Russell Findlay hammered over immigration debate as Holyrood poised for grubby election campaign
Next May’s Scottish Parliament election is poised to be hostile and grubby.
Russell Findlay has faced accusations of being “racist” and bringing "bigotry" to the Scottish Parliament. The allegations came after his debate on Wednesday afternoon claiming, without evidence, asylum seekers were having a “damaging impact” on communities was met with an angry backlash.
For the Scottish Conservative leader, who continues to feel the need to chase Nigel Farage’s Reform party down an immigration rabbit hole, his repeated assertion that his argument was “not racist” gave the game away.
Mr Findlay used his seven-minute speech in Holyrood to claim he wasn’t being racist ten times. But his opponents were not convinced.
READ MORE: Russell Findlay short on time to rethink Tories' Reform conspiracy-wielding imitation strategy
Lib Dems MSP Willie Rennie pointed out the body language of some Tory MSPs, who were visibly “very uncomfortable” with the nature of Mr Findlay’s debate.
Mr Findlay went on the attack from the get-go, hitting out at the SNP for having “falsely accused our party of xenophobia”. He argued that “ordinary, mainstream Scotland” agrees with him instead of an “out-of-touch, left-wing political class”.
Then came Mr Findlay’s most eyebrow-raising point, as he highlighted “foreign killers, paedophiles and rapists” with opponents accusing him of trying to “brand all immigrants as being criminals”.
“This is not racist, it is not far right - it is simply right”, Mr Findlay claimed.
Housing Secretary Mairi McAllan, regarded as a potential future SNP leader, was fizzing in response.
Her irritation was clear as she attacked Mr Findlay’s claims, and called out what she branded “prejudice, intolerance, racism”. She warned “bigotry” was being “defended as free speech”.
When Mr Findlay tried to intervene, Ms McAllan was having none of it, bluntly telling the Tory leader she was “not giving you one more second of a platform”.
Ms McAllan called on Mr Findlay to “stop spreading the mistruths” as she accused the Tories of “normalising unfounded suspicion, fear and hatred”.
The visibly angry Cabinet secretary warned that “conflating crime with migration” is “simply not factual”. She said “holding whole populations to account for the criminal actions of one individual is patently absurd”.
The Scottish Tories view becoming a Reform-lite party as in their interests, despite the glaringly obvious problem that agreeing with Mr Farage’s stance on issues such as immigration will only empower those voters flirting with Reform to vote for them in May.
Labour’s Mark Griffin accused Mr Findlay of “political hypocrisy of the worst kind”. He said the Conservatives were simply “terrified of political extinction at the hand of Reform next May”.
The Holyrood election campaign is poised to be hostile and grubby. There has never been a more important time to make sure misinformation does not sway voters and MSPs of all parties have a responsibility to ensure May’s election does not descend into mayhem.
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