UK election: ‘Violent emotion’ of nationalists condemned

Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has condemned "aggressive, violent" nationalists during a confrontation on Sunday at a Glasgow street rally, which they forced him and comedian Eddie Izzard to abandon.

The two were barracked continuously by protesters, led by Sean Clerkin, who famously chased one of Murphy's predecessors, Ian Grey, into a fast-food restaurant during the 2011 Holyrood election, destroying the politician's reputation.

However, Scottish first minister and Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon quickly denied that the protestors had anything to do with the SNP and condemned their actions outright.

Clerkin is a former SNP candidate who is kept at a distance by the party. Others who were identifiable, including Piers Doughty Brown and James Scott, lead a left-wing “Scottish Resistance” group.

Using a megaphone, Clerkin drowned out Murphy’s and Izzard’s attempt to speak, while his supporters kept up chants of “Red Tories” until the two were finally forced to leave the platform.

Bad behaviour

Murphy seized upon the demonstrations, urging voters to consider what could happen afterwards if this is the way that some nationalists are ready to behave in public before the SNP has a majority.

"We've got a few days until we can kick David Cameron out of office, a few days to change our country forever, and we won't be silenced by this form of aggressive nationalism. It's anti-democratic," said Mr Murphy.

Leaving, Izzard said: “It’s okay having different opinions, but everyone should be able to put their opinion forward. This aggressive, this violent emotion – why violence?”

Clerkin later insisted that the protests were justified, adding pointedly that he had been tipped off about the rally by Labour Party members in Murphy's own East Renfrewshire constituency.

Demonstrating against spending cuts, he told the Glasgow Herald: "This will be portrayed as something else by the establishment, but it's just old-fashioned political heckling, a democratic tradition."

Exhausted

A degree of exhaustion has set in as British politicians head into the final days of campaigning before Thursday’s vote, which seems unlikely to produce a clean result.

TV personality Russell Brand, who interviewed Labour leader Ed Miliband in Brand's own kitchen last week, reversed his previous call to people not to vote, saying that they should vote Labour.

Brand has more than nine million followers on Twitter, extraordinarily, so his support – even if couched more as anti- Conservative, rather than pro- Labour – is a welcome boost for Labour with young voters.

"There's loads of things I could complain about with Ed Miliband . . . what's important is this bloke will be in parliament, and I think this bloke will listen to us," Brand said on his YouTube show, The Trews.

“So on 7 May vote Labour, on 8 May – more democracy, more power to more communities, for all of us.”