Nigel Farage subject to attack at donside by-election, a protestor tries to spray UKIP leader with coke and is arrested by Police Scotland, are political crimes to be on the rise as anyone stands against the Scottish National Party gets targeted?

Dear All

One of the things which make politics unappealing to ordinary folk is the use of smearing and political violence.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has had a taste of the particular ‘scottish disease’ associated with nationalist politics as people around Nicola Sturgeon took to twitter recently to direct protestors towards his recent Edinburgh press conference.

It was the ugly face of nationalism played out in front of the cameras by people who were themselves ‘racists’.

‘Go back to your own country’ was their cry, and ‘you know nothing about Scotland’.

Far from condemning the racists, Alex Salmond was very quiet on the criminality of it all.

UKIP wants to establish their footing in Scotland; this poses a threat to the Scottish National Party. Nigel Farage’s party has the potential to pick up Conservative votes as well as to tap into the working class vote. 

Every vote they pick up is one less available to the nationalist camp.

Nigel Farage came back to Scotland to campaign in the donside by-election, so it appears that he has walked back into round two of the racism storm. Neither he nor indeed UKIP are racists; but the tactics of the “left” is to use a label and hope the media picks up on it.  

The latest escalation is a man has been detained by police after an incident involving the UKIP leader.

It seems that some people don’t respect his democratic right to campaign in a fair and free manner.

Mr Farage had to scrap plans to meet council officials for high tea in Aberdeen.

Trouble turned up to meet him; he planned to finish his whistlestop tour with a pint, his signature campaigning meet the people moment.

One of the protesters quizzed Mr Farage on his controversial immigration policies and accused him of being a racist.

This lead to an assault as a protestor attempted to spray Nigel Farage with a bottle of coke.

Police officers have detained the protester into the back of a police van.

Protester Sean McVeigh, 34, of Aberdeen, said:

"We just wanted to question him about his policies. We believe that he is a racist. He's not a nice person as far as I'm concerned. I don't think he's going to make much progress here, I don't think Scottish people are really interested in his agenda."

Does that mean violence, breach of the peace and public disorder is acceptable?

Some people it seems in politics need to know what they are supposed to be protesting against.

A Police Scotland spokesman confirmed a man had been detained.

And he should be charged and appear before a Court of Law to answer for his assault on the UKIP leader. This type of violent protest should be stamped out and a prison sentence of three months should serve as a warning to other wannabe political thugs.

In politics regardless of what a person stands for or who they stand for, the proper place to defeat them always remains at the ballot box.

Are we entering a phase where "political" crimes will rise against anyone who stands in the way of the Scottish National Party agenda?

This period is increasingly looking like Nazi Germany in the 1930's.

And less we forget, the "allies" won that war. 

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University