FM defends excluding Reform UK from anti-far right summit

Prime Minister John Swinney has defended his decision not to invite reform UK to a political summit to discuss the threat of the extreme right.

The reform, which denies having been on the right, affirms that the meeting is really an “antidemocratic” attempt to stop its growing electoral support.

Swinney said the summit, held on Wednesday, would focus on shared values ​​and the reform approach to immigration caused “large group.”

He told The Sunday Show of BBC Scotland that the parties represented in Holyrood had invited Ween. Scottish conservatives have said they will not attend, describing the meeting as an unnecessary “conversation store.”

Swinney announced plans to celebrate the forum in February, saying that the holidays had to join to “block” the extreme right of Scottish politics.

Reform UK, directed by Nigel Farage, has not been invited despite his insistence that he opposes the extrem of the extreme right.

The party won 7% of the votes in Scotland in the general elections of 2024 and recent surveys suggest that this could have increased as a high axis of 17%, which would see it with a significant presence in Holyrood after next year’s elections.

Thomas Kerr, a councilor for the United Kingdom and a main voice for the party in Scotland, described the “antidemocratic” summit.

He told The Sunday Show of BBC Radio Scotland: “We are a right -wing political party, John Swinney is a leftist politician who is absolutely well, we are on two different sides of the political spectrum, so he discusses each other.

“But to say that, because you do not agree with illegal immigration, you want to tighten and make sure that ensuring that our borders are racist, I think it is an incorrect wrong mistake

“It is an argument to have in a political debate, on a policy platform absolutely, but the key point of this summit is that this is the cash of the taxpayers and a prime minister that has a brand on an antidemocratic summit.”

Swinney said that discussions on how to protect “democratic systems” in Scotland would be in “the heart of the meeting”, which politicians, unions and civic leaders will attend.

He told The Sunday Show of BBC Radio Scotland: “If we are liabilities, we run the risk of these democratic systems being eroded by the challenges we face.”

“The threat that comes to our democratic system comes from a variety of pressure that they see to undermine some of the central values ​​of our society.

“There are parts of the argument and rhetoric or reform that contribute to that.”

Swinney added that Scotland had always brought an “inclusive” and “cozy” country.

The prime minister said that all parliamentary parties had been invited to the meeting, which said “is the right thing.”

He added: “I am reaching people in Scotland to say that they should not be tempted by the simple solutions that are sacrificed by the ideologies represented by the reform and others.”

With reform UK currently on the way to return his first MSP in the Holyrood elections next year, Kerr said that his party can refrain from any vote to select the next prime minister.

The councilor told BBC Scotland News that both John Swinney and Anas Sarwar were “totally unable to take this country forward.”

It occurs after the reform leader UK Nigel Farage told The Times last week that there would be no agreement with Holyrood work.

But in November, the Vice President of the Party, Richard Tice, said that “anything is preferable to the SNP” when asked about putting power in power in Holyrood.

Kerr refused to say if the party would support the SNP or work, would have BBC Scotland News is like “Bee asked to be beaten in the face or beaten in the intestine.”

He clarified that this could mean that the party refrains from any vote for the next prime minister after the Holyrood elections of 2026.

The conservative leader Russell Findlay last week confirmed that he would not attend John Swinney’s summit.

He described it as unnecessary and as a “speaker store” because there was already a conventional agreement that “racist hatred should not any place in Scotland”

Since then, Findlay has suggested that addressing organized crime would be a more appropriate issue for a summit after a series of gang incidents in recent weeks.