A SCOTTISH Labour candidate at the centre of a row over her sharing “racist” tweets has been criticised for reposting messages calling for Holyrood to be abolished.
Labour’s Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy General Election candidate Wilma Brown deleted her Twitter/X account after The National revealed a swathe of offensive tweets she had liked and reposted.
These included posts featuring the debunked viral claim that Humza Yousaf said there are “too many white people in Scotland” and tweets claiming that Scottish Government aid to Gaza was going to Hamas.
Last month, Brown also liked a racist post telling an Indian man who was expressing his love for England and its flag “you will NEVER be an Englishman” and “it is not your flag”.
It has now also emerged she has liked several posts that claim the Scottish Parliament should be “shut down”, or “brought under special measures by the British Government”.
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Just days ago, she liked a post by ultra-Unionist The Majority that featured the hashtag #AbolishHolyrood.
She also liked a tweet from ScotNatWatch in March that said: “Holyrood should be brought under special measures by the British Government. It’s a loose cannon.”
🔎 Another quick trawl through Wilma Brown’s liked tweets - Labour candidate in Cowdenbeath & Kirkcaldy - suggests she really doesn’t like Holyrood and wants it abolished.
— Olaf Stando 🌻 (@OlafSNP) April 10, 2024
Holyrood isn’t safe in Tory hands, and apparently not in Labour’s either.
That’s just from past few weeks. pic.twitter.com/0BwWTcbnI2
This was also linked to a post by Wings Over Scotland that claimed Scotland’s schoolchildren were being “indoctrinated” over the Hate Crime Act.
Labour are now coming under severe pressure to suspend Brown, with the SNP calling her tweets “appalling” and “deeply offensive”.
Olaf Stando, convener of the SNP Inchkeith branch that covers Kirkcaldy, told The National it was “extraordinary” someone actively denouncing devolution would be a Labour candidate.
He said: “Labour is a party that has helped to create devolution so its utterly extraordinary and indefensible for a Labour candidate to remain in place if they hold these views.
“If she would like to rebut it or apologise for it, she would have apologised instead of deleting her account. It looks like she is running away from scrutiny instead of answering the questions on these racist, abhorrent views.”
On the “racist” tweets she shared, Stando added: “The insinuations that Humza Yousaf, just because he is Muslim, has been funding Hamas are categorically untrue but also racist and dangerous.
“For a Labour candidate who has been in the public service, working in the NHS, who has presumably been vetted by Labour, for her to endorse these messages is just the bottom of the cesspit.”
Brown – a former theatre and anaesthetic nurse – is currently the chair of Unison Scottish health committee and also sits on Unison’s UK health service group working at a UK level in developing policy, terms and conditions for staff and issues relating to devolution in a partnership agreement with NHS employers and government.
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She has served as a board member and chair at The Cottage Family Centre in Kirkcaldy and has been involved in the setting up of The Big Hoose Project, which repurposes surplus goods to families affected by the cost of living crisis.
David Torrance, SNP MSP for Kirkcaldy, told The National: "That this is the calibre of candidate the Labour Party want representing this constituency simply beggars belief.
"The constituents of Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath expect, and deserve, an MP who is committed to the values of equality, diversity and inclusion and not someone with such bigoted and prejudiced views.
"There is no place for prejudice or discrimination in our progressive and inclusive country; swift and decisive action must be taken by the Labour Party against this behaviour.”
SNP MP Drew Hendry added: "It should be shocking to hear that the Labour Party selected a candidate who wants to abolish the Scottish Parliament - but given the party's repeated attacks on devolution under Sir Keir Starmer it's little surprise they've now sunk this low.
"It's clear the SNP is the only party that can be trusted to defend the Scottish Parliament, demand more powers, and advance Scotland's journey to independence.
"Keir Starmer has made it clear that there will be no new powers of any substance for Holyrood under a UK Labour Party government. He wants to work with the Tories to block further devolution."
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