A LABOUR councillor who launched a “cynical” attack on Humza Yousaf a few years ago has been selected to stand in Edinburgh South West for the next General Election.

Scott Arthur will contest the seat for party as it looks to take back power in Scotland. The seat has been held by the SNP’s Joanna Cherry since 2015 and she will be standing again. 

Back in 2018, Arthur posted a poll on Twitter asking his followers if they thought Yousaf came in to politics because of the “9/11 attacks”, “the Iraq War”, or the “photo calls”.

The move led to him defending himself against accusations of Islamophobia. The party promised at the time to launch an inquiry.

Arthur apologised and deleted the tweet, saying that he was merely trying to highlight inconsistencies in interviews given by Yousaf on why he had entered politics.

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In a blog post the councillor said: “I got around to tracking down reports I had seen earlier in the day that Humza Yousaf had (apparently) been inconsistent in explaining why he became politically active. In one interview he had cited the 9/11 attacks and in an earlier one he gave the Iraq War as a reason (2 not unconnected things IMHO).

“In a move which I accept was cynical, I created a Twitter poll to highlight this. My decision to do this was not based on his or my race.”

Arthur was also panned last year for an “inexcusable” attempt to “shut the door to public scrutiny” amid a row over the handling of a council meeting.

The meeting should have been broadcast online, but Arthur switched off the live stream of the meeting after he was challenged by a Green councillor on why two emergency motions were to be excluded from the agenda.

Analysts at Stonehaven predicted in a poll last month that the SNP would win the seat.