A RAFT of Tory politicians, including MP Andrew Bowie and MSP Dean Lockhart, are following a “dangerous fringe group” founded by a person who has denied that the Nazis murdered Jewish people in gas chambers.
Bowie and Lockhart are two of the Scottish Tories who follow “A Force For Good” on Twitter, the group founded and run by Alistair McConnachie, who has been labelled a Holocaust denier.
McConnachie, who was Ukip's Scottish organiser from 1999 to 2001 and ran for election on the party’s ticket five times, was ejected from Ukip after he sent an email to party members calling events in the Holocaust into question.
He said: “I don't accept that gas chambers were used to execute Jews for the simple fact there is no direct physical evidence to show that such gas chambers ever existed ... There are no photographs or films of execution gas chambers ... Alleged eyewitness accounts are revealed as false or highly exaggerated.”
Speaking to the Sunday Herald in 2018, McConnachie said: “I stand by that comment.”
However, in 2007, McConnachie had rejected the “Holocaust denier” label, saying he believed millions of Jewish people had been killed but that he had “questioned and doubt, from a historically-interested point of view, some aspects”.
According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), Holocaust denial includes "publicly denying or calling into doubt the use of principal mechanisms of destruction (such as gas chambers)".
McConnachie's A Force For Good campaign recently made headlines after protesting outside an event at the Edinburgh festivals featuring First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
In a short clip shared across the group’s social media platforms, McConnachie can be heard shouting at Sturgeon asking when she will resign, and if she will apologise for “damaging Scotland”.
Now, it has come to light that a raft of Unionist politicians follow McConnachie’s group on Twitter.
At Westminster, as well as Scottish Conservative Bowie (above), there are the Tory MPs Simon Baynes, Rebecca Harris, and Andrew Rosindell.
Rosindell made his own headlines earlier this year after demanding that the BBC plays God Save the Queen every single day.
In the Lords, Labour peer George Foulkes – who has lobbied to have the UK Government make it illegal for the Scottish Government to spend money in reserved areas – follows the group.
At Holyrood, Tory MSP Lockhart follows the Unionist group.
In local government, Conservative Argyll and Bute councillor Daniel Hampsey follows the group on Twitter, while North Ayrshire's Councillor Todd Ferguson has recently engaged with them on Facebook.
The SNP’s longest-serving MP, Pete Wishart, said it was “appalling that so many Conservative politicians follow [McConnachie’s group]”.
He said Unionists should call out the Force for Good campaign, adding: “The periphery of the independence debate is a mess just now, inhabited by some of the most objectionable individuals. We must all do more to improve the quality of our debate.”
An SNP spokesperson said there should be “no place in our political discourse” for McConnachie or his campaign.
They went on: “Tory politicians' support for this dangerous fringe group is a reminder that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
“Instead of trying to score points in an endless game of petty whataboutery, the Tories should redouble their efforts to rid our political debate of this bile.”
The Scottish Conservatives, George Foulkes, and A Force For Good were contacted for comment.
