16/05/2013 Newsnight Scotland

and wait, but we have to get on with it. Minister, thank you very much

indeed. Thank you. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, a

raucous reception in Edinburgh for the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage.

Is this sort of thing typical of any strand of political feeling north of

the border? Also tonight, the Kirk gets ready to

decide on gay ministers. Could the Church of Scotland split,

and in our increasingly secular society would it really matter?

Good evening. Nigel Farage visited Edinburgh this

afternoon and was given a noisy and unpleasant reception by a group of

demonstrators. He wondered out loud if the

demonstration was simply anti-English.

This short report contains some unsavoury language. It all began

peacefully enough. Over a pint in an Edinburgh pub, Nigel Farage was keen

to talk politics. He has pushed Europe to the top of the political

agenda. , and, after his breakthrough in English council

elections, he was in the capital to attract more support in Scotland.

The entire Edinburgh political class wants Scotland to be part of a

political union run from Brussels. We don't want that. We want the

United Kingdom to be an independent country. Yes, with devolved powers

for Scotland and for Wales and for Northern Ireland. As he left the pub

on the Royal Mile he was met by a hostile crowd of Edinburgh students.

Some accused his party of having a well documented history of racism.

We are not anti-immigrant. Yes, you are? We are not anti-immigrant.In

what sense? We believe at immigration running at 50,000 not

250,000 or half a million a year. We have never ever ever anywhere had

this sort of response, ever. Anywhere. Clearly this is

anti-British and anti-English. That is what I'm getting. They hate the

union back. Back. -- Union Jack. Maybe that is what it's about.

Having tried and failed to make his exit by taxi, the UKIP leader was

forced back into the pub and police barricaded the doors. Eventually he

was escort into a police van and taken away to a dinner with

potential UKIP donors. The party spokesman later insisted Mr Farage

wasn't left shaken by the incident. I'm joined now from Edinburgh by

Severin Carrell of the Guardian, who was there. Who were these people who

were demonstrating? There was a mixture of people. I spoke to

student leaders from Edinburgh University and Aberdeen. There were

people from the radical Scottish Independence Movement there as well.

There was a fair mixture of different people with different

agendas and different backgrounds. Right. How raucous was it? At times

it was pretty intense. It was very, you know, also times aggressive. At

times it was relatively good human Order, in the context of a raucous

demonstration of that kind. There wasn't any actual violence, there

are often occasions where there have been, you know, very heated and

rigorous exchanges of views that do end up with blows being exchanged or

things being thrown or spitting. There was none of that at all. It

was mostly verbal. Some of it was abusive, no doubt about it what so

ever. Some of it was good human Order. There was a sense of theatre

about it. As if people were acting out their normal parts, if you like.

Yes, shouting "scum" doesn't sound a Nazi and racist, doesn't sound very

good humoured to me? Farage was interviewed this evening on another

broadcaster's show. He said, he had encountered things of this elk

before on student campuses and had encountered hostile crowds. The

problem was that he hadn't encountered a hostile crowd of that

consistency. It continued and went on and on. Part of the story wasn't

only that the crowd was there, he made a tactical error in trying to

hold a press conference in the pub in the centre of Edinburgh with no

security or effort to gauge whether that was an intelligent move. I

don't think the Scottish police force called it cleverly. They

didn't have enough officers there. If they reviewed what happened there

this evening, senior police officers will say, you should not have done

that, you should have done this. might have been a tactical error

having a press conference in a pub. He appeared there to be trying to

have alcivilised conversation with these people? Up to a point he was.

You know, there is a huge gulf of ideology and philosophy between both

sides. I'm not sure they will ever have a meeting of the minds no

matter how much either side would want to have a debate. At it from

the outside, there is a legitimate right of protest? Yes.There is the

free speech of someone like Nigel Farage and his freedom to travel

around Edinburgh. Do you think... I mean that looked like the kind of

thing we see with organisations with the BNP. Was a line crossed there or

was that perfectly legitimate? have picked it up watching on

Twitter in particular a lot of debate between senior political

figures and journalists about whether it was one of those moments

that did cross the line. And, I mean frankly I think it's a bit 50/50.

You can argue it both ways in my view. I want to ask you as well, I

mean you work for a newspaper which is published in London. Will this be

seen in the south-east where he is an MEP as anti-English racism in

Scotland? He is spinning it like that. No doubt about that. There

were elements of the crowd and dispute which had over tones about

as if his politics were foreign to Scotland. That will be problematic.

There is undoubtedly the case a number of people will be thinking

there is an issue here about nationalist conflicts. However,

there is also a huge number of people south of the border who will

look at what happened in Edinburgh saying, good on you, we would like

to do that as well. Thank you very much for joining us.

Now, the General Assembly of the Kirk starts this weekend amid

speculation that a decision about the ordination of openly gay

ministers may cause a significant split in the membership.

The issue's been bubbling away for four years now and is expected to

come to a head on Monday. Following the Catholic Church's

recent high profile problems, there are questions about the role of the

churches in modern Scotland. We'll discuss that shortly, but

first here's Andrew Black. For centuries the Church of Scotland

played a central role in society, but under pressure to see more

relevant in today's world, the Kirk is asking itself what it stands for.

The current dilemma facing the church goes back to 2009 with the

appointment of an openingly gay minister to Queen's Cross Church in

Aberdeen. He was backed by most of his congregation and by a vote of

the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Despite the show of

support, the decision resulted in protest. At the time, Mr Rennie

expressed his sadness. I have been personally hurt. It has made life

pretty stressful. But at the end of the day, I felt God's dmaul my o

life to ministry. I felt God's call to the church in Aberdeen. The

church responded to that to. Sometimes you have to be prepared to

endure a bit of heat for what you think is right. The issue returned

at the Kirk's gathering in 2011. It voted to accept some gay and lesbian

clergy for some that was the final straw. To try to conduct myself in a

manner in line with scriptures was to do something that was met with a

great deal of pressure and I would go as far as to say intimidation

from the Church of Scotland. Reverend Paul Gibson left the Church

of Scotland over the decision. He warns the Kirk is failing its

followers. If the Church of Scotland continues on this conjectory, if ne

genuinely exists for the Christian good of Scotland, not for the good

of Scotland in whatever some unbelieving person might define good

to be, but if it exists for the Christian good of Scotland, it

absolutely must reverse, unconditionally and fully the

conjectory that it has set itself upon because it cannot stand with

any integrity in a Christian sense whilst walking in a direction that

is away from the Bible and is, therefore, away from the lordship of

the one who is King of Kings, Jesus congregation or St George's Church

in Glasgow left the Church of Scotland. It was followed by another

in Aberdeen. Having put the issue for two years, the General assembly

will next week once again consider the issue of homosexuality in the

ministry. At the centre of the debate is this 94 page report

produced by the church. It does not offer any recommendations as such,

but it has set out to different parts that the Kirk might take.

One would allow the ordination of gay and lesbian ministers and civil

partnerships. The other would reject that option, favouring a more

traditional view with an emphasis on marriage between one man and one

woman. Whatever's decided, some fear a

major fallout, but not everyone says it must be that way. The Church of

Scotland has always had different views within it, and I hope that

will continue. So I would say to people who are uncomfortable with

that decision, if that is where the church goes, then to stay, and it

will make the church a better place if it has a variety of views and

opinions on theological, political and social matters. But there is

still no guarantee of a final decision at Monday's General

assembly. In typical Kirk fashion there is an option for pausing for

further reflections, which could delay things for yet another year.

I am joined by the history Professor Callum Brown Brown, and in Edinburgh

by another chronicler of the Kirk, Harry Reid. Do you expect the church

to split over this? No, I think there are already divisions and they

will continue whatever happens. I don't think it is a national church

in any meaningful sense of the word, so in that sense it cannot

split. Its strength is at congregational level, and many

congregations have one view on this and many congregations have a

different view. Is slightly feel you are speaking in riddles. When you

say it is not a national church, let me put it this way, why do we have

congregation saying we want to join the free Church or go off on our

own? Some will undoubtedly leave, but I don't think many will. I think

some congregations might appoint a gay minister and see what happens,

even if that is against the policy of the church. When I say it is not

a national church any more, I mean that it does not have this standing

that allows it to speak to Scotland nor indeed for Scotland, as it could

to some extent before we have the Holyrood parliament. I am sad to say

this, but I think it is increasingly irrelevant as a national institution

to the bulk of the people in Scotland. Despite the fact that it

has over 400,000 committed members, which any political party in

Scotland would love to have. It is still in some ways are flourishing

organisation, but I don't think it coheres as a national institution.

Callum Brown, the church of England has had problems over the same

issue. It is almost like Europe with the Conservative party, it means a

running sore, that affects particularly the Protestant

churches. Why should gay ministers be the issue that causes the

problems? Because it goes to the heart of interpretation of

Scripture. Homosexuality is seen by many Christians to be abhorrent to

God. So it is a bit of a touchstone dividing liberal Christians from

Conservatives. It is not something limited to the Church of England or

the Church of Scotland. The same divisions can be found in North

America Australia or New Zealand. Scotland is by no means alone.

what is also coming across certainly in Europe, is declining church

numbers. Half the time, churches like the Church of Scotland and the

Anglican Church as saying, we are not connecting with ordinary people,

we have to find some way of connecting with our potential

parishioners. Yet the other part of the time they sympathised with an

issue which of the opinion polls tell us most people are completely

relaxed about. The opinion polls show that opinion in Britain as a

whole has moved dramatically in the last 50 years towards a relaxed

position on homosexuality. I suppose what I am getting at is, are these

issues stand ins for the failure difficulties of the churches to

adapt to a world which is increasingly secular and with which

they are increasingly out of touch? I think it is a failure of them to

move away from a traditional obsession of controlling people's

bodies. All these issues are about sexuality, controlling woman 's body

over abortion and so on. These are issues about which public opinion in

the West has moved dramatically towards saving, the individual is an

autonomous being. We as individuals can decide the destiny of our

sexuality, of what we do when we are approaching death and in severe

pain. The churches are taking a very traditional line, being led by

Conservatives, the art liberal Christians who are much more in tune

with secular opinion. But the churches -- frog in the specific

case of the Church of Scotland, clearly this whole issue of

sexuality is important, but to some extent is it standing in this

specific case of the Kirk four divisions that whether any way? Is

it a pretext for evangelicals to Labour divisions that whether any

way? Yes, I think the divisions were there. I think the conservative

evangelical part of the church tends to be stronger in the north and the

West, although the first two splits we have seen did not appear there. I

think you are right however that there has been a lot of division and

tension, and maybe this is the issue that is bringing into the surface. I

am not even sure that it is even coming to the surface yet, because I

suspect what we will have on Monday is a decision, probably it will be

for a gay clergy, to put it crudely, but then it will be sent to the

presbytery's father consent and endorsement -- wrote for their

consent and endorsement. This is a problem for the Church of Scotland,

because in the Catholic Church when you have these arguments over

membership, and to some extent the Anglican Church as well, the falling

memberships in places like Europe are made up for rising and the ships

in places like Africa. I would not exaggerate the degree of religious

growth in other parts of the world, but it is certainly not falling as

it is in other places. The prognosis is not that good. I think that you

are right to suggest that this is a touchstone for wider divisions, but

there are a whole raft of issues and any one of them could lead to

schism. A quick look at tomorrow 's front