A REFORM councillor has described the Scottish Government’s cross-party summit tackling the rise of the far-right as a “political stunt”.
Glasgow politician Thomas Kerr, who defected from the Scottish Tories to Nigel Farage’s party in January, accused First Minister John Swinney of “playing politics”.
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland, Kerr then later said he would have liked to have had an invite to the summit and claimed he was “repulsed” by the far-right.
Kerr was recently reported to police over comments he made about the safety of women in Glasgow city centre and immigrants, as well as suggesting foreign nationals should be deported if found to be stalking women. Police later concluded that the video by the Shettleston councillor did not constitute a hate crime.
On Sunday, Kerr told the broadcaster: “This is a political stunt.
“I think that this is a real worry when the First Minister of Scotland would use a platform that he has to play politics.”
Kerr questioned the money being spent on the cross-party summit, which he claimed was brought to discuss “opponents that he doesn’t like”.
The councillor then challenged the First Minister to take on Reform at the ballot box and accused him of trying to “scare off” voters from the party.
“If John Swinney doesn't like our values and doesn't like our policies then he's absolutely entitled to debate any day of the week against reform, go out and make his case and fight us in an election,” he added.
“That's what democracy is about. But to try and call this sort of civic Scotland against Reform, is to me, it looks absolutely ludicrous. It’s a First Minister who’s way overstepped his mark, and I think it's a democracy denial in of itself.”
Kerr later said he would have liked to have had an invite to the summit as he is “repulsed” by those on the far-right.
Challenged on this by the presenter on how the far-right differs from Reform, Kerr said: “I think if you look at the far right in itself as an ideology of extreme, thuggish attitudes towards people from minorities.
“Reform’s political platform is that we want to clamp down on illegal immigration, we want to make sure that we can secure our borders, we want to make lower taxes. We are a right wing political party.”
Speaking later on the programme, the First Minister was probed on previous comments where he described Reform as “far-right and racist”.
“I think the attitude and the approach that's taken in relation to immigration causes me enormous concern about the approach and the attitude of Reform,” Swinney said.
Asked if he believed there was a danger that in attacking reform he may alienate some voters, the FM replied: “I'm reaching out to people in Scotland to say that they shouldn't be tempted by the simple solutions that are offered by the ideologies that are represented by Reform and others.”
