THE SNP’s Stewart McDonald was forced to call in Police Scotland yesterday after far-right thug Tommy Robinson tried to disrupt a constituency surgery in a Glasgow library.
Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who founded the racist English Defence League, said he simply wanted to know why the MP thought he was a racist.
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But police were so worried about the confrontation that the library was put on lockdown with nobody able to leave for an hour. There were fears the high profile stunt could lead to some of Yaxley-Lennon’s more deranged supporters taking matters into their own hands.
In June 2016, the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered by a pro-Brexit far-right sympathiser as she left her surgery in a Yorkshire library.
Last October, McDonald criticised Ukip for taking Yaxley-Lennon for a slap up lunch in the Barry Room restaurant in the House of Lords
In a point of order after Prime Minister’s Questions, McDonald accused Yaxley-Lennon of “stirring up racial hatred,” and “organising violent thuggish crimes around the country”.
“Such a person shouldn’t be invited to walk amongst us on the parliamentary estate,” he said.
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Speaker John Bercow replied to say that while he shared McDonald’s assessment of the man, describing him as “a loathsome, obnoxious, repellent individual,” there was very little he could do.
The criticism has clearly rankled the thin-skinned right-winger, who was jailed last year for contempt of court. In a video on Youtube, he said he wanted to question McDonald over “lies” he had told about him in the House of Commons.
In the video, Yaxley-Lennon repeatedly accused McDonald of hiding, and was heard saying “he’ll probably come out in a burka”.
He said: “There’s multiple police officers here – too many. There’s no danger to him, he knows that. But still he hides.”
He added: “I can’t believe he’s hiding in there for hours, I can’t believe it. He’s got a police guard.”
Afterward, on Facebook, Yaxley-Lennon said McDonald had “abused his parliamentary privilege”.
“I’m fed up of these lies being spread about me so I decided to speak to him in an open meeting that he invites members of the public to ask him questions. Mr McDonald called the police and hid from me rather than asking questions.”
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A spokesman for Hope Not Hate said it was good to see Yaxley-Lennon “finally near some books” but added that this stunt was “all about the hits and clicks”.
He added: “It’s also a way for ‘Brand Tommy’ to keep the cash rolling in. Without the attention he’s nothing.
“Two years after Jo Cox was murdered on the steps of a library, Stewart McDonald was spot on in calling out Lennon as a violent, racist thug and fraudster. Lennon lives in a world of manufactured angst where he remains judge and jury, and that’s dangerous.”
In a tweet yesterday afternoon, McDonald thanked the police officers and the staff at Pollokshaws Library. “I’ll keep doing my job on behalf of Southsiders,” he added.
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