KIRKCALDY and Cowdenbeath MP Neale Hanvey has slammed reports that he was rubbing shoulders with “shady groups with terror links” when he attended an independence conference in Corsica at the weekend.

He had posted on Twitter he was “extremely proud” to be representing the Alba Party and Scotland at the event, however later he was forced to defend the trip after a national press report called his attendance into question.

He stated: “Right wing press trying to spin this conference as some shady terrorist meeting.

"Utterly pathetic. The conference to which I was invited consists entirely of a programme with participants representing bona fide democratic parties, none of whom favour or condone violence.”

Mr Hanvey told the Press that he had been representing Scotland’s independence movement at the event, attended by groups from places such as Catalonia, Sardinia, Nigeria and French colonies.

“It was a political meeting, a conference held in Corsica,” he explained. “It was really an opportunity for all of the different movements to share their experiences of how they are progressing their campaigns for independence and to consider what they can do to assist each other and collaborate our efforts.

“It was very successful. I spoke about some of the barriers that we face from the Westminster government and their refusal to entertain further votes for independence. Hopefully, it will be one of our key objectives to get international support for our political movement but to achieve that then it surely would be common sense to collaborate with other countries that face challenges. All have a common purpose to re-establish self government so that was the tone of the discussion.”

Mr Hanvey said those suggesting he was mixing with terrorists were “really clutching at straws”.

“It is not really worthy of answering to actually,” he said. “It is no surprise to anyone that countries that have sought independence in the past have been involved in conflict. No-one wants conflict. We reinforce this very clearly. We want to win by the strength of our arguments and the only arm we want to take is the arm of information. That is the way to advance the cause of independence and I am very clear about that. That was a point I reinforced.”