26/05/2016 Scotland 2016

As the war of words at Westminster over immigration intensifies

in the European referendum debate, here MSPs overwhelmingly

The leaders of all five parties at Holyrood say it's in Scotland's

How well does that represent what voters think?

And a former radical Islamist says Muslim leaders in Scotland aren't

The number of people coming to the UK from within the EU reached

record levels last year - 184,000 more people

That intensified the war of words between senior Tories,

with Boris Johnson saying the situation was "completely

Home Office Minister James Brokenshire said leaving the EU

The tone at Holyrood, meanwhile, was quite different

Just three spoke in favour of leaving and the vote

at the end was overwhelmingly in favour of staying.

With four weeks until polling day, interest in the EU referendum is

revving up. And during a BBC debate in Glasgow tonight this audience of

Under-13s wanted their questions and sought. One issue came up more than

any other. Well I have a job if I leave the EU? I think you stand a

far better chance of a good job, one in which you are not competing with

potentially thousands of other Europeans everywhere to actually

leave the European Union. We have 2.2 million EU workers here already,

they have taken effectively UK jobs. Can I say that, let us imagine that

a Boris Johnson dislocated his jaw from overuse and he went to his home

Hospital and Oxbridge where 10% of the staff are nurses and doctors

from elsewhere in the European Union, do you believe he will tell

them he does not want treatment for his job because someone is from

Estonia? These are hard-working people who are contributing to this

country. It was an argument which also fired up the audience. We have

a housing shortage now and the more that we let them, the best houses we

will have to host them, so how do you work that out? It is Bonnie that

you have a selective memory, just remember how many immigrants like my

family have built this nation. -- it is funny that you have a selective

memory. But many still are unable to make up their minds. I do not have

an issue with admitting that I do not have an idea what to do and I

blame you got entirely for that. From undecided -- undecided voter to

another, Labour's Neil Findlay abstained today at the vote. I am

depressed that the debate, it is appalling.

Scotland's Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said that the EU was not

perfect but that in was better than Howard. Neil Findlay wanted to know

how the SNP script that position with its support for Scottish

independence. If the Minister could expand on our

logic of wanting to be a but good union of 60 million to join a

political union of 750 million and if she believes... And if she

believes that Scotland would have more influence in that scenario? I

think I have just made the case why independent countries, 28 of them in

the EU can decide for themselves to be part of a market. If he wants to

join with others to take the beauty and Scotland out of the 500 million

and he can align himself with Boris Johnson. Sticking with the

independence referendum thing, Adam Tomkins of the Conservatives argued

the case to remain. These are the values of the union, economic

prosperity and security for all. It lies at the heart of our case for a

No vote in 2014 as the line-out at the core of a case for a Remains

vote next month. But not all Tory support that view and one said

Britain must leave the EU to control immigration. I understand other

people from other parts of UK want to come here to improve their

standard of living, above, this could put unsustainable pressure on

our schools, health services and housing.

Labour's Elaine Smith against her own party's position, argued for a

Brexit. Undoubtably many of my left will

vote to remain in the hope that reforms will come. I understand that

but with an unelected bureaucracy at its core and the largely decorative

parliament, that avoids the reality that the EU structures are so

closely bound with capitalism. In the end, Holyrood voted to back

Britain's continuing membership of the European Union. That is the view

apparently amongst most voters in Scotland. But this referendum is

across the UK and both sides have said that before polling day

anything could happen. Andrew Black reporting.

Joining me now to discuss this are SNP MSP Humza Yousaf,

who voted to back a Remain vote, and in our Edinburgh studio

is Scottish Conservative MSP Gordon Lindhurst,

Welcome to both of you this evening. Gordon, you were one of only eight

MSPs who voted against the motion today. Why did you not supported?

Let me tell you firstly, I would probably class myself as a reluctant

out. I do not believe there is any need for alarmist rhetoric on the

subject whatever the voters on the 23rd of June, we will not go off the

cliff on the 24th of June. Basically, the European Union is, in

my view, an outdated social and economic construct of the 1950s.

What we need is a political alliance suitable for the 21st-century. So

you would prefer Britain and Scotland to be out of the European

Union? Out of the European Union as it is at present, and that is what

the option if that is on the table for all of us on the 23rd of June.

Humza Yousaf, you and every single one of your SNP colleagues voted to

back the Remained motion. Every look at the opinion polls, they suggest

only half of the event -- SNP voters actually want to stay in. So who is

representing the sizeable number of SNP voters who do not agree with

you? I do not know about the poor that you referring to, but I would

be relaxed but SNP voters taking a different hue. I will work hard to

persuade them otherwise. -- the poll. But what about the opinion

polls overall, a third of Scottish waters have said they want to leave

and yet, fewer than one out of ten MSPs took that line today. Does it

accurately reflect what the voters of Scotland actually think right

now? The point is that MSPs will take their own views and speak to

their constituents but they will make a reasoned judgment as to what

they think other benefits. We need a strong case in the Scottish

Parliament today about progressive resin and a positive reason, I think

Gordon is right, we did not have the alarmist rhetoric in that debate in

Holyrood from either side, it was a positive and progressive argument

and I think most is -- MSPs were convinced by that. But it was from

the SNP 's, the Lib Dems, the Tories, Labour or the Greens. For

the next four weeks we will continue to do that and they will not engage

in the scaremongering, hyperbolic negativity that we have seen down

south from both sides. Gordon, the big buzzword today was a

immigration, it was being debated in Westminster and another at the BBC

debate. Everyone was arguing about it. Do you believe there is the same

level of concern about immigration here in Scotland as in the rest of

the UK? No, I do not think it probably is,

that is possible because of the circumstances in Scotland are

different. What happened south of the border does affect us in terms

of the amount of funding available to Scotland automatically. But I do

not think that is the key issue because any nation that is trading

as any healthy economic nation will be, it does have migration,

immigration and so forth. The question is more forward planning

for essential services such as hospitals, schools, roads,

infrastructure and the difficulty with trying to do that for

governments to meet legitimate expectations of those living in the

country if there is no idea of how many people will be coming in or

going out. So you agree with your colleague, Margaret Mitchell, who

has said that the pressure is unsustainable on schools, the health

service, housing, and the impact on pensions, she read all of these

things today? That is only one of the aspects that

she raised. One of the main things that you talked about which is of

concern to myself and others is the fact that by being in the European

Union we are tied into an economic trading bloc, which is not growing

at the rate of trading blocs in the world are. It is more the positive

case that if we were out of the European Union, we could actually go

out there and she our opportunities in the world with other nations and

make new trading agreements. And a new political alliance with European

nations for the sake of peace and stability would be a good thing, it

does not need to be along the lines of the current European Union. But

the European nations we are dealing with are possibly all modern

economic and sound, progressive countries, like our own, and so if

the British people decide, the Scottish and the other British

people, they decided not want to be in the European Union as it

currently these other countries are not going to re-enact... Basically,

they will not cut off their nose to spite their face, that is what...

Which is exactly, Humza Yousaf, what you were putting before that about

Scotland leaving. I would never engage in the

hyperbole that if we were to leave that suddenly the sky would fall and

the earth would swallow us up. It is much better for Scottish trade to

remain within the European Union. Half of our exports go to the EU

whether it is whiskey, or many of our seafood. I am not suggesting

that they would not go to the EU but would they be under the same

agreements, tariffs, free access... I am not convinced. There is a

difference of making such an agreement is part of the world's

largest trading block. It is clear that those who want to leave the

European Union have wanted to bring up a immigration. We have largely

avoided that poor debate that we have seen elsewhere. We know that

immigrants contribute more than a foot thank you both for that debate

this evening. Are Muslim leaders in Scotland doing

enough to counter extremism? Not according to one former radical

Islamist speaking at Edinburgh University

earlier this evening. Dr Tawfik Hamid was

invited to Scotland by the Asia Scotland Institute,

to offer his insight in to the rising threat of so-called

Islamic State and other militant He used to be a member

of an extremist Islamic organization in Egypt alongside the man who later

became the second in Shortly before we came on air,

I spoke to Dr Hamid. Doctor, you were actually recruited

by an extremist group 35 years ago. What was it that drew you in back

then? Actually was born into a very secular family, but what drove me

honestly was a desire to serve the religion and God. I had such

intimacy towards the religion and serving God and unfortunately I was

misled. The religious energy in me was violated on the wrong path. I

wanted to join something that can help Islam, can help the religion,

and unfortunately I went in this direction for a period of my life.

How far down that path did you go? I went into periods of radicalisation.

I didn't contribute to any business of the crime, I didn't do terrorism.

I was dreaming of doing jihad in Afghanistan and I changed completely

in eight months to someone who had a lot of hatred in his heart towards

others and desire to do a lot of harm thinking it would benefit the

religion. What were the biggest influences on you at the time? What

made you change? It was a short period of time that you were

radicalised. I will tell you exactly what happened from the beginning.

The first thing that happened to me when they invited me to join is

suppression of my critical thinking. The second was suppression of my

human conscience. What the mitigating factor that made me

retreat or return was when they asked me to help them in kidnapping

a police officer in Cairo in Egypt and dig a grave for him and bury him

alive beside the mosque. This was honestly too much for my humanity

and my human conscience to accept. This was a moment. It was a change

from the theoretical desire to do violence to reality. Now I see a

human being and they want to bury him alive. This was a moment of

awakening of my human conscience and I started to think. Once I started

to think this was critical thinking coming back to me and the process

was reversed. How hard was it to remove yourself from all that? It

took me another six months or so to be able. What helps me

significantly, when I found a friend of mine who offered me different

ways of interpretation and thinking within the religion. There are

groups who have different ways of thinking, regarding the religion.

They were relatively peaceful compared to the other one. This

helps me a lot to make the transition. Now you are saying that

you think Muslim leaders here are not doing enough to stop extremism.

What makes you think that? My answer is absolutely they are not doing

enough. Why I think they are not doing enough is simply the current

teachings available under the name of charade interpretations, they

approve certain principles. -- Soraya -- beating women, stoning

women to death, slavery. Declaring war to spread the religion and

offering people to convert or you will be killed. The current teaching

is still teaching this, then the scholars are having heavy

responsibility to provide an alternative form of understanding of

the religion that clearly and unambiguously stands against or

criticised or denounces such values. If they fail to do so, it will be

very hard to consider them moderates because it is so easy to tell you I

am a moderate. But if I am a true moderate, I am able to stand in my

mosque and say it clearly, loudly and unambiguously that I am against

killing a man, beating women, and provide you with an alternative

interpretation as a young Muslim that brings a different way of

understanding of the religion. I am not doing this. We recently had a

case in Glasgow of an imam at the biggest mosque in Scotland. An imam

praising on social media and extremist who was praised for

committing murder in Pakistan. He says his comments were taken out of

context. Is that the sort of thing that worries you? Yes, it is. As

long as Islamic scholars do not provide the name or the title of a

single approved Islamic book, approved by leading scholars, that's

clearly denounces such values that practised in the name of Islam, I

believe they have no right to ask the others to call them moderates.

They had to provide this first or the name of the book and they have

not. They just want everyone to call them moderates and that is it. In

this particular case, you rascal Central Mosque came out clearly and

said it condemns terrorism of any kind -- Glasgow Central Mosque. Is

that in or should they do more? It is not enough. They need to do more.

The problem is not terrorism, it is radicalism itself. If you can

denounce, for example, the terrorist acts against innocence. This is

different from denouncing the hatred, denouncing the symptoms of

the principle that you kill someone because he converted from Islam to

another religion for example. Once you approve killing of an innocent

human soul because he converted from your religion to another, you are

really creating the base for other forms of violence. You think they

are encouraging it. Yes, by not denouncing this system, it is

enough. As a young Muslim, tell me where can I find an Islamic textbook

that clearly stands against these principles. Tell me! I am just

waiting for the answer from these scholars instead of just telling

that Doctor Hamid is exaggerating. Please, tell me matter where we can

find this golden textbook that can interpret Islam in a way that stands

against killing people and stoning women and against all these

atrocities. Where can we find this book? Show it to us. Tell us the

name of this book and the problem would be solved if they did. You

came to Scotland to talk. You said that First Minister should challenge

is like leaders here to condemn extremism. The Muslim Council for

Scotland says you don't really know the situation here. Look, the word

extremism is a general term. I would prefer that if instead of just

telling me I don't know the situation now, the solution is much

more simple than best. All they need to do is to go to their mosques next

Friday prayer and inviting them to do so and stand in front of their

congregations and clearly and unambiguously denounce what I call

the ABCs of Islam. Declaring jihad... All I am asking is that

instead of telling that, Doctor Hamid does not know Scotland, stand

up and denounce the values and I will continue to say, I have no

problem with you at all. Why do you think they are not doing that?

Because they keep teaching this fundamental part of the religion.

Now they are in trouble. They told people that killing people is part

of it, beating women is OK, slavery is OK. Now you are asking the same

teacher to change his teaching. So they don't want to look hypocritical

in front of people, plus there is another factor. Financial support

coming from some radical people, as well. We are out of time. Thank you

very much for coming in. It is my pleasure and honour, thank you for

having me. Joining me now to talk

about some of the day's other news is Campbell Gunn,

Former Special Adviser to the First Minister of Scotland,

and the journalist Katie Grant. Welcome to both of you. Let's go

back to the EU debate. It's got noisy, bad-tempered at some point

today. Vote Leave was focusing on those net immigration figures. How

do you think that plays in Scotland? I think immigration means something

different in Scotland because it is not absolutely there with us. If you

live in London or the south-east, it is much more present. We talk about

immigration in a much more theoretical way than people in the

south of England who talk about it in a much more practical way. I

think it will have an impact on the Leave campaign, but I don't know

that it will have much of an impact up here. We saw a debate on the

Scottish Parliament today. There were no party leaders in Scotland

supporting Leave. Overwhelming support among MSP is for the Remain

case. Is that representative of Scottish voters? No, but the only

party leader in Scotland who is in favour of leaving is David Cockburn

and he was not elected, so I think that more or less sums up. The party

leaders and the party official lines are all in support of remaining. In

Scotland, it is an eminently sensible position to be in. I know

there are probably about 30, 30 3% of Scots are against it. I think the

feeling in Scotland is far more pro-European than it is in the UK as

a whole. It is still quite a disconnect between the elected

representatives and the number of Scottish people who say they want to

leave, if we believe the opinion polls. I don't understand why the

Scottish parliament had a vote in first place. Given that everyone has

an individual vote, and the debate was highly skewed for Remain, but

Campbell is right. We have an election appear very recently.

People were elected to very clearly work for Remain and so that is how

it pans out. People who are going to vote to leave are still going to. Do

you think in the parliament, making it the will of the Scottish

Parliament to remain in the EU, makes it even more inevitable that

there would be a second independence referendum if the rest of the UK

voted to leave? This is a very difficult point. Actually, in

practical terms, it is difficult to have a second referendum. Alex

Salmond cannot just say, we will have a second referendum and

suddenly out of the ether comes a second referendum. It will be much

more propagated. If the UK votes to leave, the whole of the UK will

leave. And so Scotland leaves with the UK and we haven't even had a

referendum by that time. God knows what would happen then. It is no

longer Alex Salmond's decision, but Nicola Sturgeon's. It is hardly even

hers. It is much more complicated than people imagine, although I

agree it is almost inconceivable that, whether a big push for a

second referendum, that anyone would stand in the way about. Talking of

Alex Salmond, on the BBC debate earlier, he was putting forward a

very positive upbeat message about why we should vote to stay. But I

wonder, actually, if that is the best way of convincing people.

Didn't we see from the last independence referendum that project

the works? Perhaps Alex Salmond was correctly critical of Project Fear.

There is no sense in him supporting a similar project in this

referendum, either. It did work. I don't think it will work this time.

I think there were far more factors in the independence referendum

result than this. I still think... I don't think there will be the

trigger for another referendum because I don't really think, in my

heart of hearts, that UK will to leave. I think I have confidence in

the imminent good sense of the rest of the people in the rest of the UK.

OK. Moving on, although it is linked to the subject of immigration. First

Minister Nicola Sturgeon as met an Australian family who have been told

they must leave the UK if they cannot meet these rules. Here is

what she said earlier. The UK Government is fond of telling

us right now that we have the most powerful devolved parliament

anywhere in the world, and yet as First Minister I cannot take the

decision myself to allow a family that can contribute so much to

Scotland to stay here. The wee boy has lived most of his life here. He

is a Gaelic speaker and to all expense and purposes, he is

Scottish. It will be tragic to see them leave. I hope they can stay

because they have a lot to contribute. Katie, why do you think

this case has captured the public's imagination? They are an attractive

family, they came because of the homecoming advertisements. The

little boy is a Gaelic speaker. Does that make a difference? It

shouldn't. He clearly speaks English. I think this is a very

difficult thing, but I also think that emotion is not often the best

way of dealing with these things. There will be other families who are

in exactly the same position. Is Nicola Sturgeon going to meet all of

them? There is something slightly uncomfortable about the way this

case has been argued. I think this is a very particular case. The

family did come here under a scheme jointly run by the Home Office and

the Scottish Government. They changed the rules halfway through

their stay here. They have family here. I think their ancestors are

Scottish. The wee boy, as you said, has spent most of his life here. His

friends and cousins are here. There probably are other cases that might

deserve equal publicity. This is a pretty particular case. I don't

think there are many as extreme as this. We had the First Minister

saying it is crazy that she cannot make that decision. Is it partly to

highlight the fact that immigration is a reserved power? Everything is

at the moment highlighting something else. It is not just about itself,

if you see what I mean. I think there is some of this. Clearly, the

family want to stay here, but I think, yes, I don't think many

politicians do something without an ulterior motive. This would never

have come to the public knowledge, had it not been for Angus Robertson

yesterday raising it at PMQs and then Ian Blackford today with an

emergency question and the UK Government seeming to back down very

sharpish. It seems as if the family I now going to be able to stay and

that is a very good thing. It does seem from the UK immigration will

see movement on this, briefly? Probably. Most of the viewers and

certainly myself, we don't know the full facts of this case. We only

know what we have been told. Thank you so much for coming in.

I'll be back on Tuesday after the bank holiday.

Once upon a time, there was a great and glorious king.

But they would all see him destroyed.

MUSIC: Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam The Ants

How much pain before you get what you want?!

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BBC Reality Check investigates the facts behind these claims,