TORY MSP Murdo Fraser has faced a wave of backlash over an attack on the Scottish Greens.

Fraser was responding to comments made by MSP Ross Greer on a podcast as he spoke about pensions.

The Scottish Tory politician left many baffled when he tweeted a low-resolution image of a Confederate flag, with a caption reading: “Scottish Greens unveil their new logo.”

It came after Greer had brought up the US Civil War in a discussion of the nature of pension payments.

Fraser's jab came despite the Green MSP, appearing on the Untribal podcast, stressing that he was in “no sense” comparing Scotland’s independence debate to the war.

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Greer said: “There's a really interesting example in relation to pensions, though.

“And in no other sense, I should stress, am I comparing our independence debate with the American Civil War, but I think that this is an interesting example of how pensions can do strange things.

“The Confederacy lost and were destroyed in 1865. The last widower’s pension for a Confederate service personnel was paid out in 2012.

“So the Union government, the United States government who won the US Civil War, paid the pensions of Confederate soldiers who'd been on the losing side of the war, whose states had been destroyed.

“The winning side continued to pay those pensions, and because it was the pensions that were then passed on to those people’s successors, it was paid long after the lifetimes of anyone who'd been around during the US Civil War.

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“I think that, hopefully, that's an interesting example of how this isn't a straightforward thing. Pensions are not straightforward.”

Fraser posted his tweet in response to these remarks – but sparked fury on social media over its nature.

Zara Pennington wrote: “Shocking that an MSP tweeted this, given the use of that flag by white supremacists, and this is the rectangular version used in anti-civil rights protests and last year’s invasion of the US Capitol, rather than the historical square battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

Many others joined in with the criticism.

Fraser has not deleted his tweet.