A SCOTTISH Tory councillor has described the protests against Keir Starmer during his visit to Glasgow as a “disgrace”.
Thomas Kerr, one of only two Conservatives on Glasgow City Council, described the demonstrators who met the UK Labour leader as a “mob”.
It comes after activists with the Stop the War Coalition called for people to protest against Starmer over his failure to call for a ceasefire in the assault on Gaza.
The Labour leader was due to speak at a Scottish Labour winter gala fundraising event.
Starmer was confronted by an activist on the train to Glasgow, again by protesters in Central Station, and again outside the Crowne Plaza hotel where he was to speak.
NEW: Pro-ceasefire protesters in Glasgow have gathered outside a fundraising event that Labour leader Keir Starmer is speaking at. Police pinned down two protesters outside the Crowne Plaza, as others chanted "let them go". pic.twitter.com/QEHpqi9xgf
— The National (@ScotNational) December 7, 2023
Two arrests were made during the protests outside the hotel “in connection with assaulting police officers”.
On Friday morning, Kerr issued a statement condemning the protesters.
The Scots Tory wrote: “What we witnessed towards Keir Starmer last night was a disgrace. This mob doesn't represent the majority of Glaswegians.
“The chasing down, harassment and abuse of politicians is becoming too normal in our society. It's dangerous, worrying, and should be roundly condemned.”
Jack Deakin, a Labour councillor in Birmingham, wrote on social media that the protests against Starmer had been enabled by the “far-right”.
Sharing a video of protesters targeting Starmer in Glasgow’s Central Station, he said: “This is what the far-right enable across society. Shameful trolls.”
The organisers of the protest, the Stop the War Coalition Scotland, said ahead of the protest that they would be demanding Starmer support a ceasefire in Gaza.
A statement read: “Protesters will be demanding that Keir Starmer supports the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
“We believe it’s abhorrent that the leader of the opposition continues to support the indiscriminate mass slaughter by the Israeli state of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women and children.”
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has said that at least 17,177 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the October 7 attacks by Hamas, which claimed the lives of 1200 people.
On Monday, a senior Israeli official told journalists that around a third of those killed in Gaza so far were enemy combatants and said the figure of around 15,000 dead given by Palestinian authorities was "more or less" right.
