Current Affairs

Gay UKIP MEP says ‘it’s all bollocks’ after comparing SNP minister to Abu Hamza

Mar 15 2015
Written by Nick Duffy

UKIP’s most senior gay politician is facing increasing pressure to stand down – after he compared an SNP minister to convicted terrorist Abu Hamza.

David Coburn, who is the UK Independence Party’s leader in Scotland, allegedly made the controversial remarks about Muslim MSP Humza Yousaf – who is Minister for Europe and International Development

Mr Coburn joked about “Humza Yousaf, or as I call him, Abu Hamza” in a conversation with a journalist.

Hamza is a radical Islamic cleric serving life behind bars for terrorist offences.

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson have both condemned the comments – while the SNP are calling for Mr Coburn to resign or be sacked.

Despite issuing a lengthy apology to Mr Yousaf, Mr Coburn appeared to dismiss the row, telling the Scottish Sunday Mail: “It’s all bollocks.”

A UKIP spokesman later attempted to clarify that the politician had in fact been speaking about his sat nav.

UKIP Scottish chairman Arthur Misty Thackeray said: “It was a slip of a tongue in getting a name wrong. There was no intention to compare Humza Yousaf to anyone at all.

“David Coburn has issued a formal apology. People get names mixed up all the time. I am regularly called Minty like the character out of EastEnders, but I don’t go greeting to the papers about Mistyphobia.

“Humza really needs to develop a sense of humour and a thicker skin if he is going to be a politician.”

It is not the first time Mr Coburn has made controversial remarks,branding Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson a “fat lesbian” andcomparing Alex Salmond to dictator Robert Mugabe.

Despite being gay, the UKIP MEP is a fierce critic of the gay rights movement, claiming in October that same-sex marriage supporters are “equality Nazis”.

He ranted: “What you’re doing with the gay marriage issue is you’re rubbing people’s noses in the dirt.

“[It’s] the equality Nazis trying to give Christianity a jolly good kicking. You know it, I know it, we all know it – it’s false bollocks, the lot of it.

“It’s just for some queen who wants to dress up in a bridal frock and in a big moustache and dance up the aisle to the Village People.”

He has also claimed that the Lib Dems and Labour want to ban him from having sex.