Highland is a council area in the Scottish Highlands and is the largest local government area in the United Kingdom. It was the 7th most populous council area in Scotland at the 2011 census. It shares borders with the council areas of Aberdeenshire, Argyll and Bute, Moray and Perth and Kinross. Their councils, and those of Angus and Stirling, also have areas of the Scottish Highlands within their administrative boundaries.
The Scottish Greens are a green political party in Scotland. The party has seven MSPs in the Scottish Parliament as of May 2021. As of the 2022 local elections, the party sits on 13 of the 32 Scottish local councils, with a total of 36 councillors. They held two ministerial posts in the first Yousaf government following a power-sharing agreement with the SNP from August 2021 until the end of the Bute House Agreement in April 2024, marking the first time Green Party politicians formed part of a government in the UK.
James Ross Finnie is a Scottish Liberal Democrat politician and a former Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP). He is a former Minister for the Environment and Rural Development in the Scottish Executive, and Member of the Scottish Parliament for the West of Scotland region. He became an MSP in the first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, and held the same ministerial portfolio until May 2007.
Shiona Baird is a Scottish Green politician who was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the North East Scotland region from 2003 to 2007, and co-convener of the Scottish Greens from 2004 to 2007.
Eleanor Roberta Scott is a Scottish politician and physician. She was Scottish Greens Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Highlands and Islands from 2003–2007, then female co-convener of the party from 2008–2011 with Patrick Harvie.
Elaine Kildare Murray is a retired Scottish Labour politician. She was leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council for the 2017–2022 term. She was also the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Dumfries from 1999 to 2011, and then for Dumfriesshire from 2011 to 2016. At the 1999, 2003 and 2007 elections, Murray increased her percentage share of the vote. She was Shadow Minister for the Environment in the Scottish Parliament. She lost her seat in 2016.
The politics of the Highland council area in Scotland are evident in the deliberations and decisions of the Highland Council, in elections to the council, and in elections to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster) and the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood). In the European Parliament the area was within the Scotland constituency, which covers all of the 32 council areas of Scotland.
The 2007 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the third general election to the devolved Scottish Parliament since it was created in 1999. Local elections in Scotland fell on the same day.
John Gordon Wilson is a Scottish politician. He was formerly a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Central Scotland region from 2007 until 2016. He sat as a Scottish National Party (SNP) member and then as an independent after 2014. He stood unsuccessfully as a Green Party candidate in the Coatbridge and Chryston constituency at the 2016 Scottish Parliament election and then as an independent candidate in the 2017 Scottish local elections.
Nigel Anderson Don is a Scottish composer, arranger and former politician. He was a Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for two parliamentary terms, first for the North East Scotland region 2007–2011 then for the Angus North and Mearns constituency in the 2011–2016 term.
Stefan Tymkewycz is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician, and a former Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothians region.
Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch is a constituency of the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood) covering part of the Highland council area. It elects one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post method of election. It is also one of eight constituencies in the Highlands and Islands electoral region, which elects seven additional members, as well as eight constituency MSPs, to produce a form of proportional representation for the region as a whole.
Alison Johnstone is a Scottish politician who has served as the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament since 2021. Elected as a member of the Scottish Greens, she relinquished her party affiliation on becoming Presiding Officer. She has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothian region since 2011.
Jean Urquhart is a Scottish politician. She was formerly a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), first elected in 2011 for the Highlands and Islands region as a Scottish National Party (SNP) member, then continuing to sit as an independent after she left the SNP in October 2012. She had been an SNP councillor at the Highland Council from 2003 to 2011.
John Bradford Finnie is a Scottish Greens politician. He was the Green Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Highlands and Islands region from 2016 up until 2021, having previously sat as a Scottish National Party (SNP) member from 2011 to 2012 then as an independent from 2012 to 2016.
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry, known as Drew Hendry, is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey since 2015. Hendry has served as the SNP's Economy Spokesperson in the House of Commons since September 2023.
Maggie Chapman is a Scottish politician and lecturer who is a Scottish Green Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Scotland. She was co-convenor of the Scottish Greens from November 2013 to August 2019, serving with Patrick Harvie, and was the party's lead candidate for the 2019 European election.
Aird and Loch Ness is one of the 21 wards used to elect members of the Highland Council. It includes Loch Ness, the town of Beauly, and the village of Fort Augustus. It elects four Councillors.
Meghan Gallacher is a British politician who has served as Deputy Leader of the Scottish Conservatives since 2022. She has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Central Scotland region since 2021. Gallacher was a councillor for the Motherwell West ward from 2017 to 2022, serving as the Conservatives party's group leader in the North Lanarkshire Council.
Elections to The Highland Council were held on 5 May 2022, the same day as the 31 other Scottish local government elections. As with other Scottish council elections, it was held using single transferable vote (STV) – a form of proportional representation – in which multiple candidates are elected in each ward and voters rank candidates in order of preference.
