Falkirk councillor ‘threatened’ over record 15.6% tax rise

The councillor who introduced Scotland’s biggest council tax rise this year has received violent threats over the decision.

Laura Murtagh, who sits as an independent on Falkirk Council, told the BBC’s Scotcast podcast she had suffered “overwhelming” online abuse since putting forward a motion for a 15.6% increase last week.

Some messages said the councillor should get “a kicking” for the proposal, while other abuse came from people Ms Murtagh knows personally.

However she defended the increase and said it would help protect education services in the area.

Some messages have concerned the councillor so much that she has kept them, in case she needs to go to the police in future.

Other comments focused on her weight and looks.

Ms Murtagh told Scotcast: “I couldn’t look at my emails. It was clear once the story was out that I wasn’t going to be able to look at social media.

“When people start saying things like you could do ‘with a good kicking’ or you could do with more than that – in the past there’s been people saying ‘we know where you live’.

“Councillors are embedded in their communities and no matter how you are protected, people can access you. It’s overwhelming – it’s very harmful.”

Ms Murtagh comments came as a survey by Holyrood magazine revealed scores of female MSPs have reported receiving online abuse, including rape threats, death threats and severe misogynistic comments.

More than three quarters of the MSPs who responded said the abuse had become worse after they were first elected.

Despite Falkirk council being SNP-run, the SNP’s own motion – which proposed a 13.7% increase – was rejected in favour of Ms Murtagh’s motion.

She says the difference between the two rises would be 50p a week for people in Band E properties, and felt the increased figure would help with local services.

Ms Murtagh told Scotcast: “There were cuts to services [under a 13.7% rise] – really important services like early learning and child care, provisions of teachers in classes of units for autistic children – things that members of the public tell us they are really passionate about.”

The councillor said she was “physically sick” after putting forward the motion, and left “crying my eyes out” about it.

She also revealed the abuse had affected her family and that she had urged her teenage daughter to ignore any comments she heard at school.

Ms Murtagh has represented the Carse, Kinnaird and Tryst ward in Falkirk since 2017, initially as a member of the SNP.

However she left the party in 2023, saying “party politics” made local decision making difficult.

Councils across Scotland have introduced above-inflation rises this year, after years of the tax being frozen or capped.

However local authorities have consistently argued that they needed more funding to pay for public services, such as community facilities and maintaining roads.