Leader of Scottish Labour Anas Sarwar has said he will challenge Nigel Farage ‘anytime, any place’ after the Reform UK leader defended a ‘racist’ advert released by his party
The leader of Scottish Labour has said he will challenge Nigel Farage “anytime, any place” after the Reform UK leader tried to justify a “racist” advert released by his party.
Mr Farage yesterday defended his party’s attack ad which claimed Anas Sarwar, who was born in Glasgow to Pakistani Muslim parents, will “prioritise” Pakistani people. That attack prompted Mr Sarwar to brand the MP a “poisonous man who doesn’t understand Scotland”.
At a press conference that was televised to the nation on Tuesday, Mr Farage played a clip of the Labour politician which he said supposedly justified Reform UK’s advert. But the video did not show Mr Sarwar saying what the ad had claimed, with it instead showing him saying the Pakistani community should be represented in politics.
“Pakistanis need (to be) represented in every mainstream political party in Scotland and across the UK,” the Scottish MP said in the video.
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Mr Farage accused the leader of Scottish Labour of introducing “sectarianism into Scottish politics”. Defending the ad, he said: “All we’ve done is to put out the exact words spoken by him without any comment, we’ve said nothing, just that we will represent the people of that constituency.
“The fact that they, having chosen to go down the sectarian route, choose to throw accusations back at us says to me that we are winning.”
Mr Sarwar branded Reform UK’s attack “a blatant attempt from Nigel Farage to try and poison our politics here in Scotland”. Labour and the SNP condemned the ad, which the party spent thousands of pounds on, as “racist” and have called for Meta to remove it from Facebook.
The row comes amid speculation Mr Farage could visit Scotland in the run-up to next Thursday’s Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Holyrood by-election. While Reform has not yet won an election in Scotland, the June 5 by-election is taking place as opinion polls show a surge in support for the party north of the border.
On Wednesday, Mr Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “This man has no idea where Hamilton is. I’ve been in Hamilton most days, I know other political parties have been in Hamilton a lot.
“What I suggest to Nigel Farage is he should ask his chauffeur to put Hamilton into Google Maps.
“Come up here. I’ll challenge him anytime, any place, in Hamilton, any town hall, and he can challenge me on my views. I’ll challenge him on his views, and you can see that the people of Scotland will utterly reject him, because he can’t win there and he can’t win in Scotland.
“This man wants to pretend he’s a great champion of working people across our country.”
Scottish First Minister John Swinney condemned Mr Farage’s remarks, with the SNP leader writing on social media: “There must be absolutely no place for racism in Scotland. Anas Sarwar is a political rival of mine but he shouldn’t be subjected to race-baiting attacks.
“Farage has done more than anyone else to demonise minorities and inflame tensions. It must stop.”
Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens co-leader, described the ad as “despicable”, warning: “This hateful kind of politics can’t be welcomed into Scotland.”
He added: “Broadcasting this extremist material to tens of thousands of people across the UK on TV news channels is shameful, and only serves to hurt minority communities across the country. The broadcasters which have carried this unchallenged propaganda have some hard questions to answer.”
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