A SCOTTISH councillor has been slammed after denying race privilege in an interview with GB News.
Councillor Alastair Redman, a former Tory who represents Kintyre and the Islands as an independent, criticised plans by Argyll and Bute Council to introduce unconscious bias training for staff, telling viewers “the general public in Argyll do not want this".
He went on to question: "In what way is masculinity toxic? In what way are white people privileged?"
Redman is a former Conservative representative who was previously suspended for Islamophobia allegations in 2019. He was eventually kicked out of the party in 2021 amid claims he used different aliases to respond to a public consultation. He denied the allegations.
In the recent GB News interview, Redman said: "The racial demographics of Scotland are 94.5% Caucasian. The notion that somehow some of the poorest in society are privileged because they happen to be a certain skin colour is insanity.
"The fact that a council would push this and very much force this training upon their employees, I wonder how the civil service can claim to be objective. It is complete madness."
Redman later accused the council and others who implement the training of "ironically" imposing their own bias on to employees through the training.
He added: "It's not just an SNP council, it's an SNP-LibDem-Labour-Green party coalition. I wouldn't want to let those other parties off the hook."
He also said it would be likely for council tax to rise despite it not being confirmed.
An SNP source told The National that Redman's "opinions are well known" in the area, and said he "has been chastised on many occasions for his use of language".
They added: "Perhaps councillor Redman would be interested in attending this course as it may well open his mind to the opinions of others”.
The SNP source questioned "how many of the near 90,000 residents in Argyll and Bute councillor Redman spoke with to form this opinion", adding: "I’d wager almost none, if any.
"It must be noted that these types of training and awareness courses are commonplace in the United Kingdom, and beyond. They are a method of increasing people’s awareness of language which may cause offence to others, knowingly or not."
Argyll and Bute Council responded, stating: "We are exploring options for training in a number of areas and no decision has been taken yet."
