Claims made by a Reform UK councillor that Sharia regulation is being dropped at Glasgow have been branded “ludicrous, absurd and divisive” by Scotland’s first minister.
Talking at a gathering of the get together’s native department, Ms Dempsey mentioned: “When they arrived in this country and they were fitting in with our culture, our values and learning our way of life, that would be more than welcome.”
Questioned about what she meant by “our way of life,” she replied: “Instead of coming and trying to inflict their culture on other people here, like Sharia law, for instance, they’re trying to bring that here, that’s just not something we celebrate.”
Pressed on who she believes is bringing Sharia regulation to Scotland, Ms Dempsey said: “The asylum seekers, some of the asylum seekers, the legal migrants.”
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Requested the place it was taking place, she responded: “Do you not have conversations in the street?”
When pushed to make clear her place, Ms Dempsey mentioned: “You just have to take a walk through the streets of Glasgow city centre, any given day.”
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Ms Dempsey talking to Sky Information Scotland correspondent Connor Gillies
Ms Dempsey claimed there was “stacks of evidence online,” including: “These migrants are posting themselves, videos of them saying they’re coming to the land of milk and honey, they’re coming to take over.”
Requested to make clear if she believed migrants had been coming to “take over,” Ms Dempsey added: “I don’t quite know what I believe at the moment.”
At Bute Home in Edinburgh afterward Thursday, First Minister John Swinney mentioned he did not “believe for a moment” migrants had been bringing Sharia regulation to Scotland’s greatest metropolis.
He said: “That’s what I think is the danger of where we are just now, that absolutely ludicrous, absurd and divisive comments have been made by the far right that have the risk of undermining community cohesion in Scotland.
“Scotland has been a welcoming nation, is a welcoming nation, the place we connect the best significance to cohesion inside our communities.
“That’s what my leadership in Scotland is all about, and I want to give that principled, values-based leadership that will resist those messages from the far right.”
