HUMZA Yousaf has been confronted by an anti-vaccination candidate at the election count in Glasgow.
Police intervened outside Glasgow's Emirates Arena as the Liberal Party group approached the count hall with followers doing what looked like Nazi salutes.
Derek Jackson, standing as the party's candidate, turned up outside the count with two followers wearing black suits, white shirts and black ties. They each had a yellow star pinned to their jacket fronts with “UNVAX” written on it.
While inside the Arena, the Liberal Party group confronted the SNP's Humza Yousaf.
Speaking to reporters after the incident, Mr Yousaf said: “What I’m always struck by is voices of good always outweigh the voices of hatred.
“If anyone witnessed that exchange there – when they were directing questions at me about Pakistan, obviously because of my colour of skin, I’m not from Pakistan, my home is in Scotland.
“I was delighted to be joined my colleagues right across the political parties, from Labour and other parties, standing in unity with me.
“So I’m pleased their voices were drowned out.
“You had six muppets here and then you very quickly had 25 people on the other side telling them where to go. That to me is the best of Scotland really.”
Mr Yousaf said the Liberal Party made a “beeline” for him and asked him about “child rape victims in Pakistan” as well as the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime Bill.
He later tweeted: “Twice these cretins have approached me, targeting ethnic minority candidates demanding we apologise for things going on in Pakistan.
“Always said voices of good outweigh the bad.
“When these numbskulls started, people of all political parties joined with me to tell them to jog on.”
Mr Jackson was later escorted from the hall at the Emirates Arena by police officers.
Annemarie O’Donnell, who is in charge of the election and count in Glasgow, had told Jackson and his supporters to leave after complaints had been made about their behaviour.
She said Jackson and a few followers were causing alarm.
Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister is expected at the count this afternoon.
Earlier, before entering the Arena, Jackson denied the star on his jacket was related to the yellow star Jewish people were forced to wear by Nazis during the second world war.
He denied the gesture they made was a Nazi salute.
Instead, he claimed it was a “love salute”.
Officers approached the trio as they walked towards the entrance of the Emirates where the votes are being counted.
Jackson said they were protesting against covid vaccinations.
He said: “We don’t want people encountering unvaccinated people and being worried. We are unvaccinated.”
When our sister title, the Glasgow Times, challenged him on what looked like a Nazi salute. He replied: “It’s a love salute. We love everybody. Do you love everybody?”
He said he was standing against the hate crime legislation.
Jackson added: “I think people should be allowed to hate.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article