Election / Armitage ‘very proud’ as Nigel Farage met with protests
POLITICS of “hope and kindness” are beating the “hate and division” of Nigel Farage, Green election candidate Alex Armitage has said.
Armitage and members of the Green Party took to the streets of Lerwick in a counter-protest to the Reform UK leader’s visit, with some testy exchanges between Farage and hecklers.
One called him a “scrounger”, while others criticised him for his party’s views on immigration. In response, Farage called them “extreme left wingers” who “hate people that work”.
Green protestors followed Farage to the BBC Radio Shetland studio in Pitt Lane, where he was being interviewed, and waited more than 30 minutes for him to leave too.
Armitage said he was “feeling very proud to be a Shetlander today”, after the controversial MP was met with a less than warm welcome on Tuesday morning.
“To see so many people mobilising at short notice to oppose the extreme politics of Reform UK was great,” he told Shetland News.
“Shetland people can see through the far-right politics of Nigel Farage. It’s very clear to me what Reform stands for.
“They want to hand over our NHS to big corporations, they want to deregulate AI, they want to rip up human rights.”
The Green MSP hopeful had previously drawn some criticism for referring to Reform as a “fascist” party.
Shetland News put that very claim to Farage this morning, with the MP for Clacton calling it “moronic”.
Armitage said he was unsure whether Reform ticked all the boxes to be classed as a fascist party, but he said they “tick far too many of them”.
“These are very unstable times globally and in Scotland, and there’s a proportion of people that are very angry about the status quo,” he said.
“That is an opportunity for the far right to thrive. But the Greens provide an alternative option, with hope and kindness, and we’re winning.”
Fellow election candidate John Erskine joined Armitage and the Green protestors on the street, carrying a protest sign as he marched behind Farage.
Armitage said that while he may “detest the Labour party” and what it has done to the UK, he was “proud to stand beside John Erskine today”.
“When we have the far right on our streets, it’s no time to have quibbles with our political opponents,” he said,
“I’m disappointed that other candidates weren’t there to oppose Nigel Farage.”
The Liberal Democrats’ Emma Macdonald and SNP’s Hannah Mary Goodlad criticised Farage and his brief visit to Shetland in messages posted on social media.
Macdonald said Farage had “barely made an appearance” on a fisheries committee while elected as a MEP in Brussels.
“Nigel Farage is welcome to visit Shetland the same as any tourist, but folk here will judge him on what he’s actually done for our islands,” she said.
“When there was a big debate on the fishing industry in the UK Parliament, led by our own MP, not one Reform MP bothered to show up to contribute.
“Photo calls are the easy part, but Farage has not done much more than that.”
And she linked Farage to Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a sly dig, asking if Putin had sent him to the isles to look at pipelines and cables in UK waters.
Goodlad said Farage’s values were of “hate and division” and had “no place in Shetland”.
“Shetland has always been a fair place; Shetland has always been a place that welcomes folk. That is who we are,” she said.
“Reform and Nigel Farage, you will find that your values dunna align here.”
And Labour’s Erskine said Farage was in the isles “peddling his politics of division and hate”.
“People here in Shetland and across Scotland know they’re just Tories in disguise, who don’t understand or care about Shetland or Scotland.
“People in Shetland and across the Highlands and Islands know the challenges and problems our rural and island communities face and they know who’s serious about fixing them.
“Not Nigel Farage. Not his divisive politics.”
The other election candidates, in alphabetical order, are: Douglas Barnett (Conservatives), Vic Currie (Reform), Brian Nugent (Alliance to Liberate Scotland) and Peter Tait (independent).
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