Council candidate for North Lanarkshire, Lyall Duff, has now resigned following his suspension for the comments made on the Facebook website.
He was a standing as a candidate for the SNP, which has called the comments ‘totally unacceptable’.
A party spokesman said: ‘Lyall Duff has informed the party that he has resigned his membership of the SNP, which therefore ends the party's disciplinary process.’
His name cannot legally be removed from the ballot paper, but the spokesman stressed he is ‘not an SNP candidate and we do not support his candidacy in any way’.
Mr Duff is said to have attacked two Catholic midwives from the greater Glasgow area, who refused to be involved in abortion procedures.
As reported in
Midwives, Mary Doogan, 57, and Concepta Wood, 51, lost their legal bid to not delegate, supervise and support staff taking part in abortions.
The Facebook comments, said to be posted by Mr Duff, stated: ‘The news reckon this case will affect the NHS UK wide, too f***n right it should, sack the money grabbing old witches and make them pay back every penny they earned in disgust doing their career choice.’
It is claimed that he has also made vitriolic comments about RBS and the bank’s former chief executive and said soap and shampoo need to be introduced to France because ‘they do pong a bit’.
The election for North Lanarkshire Council will take place on May 3.
