Ian Smart is ‘worse than a racist’, says brother

Ian Smart has been publicly criticised by his brother over the comments. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Former television producer and pro-independence supporter Alan Smart has posted a blog in which he hits out at his brother’s comments on the social networking site, writing: “My brother Ian Smart is not a racist. He is worse than that.

“When he asserts that there will be some sort of pogrom against the Polish and Pakistani communities in a post-independence Scotland, he is not doing this out of ignorance or prejudice, but out of political calculation.”

Mr Smart adds that he feels his brother is ‘playing the race card’ by attempting to ‘scare’ Scotland’s ethnic communities into voting against independence.

He also likened his sibling’s comments to former Shadow Secretary of State for Defence Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech in April 1968.

Ian Smart, a former President of the Law Society of Scotland had tweeted: “Better 100 years of the Tories than the turn on the Poles and the Pakis that would follow independence failing to deliver”.

The tweet prompted a number of replies, with some users questioning the language used.

Former First Minister Lord McConnell also got involved in the debate.

The lawyer later posted his own blog attempting to clarify his comments, claiming that he was trying to make the point that ‘the part of the Nationalists support that currently blame the English for all our woes, would, inevitably, on finding that Independence is not a cure for all our ills, look round for somebody else to blame”.

Mr Smart added that it would be his ‘last word’ on the matter.