POLICE Scotland has been asked to investigate a threat of physical violence made against the SNP s Alyn Smith. The MP for Stirling referred an email sent to him on Monday night as a row exploded over the sacking of his colleague Joanna Cherry from her role as home affairs and justice spokeswoman at Westminster. Speaking to The National this afternoon, Smith said he had decided to go public on the threat as he believed people should be aware of abuse being directed to politicians. On Monday evening, my staff received a threatening email which was concerning and to merit forwarding to the police, which we did on Monday evening, he said.
Nicola Sturgeon s promise to tackled transphobia in the SNP is too late , former party members say. (Jane Barlow-Pool/Getty Images)
Former Scottish National Party (SNP) members who quit the party over transphobia have said that promises to address the issue are too little, too late.
Teddy Hope and Emma Cuthbertson both left the SNP after leaders failed to deal with complaints about transphobic abuse and hatred, amid an exodus of younger SNP members unhappy with the party’s commitment to trans rights.
Hope, a trans officer for the official LGBT+ wing of the SNP, Out for Indy, quit in January claiming the SNP is a “hub of transphobia” and called for an independent inquiry into the extent of transphobia among its ranks.
PREMIUM
Nicola Sturgeon attends a session at the Scottish Parliament where she delivers an update on the Covid-19 pandemic at Holyrood on February 2, 2021 in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. (Photo by Andy Buchanan - WPA Pool/Getty Images). I SPOKE to a prominent elected SNP member the other day. They were distraught at the state of their party – the civil war, the threats, hate, spin and plotting. “I wonder how much of it’s orchestrated by plants throughout the branches with the sole purpose to cause disruption and division,” they said. “Speaking to friends around the country there’s too much of it happening in very similar ways for it to be purely coincidental.”
Letters
Politicians such as Angus MacNeil MP have had to deal with flack just for trying to have debates THE one thing we should all have in common is our support for independence. Unfortunately, that isn’t enough for many of our leading lights, who have no interest in taking on board views from the wider Yes movement if those views differ from their own. A number of people close to the leadership in Scotland, along with a number of SNP MPs in Westminster, spend far too much time on Twitter berating independence supporters who believe in a more direct route to independence. If their intended targets happen to oppose gender self-ID or the Hate Crime Bill, they are perceived to be fair game for the type of abuse that should never be tolerated by anyone in or around our leadership.
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