A VETERAN SNP politician has resigned, leaving the ruling Labour Party administration in Glasgow facing yet another by-election.
Iris Gibson, who has represented the Mosspark area on the city council since 1999, confirmed this week she would standing down immediately.
Mrs Gibson, the mother of SNP MSP Kenny Gibson, has been suffering ill health for several months.
The announcement means four by-elections will be held in the city in early August, creating an early test of Labour's standing in Glasgow after all its seven MPs were voted out last month.
It also sparks contests in the wards of a number of key figures in the Labour administration, including leader Gordon Matheson and his deputy Archie Graham.
Glasgow SNP group leader Susan Aitken said: "Not only the SNP group, but the whole council will miss Bailie Gibson very much.
"She has been a model of exemplary public service, from the day she won her seat in 1999, at a time when the SNP held only two seats on Glasgow City Council right up to the moment when sudden ill-health forced her to take a back seat last year.
"Her dedication to her constituents in the Mosspark and then Craigton wards, and to the city as a whole in her role as a Bailie, has been second to none, and is reflected in the great fondness in which she is held.
"The SNP group wishes her a long and happy retirement and we will pay the most appropriate tribute to her by campaigning as hard as we can to hold on to the seat that she represented for so long for the SNP."
Two of the August 6 by-elections were triggered by the election of SNP councillors Alison Thewliss and Martin Docherty as MPs in May.
Docherty's departure has forced a contest in Anderston/City ward, with Thewliss' seat in Calton also up for grabs.
Scottish Greens councillor Liam Hainey, who was elected in 2012 to represent Langside, is standing down due to ill health.
Glasgow Labour has said that winning the opposition-held seats would mean its overall majority would increase further, while even if it lost in all four it would still be in control of the council.
Meanwhile, sources within the SNP have dismissed a petition calling for the sacking of one of its councillors claiming he is a supporter of Irish republicanism.
Dubliner Feargal Dalton, who has represented Partick since 2012 and has previously been the subject of online racial abuse, is accused of holding views "wholly against the British/Scottish political principles of support for all no matter their background".
The petition authors also say their call for his removal "is not about someone being Irish".
But one source said: "Feargal is accused of supporting the 1916 Easter Rising anniversary commemorations. He has attended events with the Consul General for Ireland on the subject. This is a mainstream Irish event.
"The Queen herself has paid tribute to those who took part in 1916. It's impossible to see this as anything other than extremist nonsense."
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