THE general secretary of the Alba Party has defended the Scottish Tories questioning the Scottish Government’s plans to spend money on providing free bus travel for asylum seekers.
Holyrood voted down plans lodged by Russell Findlay’s party this week calling for the plans to be scrapped.
It came in for cross-party attack with the Tories claiming the cash could have been used to provide 6600 pensioners with a full winter heating payment.
John Swinney blasted the motion as “populist rubbish,” while Finance Secretary Shona Robison said it was a “Farage-esque dog whistle attack on asylum seekers”.
Labour's Michael Marra described asylum seekers as being amongst the “most vulnerable people in our society” who had “fled unimaginable situations of war, famine and persecution,” with Green MSP Ross Greer calling the Tory motion “nasty and desperate”, and Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton describing it as “depressing”.
However Alba's general secretary Chris McEleny (above), who stood as an Alba candidate in this summer’s General Election, told the PA news agency: “There is nothing racist about people questioning at the same time why millions should be spent on free bus travel for asylum seekers.
“Nearly half the country disagree with the policy and those people aren’t going to come on board if politicians sneer at the public as they lecture them.”
McEleny said asylum seekers “receive limited support for living costs from the UK Government” and also tend to be “housed centrally within communities and close to any essential services they need to access”.
As a result, he said it is therefore “completely legitimate to ask what benefit this policy would have and if there is not a better way you could spend money in communities”.
