Nicola Sturgeon calls ex-deputy leader of Britain First 'racist' in tense confrontation

[Emrys]

Nicola Sturgeon shot back at former Britain First Deputy Leader Jayda Fransen when she confronted Scotland's First Minister as she was meeting voters in Glasgow, Scotland
...
Ms Fransen, who has convictions for religiously aggravated harassment, tells Ms Sturgeon: “What are you sorry for? Mass immigration, Marxism?

“I’m not a fascist. I’ve been on the ground speaking to locals who say you are an absolute disgrace …”

Ms Sturgeon said: “We’ll see what the locals’ view is later on.”

Ms Fransen said: “The locals, what the ones you have flooded from other countries?

“The decent people of Scotland don’t want it flooded with immigrants.”

Ms Sturgeon tells her: “You are a fascist, you are a racist and the southside of Glasgow will reject you.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon-calls-ex-deputy-24056197

Fransen, who is running as an "Independent" (though she's a member of the British Freedom Party) in Sturgeon's constituency, is a previous member of the English Defence League and was deputy leader of Britain First from 2014 to 2019. She has multiple convictions for offences committed during 2015-2019, including religiously aggravated harassment, breach of the UK Public Order Act, religious harassment, and breach of the Northern Irish Public Order Act, ending up with a 36-week jail sentence in 2018 for another instance of religiously aggravated harassment committed in Ramsgate.

This was just about the liveliest event of today's election and was widely celebrated on Twitter:

Link to tweet

Owen Jones 🌹
@OwenJones84

"You're a fascist and a racist." 👏 👏 👏

Massive kudos to @NicolaSturgeon for facing down these far right thugs.

[Twitter video]

[LeftishBrit]

1. Well, Fransen IS a racist and fascist

and I'm sure that those who are loony enough to vote for her regard that as a feature, not a bug!

[Celerity]

2. EDL scum, good on Sturgeon for standing up to these berks

[abqtommy]

3. I admire Nicola Sturgeon. As days go by my feeling that in my lifetime we'll see Scotland

and Wales declare independence and the U.K. will be only a memory. And all the Tories
will moan and cry and wonder why.

[Borderer]

4. Inevitably, as a white supremacist Fransen also loves orange...

From her Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayda_Fransen):

"On 29 November 2017, President of the United States Donald Trump caused controversy when he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos shared by Fransen on her Twitter account. She responded on Twitter in capital letters, "The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has retweeted three of Deputy Leader Jayda Fransen’s Twitter videos! Donald Trump himself has retweeted these videos and has around 44?million followers! God bless you Trump! God bless America!" Fransen later posted a video of herself requesting Trump to assist her in a forthcoming court case in Belfast....

On 18 December 2017, Twitter permanently suspended the accounts of Fransen and Golding, together with the official account of Britain First, as part of its general policy towards any groups which glorify violence or use hate-inciting imagery to fulfil their goals.... The three retweets by Trump have been removed as a consequence of Fransen's ban. As a result of the ban, Fransen and Golding joined the Gab social networking service, and urged their followers to do likewise."

Its a pity she didn't try going door to door around Glasgow as an English Defence League candidate for the Scottish Parliament, instead of hiding behind "independent". She might usefully have learned what it feels like to be on the other end of racist abuse.

[Emrys]

5. As Sturgeon predicted, Fransen didn't win Glasgow Southside ...

Link to tweet

A Big Ham
@Ham_Hardie

Laughing at Facists. I fucking love Scotland. #SPE21 #sp21 #ElectionResults2021

[Twitter video]

Link to tweet

Olaf Stando
@olafdoesstuff 👏

@NicolaSturgeon: "The far-right thug who lead the confrontation got 46 votes - and I'm proud that once again, Glasgow Southside has shown the racists and fascists that they're not welcome in Glasgow, or anywhere in Scotland.

Let that be the note of unity." #FascistsOut

[Twitter video]