A GLASGOW tour bus company has said it has “no plans” to replace GB News presenter Neil Oliver as the voice of their guided tours after he interviewed an alleged former Holocaust denier on his show.
Oliver is advertised on the side of buses as providing the “exclusive historical tour commentary” for City Sightseeing in Glasgow.
A spokesperson for the tour company told The National: “Neil Oliver provides the commentary for our open top bus tour and we have no plans to replace him”.
The GB News interview
It comes after Oliver interviewed Swedish journalist Peter Imanuelsen on his GB News programme.
In a clip shared by GB News the two suggested that Covid-19 vaccination may be the reason behind declining birth rates in developing countries.
However, after attention was drawn to Imaneulsen’s past comments, GB News deleted the clip from their social media.
Imanuelsen has been criticised in the past for denying the Holocaust and was the subject of a report by anti-racism group Hope not Hate.
The report claimed that the journalist – who previously tweeted under the name Peter Sweden – made a series of anti-Semitic statements including casting doubt on the number of Jewish people killed during the Holocaust.
It highlighted an alleged tweet which read: “The claim that six million jews were gassed seem highly unprobable.
“The concentration camps didn’t have the facilities for that.”
The journalist has denied that he had ever held these views and told The Jewish Chronicle that the screenshots of the tweets are fake.
City representatives react
Bill Kidd, MSP for Glasgow Anniesland, said Oliver wouldn’t be his choice of tour guide.
“Following on from Neil Oliver’s outrageous opposition to tackling the Covid pandemic by means of vaccine and social isolation, which saved thousands of Glaswegian lives, we now find him giving airtime to a Holocaust denier on his GB News programme.
“Neil Oliver isn’t someone who I want to be the voice of my city on the Glasgow City Sightseeing open top bus tours.”
Otto English, author of Fake History, said that Oliver’s programme should make people question whether they want the city to be associated with the historian.
He said: “As Neil Oliver espouses ever more wayward views and rubs shoulders with ever more unsavoury company on his TV show, you have to ask why the great city of Glasgow would want to be associated with his name.”
A spokesperson for the SNP group in Glasgow City Council said: "Neil Oliver’s decision just this week to invite a speaker who has faced serious allegations of Holocaust denial on to his show is just the latest in a long line of questionable takes and decisions. Not least describing measures to prevent the spread of Covid as akin to Nazi-era propaganda.
“It begs the question of whether Oliver is the person Glasgow wants as the voice of our city’s history."
Neil Oliver's history
The broadcaster and former president of the National Trust for Scotland has become known for his Fox News-style monologues on GB News, where he has called on his viewers to ignore Covid-19 restrictions.
He has also been called an "apologist for Russian fascism" after appearing to accuse the West of lying about the war in Ukraine.
An avowed unionist, last year Oliver left the advisory board of pro-union campaign group These Islands.
Fellow board member Tom Holland said that it was mutually agreed that that “his current focus was not compatible with our own” after Oliver’s departure was announced.
