HATE STORM ROW
Sturgeon under fire as Labour ditch contender
PRESSURE is mounting on Nicola Sturgeon to sack a disgraced SNP candidate who compared Scots who support the Union to Nazi collaborators.
The First Minister f aced demands for Neil Hay’s dismissal as Labour suspended a candidate after he was charged with drink driving.
Sumon Hoque, 32 – who was set to challenge in Banff and Buchan – appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court yesterday charged with a string of driving offences.
Mr Hay, who is favourite to win the Edinburgh South constituency, tweeted vile messages under the name Paco McSheepie comparing No voters to ‘Quislings’ and saying OAPs were too senile to vote.
Last night, Mr Hay made a grovelling apology in front of his potential constituents – but appears, so far, to have hung on to the support of his party. Last night, Scottish Labour deputy leader Kezia Dugdale said Mr Hay – who a recent poll placed three points ahead of Labour’s Ian Murray who is defendi ng the seat – should now be sacked
She said: ‘Neil Hay isn’t fit to represent the people of Edinburgh South.
‘Instead of just criticising her candidate, it’s time for Nicola Sturgeon to show some leadership and sack Neil Hay.’
Last night, an apparently contrite Mr Hay faced his political rivals and the constituents he is courting at a hustings in Edinburgh.
He said: ‘The last couple of days has seen focus on me for the wrong reasons. I understand that and have apologised for the crass nature of some of those tweets. I’m not caveating that apology, not spinning. I’m just sorry for the insensitive comments in those posts.
‘No one who knows me would say I’m discriminatory in any form, but I appreciate those tweets gave a different impression.’
But one member of the audience expressed concerns that Mr Hay would not represent No voters fairly – and Labour candidate Mr Murray said: ‘ I’ve some close friends and colleagues who leave Westminster i n tears at night because of the way they’ve been treated on social media.
‘I accept the apology but it’s quite clearly unacceptable, you can’t represent everyone with those extreme views.’
Earlier yesterday, a video emerged of Mr Hay addressing supporters in February at the Yes Café in Edinburgh, shortly after being named as the SNP’s candidate.
Incredibly, it shows him attacking his rivals and talking up his own character.
He said: ‘I don’t have a radical, revolutionary, frontline edge to me that people can dredge up and I don’t think there is anything risky, in any of it.’
Mr Hay even batted away questi ons about whether he had tweeted anything inappropriate about football, joking that it was hard to avoid as an Aberdeen fan – but chose not to mention any of his anonymous political tweets.
He said: ‘ To become the candidate, there is vetting done on you to reach the stage of approved candidate, so you know if there is anything glaring or untoward that you were doing, ongoing, it would be raised. So if you don’t have anything raised then you’re more or less OK.’
But after tweets emerged earlier t his week i n which Mr Hay compared No voters to Nazi sympathisers and suggested older voters ‘ barely know their own name’, Mr Hay was forced to issue a grovelling apology.
Asked i f the SNP needed to improve its vetting processes, a spokesman said: ‘These tweets were inappropriate, and Mr Hay has rightly apologised and deleted the Twitter account in question.’
Former Labour candidate Mr Hoque, a development manager for an independent television production company, is accused of driving while over the limit.
Mr Hoque allegedly drove on Bridge Street in Aberdeen on May 1 last year.
He was further charged with having no MOT certificate or licence and causing an obstruction. It is also alleged that he failed to tell police who had been driving the car.
Mr Hoque denied the charges yesterday and will go on trial next month.
‘Not fit to represent voters’