JEREMY Corbyn is out of touch with Scotland, it is claimed – after he had to ask who the deputy leader of the Scottish Tories is.
Visiting Glasgow yesterday as part of his trip to Scotland, Corbyn was asked about remarks made by Jackson Carlaw MSP.
READ MORE: Jeremy Corbyn leaves press waiting for more than three hours
The deputy Tory leader – who will head the party during Ruth Davidson’s maternity leave – represents the Eastwood constituency, which has one of the country’s highest Jewish populations.
Earlier this week he criticised Corbyn for an “appalling lack of leadership” on anti-Semitism in the Labour party.
When asked about the matter yesterday, Corbyn had to ask his Scottish deputy Richard Leonard who Carlaw is, before stating that he was “really puzzled why the deputy leader of the Scottish Conservative party would focus on this”.
Corbyn, whose Scotland trip has also included Lanark, Falkirk and Greenock, repeated his assertions that anti-Semitism in any form is “totally unacceptable in our society, any place, any time”.
But a spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: “This gaffe reinforces the fact that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t pay attention to anything outside his socialist north London bubble.
“That he doesn’t know who the elected representative of Scotland’s largest Jewish community is says it all about his attitude to anti-Semitism.”
Corbyn was in the city’s Possilpark to meet with asylum seekers battling for the right to stay in the UK.
They include the Umeed Bakhsh family, who fled religious persecution in Pakistan over their Christian faith and fear violence if they are returned.
They also include Vietnamese trafficking victim Duc Nguyen, whose removal was cancelled at the eleventh hour after Green councillor Kim Long garnered social media support for him, and Georgian schoolboy Giorgi Kakava, now seeking citizenship in the country where he has lived since the age of three.
Afghans Rahman Shah and Mirwais Ahmadzai, who went on hunger strike outside Home Office premises while seeking legal status, also met the Labour leader, as did Ansika Anundee, a 15-year-old Mauritian girl denied the same right to remain granted to her mother.
Most of those assembled are constituents of Labour MP Paul Sweeney, who called their cases “heartbreaking” and said their treatment by the Home Office was akin to “torture”.
The meeting between Corbyn and the families took place behind closed doors.
Afterwards, he told reporters that UK Government policy is trapping people “in limboland”, adding: “They can’t work, can’t study, can’t do anything.”
Corbyn said: “I urge the Home Secretary to stop the hostile environment and recognise the human value of those who have decided to make their homes in this country because of the oppression they face back home.”
Opinion polls have shown public support for immigration powers to be devolved to Holyrood.
When asked if he would take this measure if he won the keys to No 10, Corbyn said he was “open to having that discussion both with Scottish Labour and Welsh Labour on this issue”, concluding: “I want us to have a policy that works in a human, decent and effective way.”
Setting out his position, Leonard said: “I don’t think we have said our last word on it. It’s something we would keep under consideration, not least in the light of Brexit.”
He added: “As things stand, we are not, as a Labour Party or as a Scottish Labour Party, in favour.”
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