicanism, republic. The party was fou ...

(SSP), having been the only elected representative from that party left in

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Political career

Bollan, at one time a member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

, was elected as a Labour councillor for Renton and Alexandria South ward in 1988, later becoming the party group leader on Dumbarton District Council. He was elected as an

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representative on

West Dunbartonshire Council West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

in the 1999 local elections, defeating Labour and

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

(SNP) opponents. He went on to join the SSP and was re-elected in 2003, defeating an SNP opponent. Bollan has not been a prominent figure in the SSP at a national level, but he has been involved in the campaign against conditions in Cornton Vale women's prison, as his daughter was one of a number of women prisoners who have committed

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there. He has been an opponent of the Trident programme for many years and has taken part in many protests against their presence at the Faslane base, including those organised by Faslane Peace Camp. In May 2009, he was suspended from the council for nine months for alleged misconduct after he was refused permission to address the council on changes to workers' terms and conditions imposed by the new single status arrangement, describing the manner in which the council drove through changes as "shite" and "a stitch up". His suspension was protested by Socialist Resistance and the Secretary of Clydebank Trades Council, Tom Morrison. Bollan was selected as the no. 1 candidate for the SSP in the West Scotland region for the

2011 Scottish Parliament election The 2011 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday, 5 May 2011 to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. The election delivered the first majority government since the opening of Holyrood, a remarkable feat as the Additional M ...

, but failed to win the seat. In the 2012 local elections, he was re-elected fairly comfortably as a councillor, coming second and winning on the first count. In November 2013, Bollan resigned from the GMB in protest of its "dictatorial and undemocratic" decision to campaign against

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. In February 2015, Bollan announced that he intended to stand down at the next council election in 2017. He told the ''Dumbarton and Vale of Leven Reporter'': "I don't believe you should go on and on in these elected positions forever. Come the elections in 2017 I will have been a councillor for 28 years and I believe this is a sufficient amount of time to have been in that role." After his announcement, messages of support flooded in on social media. However, in August 2016 he decided to stand again in the 2017 local elections for the West Dunbartonshire Community Party, which he had formed with fellow councillor George Black.(23 August 2016
Black and Bollan to form new West Dunbartonshire Community Party
''Dumbarton and Vale of Leven Reporter'' He was once again re-elected in Leven ward, coming in second place with 22% of the vote.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bollan, Jim 1950s births Living people Communist Party of Great Britain members Scottish Labour councillors Scottish Socialist Party politicians Councillors in West Dunbartonshire Year of birth missing (living people)