New SNP MP forced to issue apology for anti-Jewish outburst
But not for his repugnant abuse of the Royal Family, female political opponents and No campaigners
A NEW Nationalist MP can today be unmasked as an internet troll who published slurs on the Royal Family, launched smear campaigns against opponents and has been accused of anti-Semitism.
Paul Monaghan, elected in May, has been forced to apologise for causing ‘upset’ to the Jewish community.
As part of a drive to clean up politics the SNP has insisted he will no longer use such ‘language and sentiments’.
But Nicola Sturgeon was last night under pressure to explain how the MP was selected for his seat as opponents suggested his comments were so offensive he should be stripped of the party whip.
Dr Monaghan, who has a PhD in social policy and lives in Contin, Ross- shire, founded the pro-independence Yes Highland group before being elected, winning the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross seat from Lib Dem John Thurso.
He used Twitter to accuse the ‘proud
‘Should not have been selected as candidate’
Jewish race’ of ‘persecuting the people of Gaza’, which the Jewish Chronicle has this week described as ‘anti-Semitic’.
He is also a republican who refers to the Queen as ‘Mrs Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’ – the House title that was replaced with Windsor by King George V during the First World War.
In one tasteless tweet in 2012, he questioned the parentage of Prince Harry, referencing rumours about f ormer cavalry officer James Hewitt, who was the Princess of Wales’s secret lover for five years.
Dr Monaghan described Prince Harry as a ‘ moron’ and referred to the Duchess of Cambridge as ‘Mrs Kate Saxe- Coburg- Gotha, unemployed of London’.
Dr Monaghan also has a furious dislike for the Union Flag, calling it the ‘butcher’s apron’. He said the ‘rag’ – suited to ‘bigots, zealots and fantasists’ – should be ripped up and is ‘unfit to wipe the floor of a pigsty’.
The Scottish Daily Mail handed a dossier of his comments to the SNP and a party spokesman said: ‘The tweets highlighted are dated and he accepts the language and sentiments used are not what he would adopt now.’
In a statement to the Jewish Chronicle, Dr Monaghan said: ‘I am sorry for my comments, they were not intended to cause offence.’
But a Labour spokesman said: ‘To hide behind how old the tweets are is pathetic from the SNP. This man shouldn’t have been selected as a candidate, the SNP should decide if he should keep the party whip in Westminster.’
Senior politicians who campaigned for Scotland to remain in the Union were attacked by Dr Monaghan on Twitter before and after t he i ndependence referendum.
He compared former Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran and former Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont to the comedy drag act Hinge and Bracket.
Former Labour MP Ian Davidson was described as a ‘ moron’, Chancellor George Osborne was ‘thick as mince’ and former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson as a ‘fat old man with objectionable views and an ego that requires he dye his hair’.
Ex-Chancellor Alistair Darling, who led the Better Together campaign, was criticised because he was born i n London, despite attending school and university in Scotland and representing Edinburgh as an MP for 28 years.