Scottish broadcaster Andrew Marr apologies after branding Gaelic signs in Scotland 'offensive'

Glasgow-born broadcaster Andrew Marr has apologised after describing the prominence of Gaelic signs in Scotland as “offensive”.

Speaking during a question-and-answer session with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar at the Labour Party conference on Tuesday, Mr Marr claimed Gaelic signage had been placed in locations where the language was not historically spoken.

He pointed to a Gaelic translation of a sign for Edinburgh’s Haymarket station, branding it “ridiculous”.

His comments came after a report from the Council of Europe called on the Scottish Government to “depoliticise” regional and minority languages, highlighting issues surrounding the public perception of a connection between Scottish Gaelic and the independence movement since the 2014 referendum.

However, in a post on X, Mr Marr admitted he was “wrong”.

He said: “Right. On the Gaelic business. Sometimes when good friends take you kindly to one side and explain patiently why you are completely wrong, you have to accept that you are completely wrong.

“I have long thought that what the great Scottish medieval poets called ‘inglis’ and the 20th century ones Lallans, is being pushed aside in modern memory and use… But I got overexcited and was wrong. Whatever is the Gaelic for sorry, that…”

The debate began after Mr Sarwar was asked by a member of the audience if he would be looking to learn lessons from Labour in Wales, after they took steps to promote the Welsh language.

During Mr Sarwar’s answer to the question, Mr Marr broke in, saying: “Perhaps I disagree totally with Anas here, I don’t know.

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“I find it equally offensive that all sorts of parts of Scotland, which have never been Gaelic, have never had Scots spoken.”

He added: “Why does Haymarket have to have the Gaelic for Haymarket under it? It’s ridiculous.

“The Scots are made up of many different peoples historically. Many different groups of people have come to Scotland and they brought different languages and I think we should let languages rest and prosper where they come from - which means the Gaeltacht remains the Gaeltacht and the English-speaking ...”

Mr Sarwar said he did not “take the Andrew Marr view”.

He said: “Right now it feels like the Gaelic language strategy is rooted around signs, symbolism, rather than economic opportunity and outcomes. And that’s where I think there is a fundamental break.”

The Evaluation Report on the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, compiled by the council’s committee of experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, said its experts had been told by Scots that following the 2014 independence referendum, there had been a “politicisation of language issues”.

The report said: “Speakers informed the Committee of Experts that in public discourse, there have been some attempts to link Scottish Gaelic or Scots language promotion or speakers of those languages with the independence movement.”

However, Gaelic signage has been used in Scotland since the late 1990s, in a movement approved by late Labour politician and former first minister Donald Dewar, when he was secretary of state for Scotland in the government of Tony Blair.

There are around 70,000 Gaelic speakers in Scotland, census figures show - a 2.5 per cent rise. However, Gaelic speakers are in a minority in the Western Isles for the first time, according to 2022 census data. The language has recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity through language-learning app Duolingo.