PIERS Morgan has engaged in a furious on-air row with a Scottish Green MSP after the politician branded Sir Winston Churchill a “white supremacist mass murderer”.
Ross Greer said the legendary wartime prime minister was racist and “significantly to blame” for the death of millions of people during the Bengal famine of 1943.
But Morgan insisted if it wasn't for Winston Churchill “you would be all speaking German and goose-stepping your way to Holyrood.”
He snapped: “You are saying the man who saved us from the Nazis is no better than a Nazi himself.”
He had earlier branded the 24-year-old MSP a “thick ginger turd” on Twitter.
‘Churchill was a white supremacist mass murderer’ - @Ross_Greer, Green Party MSP
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) January 29, 2019
In a fiery debate, @piersmorgan and @susannareid100 discuss Ross Greer’s controversial comments about Winston Churchill. #GMB pic.twitter.com/pwNhlmLhty
It came after Mr Greer responded to a tweet marking the death of Churchill by writing: “Once again for the people in the back: Churchill was a white supremacist mass murderer.”
The original post from the Tories had described Churchill as a man regarded by many as the "greatest Briton to have ever lived".
Mr Greer’s response sparked a furious Twitter row with Morgan, who invited him to defend his view on ITV's Good Morning Britain.
During the programme, the 53-year-old labelled the MSP, who represents West Scotland, a “nasty, smearing, derogatory young man” and accused him of trashing the reputation of a great leader.
But Mr Greer defended his position and insisted Churchill “always advocated the most violent, the most destructive option”.
He said the former prime minister used poison gas against Kurds and Afghans and was a “strong supporter of Britain’s concentration camps in the Boer war, where 28,000 people – women and children – died”.
He said: “Churchill was a man who declared, in his view, the Aryan race would triumph, he described Indians as a beastly people with a beastly religion – and when a mass famine broke out in India, for which he was significantly to blame, the Bengal famine, he said it was their own fault because they bred like rabbits."
Morgan said it was a “complete and utter lie” to say Churchill was to blame for the Bengal famine, and argued he “actually went to great lengths” to help.
He also attacked Mr Greer for “smirking and laughing” during the exchange, adding: “People who lived through the Second World War don’t laugh and sneer at Winston Churchill.”
Mr Greer, his party’s Europe spokesman, responded: “No, they voted him out. The people who lived through the war voted him out immediately after.”
The politician, who is Scotland’s youngest MSP after being elected in 2016 at the age of 21, earlier referred to the TV presenter as “honey-glazed gammon” and a “snowflake”.
Morgan accused him of having "no rounded view of history".
He later added: “You denigrate this great national icon. Well, do you know who I find revolting? You.”
His co-host Susanna Reid also attacked Mr Greer's position.
She said the MSP seemed to be "articulating a completely isolated, unique version of history" and suggested that "everybody celebrates Sir Winston Churchill".
Mr Greer responded: "No, they don't - if you go to India, Ireland, Kenya, they absolutely don't.
"If you come to communities like Clydebank, that I represent, if you go to the South Wales Valleys, these mining communities...
"The problem is these points of view, that have been long-held since Churchill did things to these communities, have not been allowed to get out there because the prevailing narrative is of a war hero who you cannot speak ill of.
"But he is a complex character and we must start being honest about our own history."
Ms Reid said: "You can be critical but the way that you're speaking about him - a white supremacist, mass murderer.... and it's the equivalence with Hitler which I think people find really offensive."
Mr Greer said that he did not draw an equivalence between Churchill and Hitler but stated that one of Churchill's cabinet ministers did.
The row comes days after the anniversary of Churchill's death on January 24, 1965, at the age of 90.
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