Ex-SNP MSP slams Nicola Sturgeon over US election intervention

Nicola Sturgeon's intervention in the US Presidential campaign has come under fire from a former Nationalist MSP who has accused her of "sniping from the sidelines."

Chic Brodie has criticised Ms Sturgeon's handling of the US election

The First Minister broke with convention to formally endorse Hillary Clinton in the election race and openly criticised Donald Trump. Ms Sturgeon has now written to the new President-elect congratulating him on his triumph last week.


Mr Brodie, who stood down as an SNP MSP in May, says the First Minister passed up the chance to raise her concerns with Trump ‘face to face’ when he was in Scotland this year to formally open his Trump Turnberry resort.


Asked how he thought Ms Sturgeon had handled the issue, Mr Brodie, said: "Not particularly well."


The former West of Scotland MSP said the First Minister should have met with Mr Trump in July at the launch of his new hotel.


"There was an opportunity in the Summer to make clear what the pronouncements were or how they were accepted by, or not accepted by, the Scottish Government," he told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland today.


"I think an eyeball situation would have been a lot better than sniping from the sidelines."


Mr Brodie said that the Trump Turnberry refurbishment meant 300 construction jobs for Scotland while 200 people were employed at the hotel while this was happening.


"I think it was incumbent upon the leadership to express its views but also support those that have created one of the greatest hotels in the world."


The former MSP also compared Ms Sturgeon support from for Ms Clinton with Barack Obama lending his support for the union during the Scottish referendum.


"You can't complain about President Obama getting involved in the independence campaign and in turn getting involved in a vastly different election campaign than we are normally used to.

"I think it would have been better to have turned up and tried to have that conversation."


Mr Trump, whose mother was from Lewis, was stripped of his ‘global Scots’ ambassadorial role by Ms Sturgeon after his threat of a blanket ban on Muslims entering the US.


But Mr Brodie insisted that a US Presidential election is ‘vastly different’ from the type of campaigning which normally happens in the UK.


He added: "They have to capture their audience and sometimes they go over the top, but I think in both cases - Republican and Democrat - that happened this time."