Lloyd Quinan

Lloyd Quinan is a former member of the Scottish Parliament. Born and brought up in Edinburgh, he joined the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1974 and has been a passionate activist for Scottish Independence ever since. A trained actor, he appeared in theatres throughout Scotland, including the Royal Lyceum, The Traverse, Perth Theatre, The Tron, Eden Court, The Pavilion, and was Assistant Director of The Scottish Theatre Company,Founder of the independent company,United Artists(Scotland),He directed new plays by Peter Arnott and George Gunn as well as the first Scottish production of Howard Barkers, Pity In History.Working as a freelance Director he worked with many companies and theatres including The Citizens Theatre Glasgow,Unit One,The Traverse,Mayfest,The Borders Festival,Craigmillar Festival Society and directed plays,pantomimes and community pageants.He was an elected member of the Scottish Committee of the Equity Union for 12 years.Like so many theatre workers he had a parallel career in Television appearing in a number of dramas for BBC Scotland,Granada, STV and ITV.While working for STV in 1983 he became a Presenter in the Education Department making over 200 programmes on Scottish History and Society (1983–89).In 1994 he returned to STV as The Weather Presenter on the stations LunchTime show.In 1995 he succeeded Bernard Ponsonby as the presenter of Trial By Night,a late night debate show.In 1996 he was Producer/Director on the Scottish Reporters series and co-produced The Professional Beggar for ITV First Tuesday.Quinan was an elected official of the NUJ and was involved in the work to rule dispute at the station,in 1998,he left STV after an acrimonious contract dispute.From 1998-99quinan worked as for Channel4 News,UTV and RTE as a presenter/director.

In 1999 he was elected to represent the West of Scotland as an SNP candidate at the first Scottish Parliament election. During his time as an MSP, he was Deputy SNP spokesperson for Social Inclusion 1999-2000,a member of the European Committee and the Audit Committee. He also served as Convener of the Cross Party Group on Autism in the Scottish Parliament, Vice-Convener of the Cross Party Group on Contemporary Music and was a member of the Cross Party Groups on Palestine and Cuba.Quinan, an active anti-nuclear campaigner was twice arrested during blockades of the Faslane Nuclear Submarine base during his time as an MSP and went on to challenge his conviction in the High Court of Justiciary introducing a point of law which resulted in one of his convictions being set aside,this was seen as a minor victory for the anti- nuclear movement in Scotland.In 2002 while pursuing a request from a constituent Quinan went to Palestine where he was fired upon and assaulted by members of the Israeli security forces in Ramallah.

A naturally inclined left-winger, he supported Alex Neil's bid for leadership, At the 2003 Parliament election he decided to stand down from being a candidate in the West of Scotland, and sought nomination in his home city of Edinburgh. Failure to do so meant that he unsuccessfully contested the election as SNP candidate for Motherwell and Wishaw against the Labour candidate, First Minister Jack McConnell.

Lloyd is a long time political ally of Jim Sillars and Margo MacDonald and he shares Sillars current scepticism towards the EUin light of the planned TTIP treaty.

Quinan left the SNP in the summer of 2003. He briefly joined the SSP, and attempted to become one of its candidates in the European Parliament election 2004, but was not selected and left in 2004.

Lloyd is a strong supporter of the Basque and Palestine independence movements. During his time in the SNP and SSP, he sought to strengthen links between the parties and socialist independence supporters in the Basque country, Catalunya, Corsica and Sardinia. Quinan believes that other European independence movements are a strong organisational model to follow for the independence movement in Scotland.

He is also a supporter of Independence First(a campaign for a referendum on independence for Scotland), the Scottish Independence Convention and Scottish CND.

A lifelong Hibernian F.C. supporter, he was a leading organiser in the 'Hands off Hibs' campaign.

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