RELIGIOUS bigotry should be rebranded as racism to increase the public stigma involved, it will be argued at Holyrood today.

Racism carries a greater odium in today's society and the term more accurately reflects the origins of sectarianism in Scotland, Professor Richard Finlay, Strathclyde University's historian will claim.

He will be speaking at Scottish-Irish Conversations on Sectarianism, organised by Aberdeen University's Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies as the opening event of this year's Festival of Politics at the Scottish Parliament.

Professor Finlay says the issue of bigotry in Scotland has been overlaid by elements of racism since the 19th century, when Irish and Catholic became virtually synonymous as terms denoting "backwardness" and justified through concepts such as social Darwinism and so-called scientific racism.

He adds: "When people go on about sectarianism or bigotry, if you call it racism it changes the debate fundamentally – because racism as a term carries a much greater stigma in our society than bigotry."

While its working class roots get much of the publicity, he says the middle-class manifestations of bigotry were "much more insidious".

A key figure was Andrew Dewar Gibb, the prominent lawyer who was active in the Unionist Party before becoming a founder of the SNP while Regius Professor of Law at Glasgow University.

Mr Finlay claims: "In some of his publications in the 1930s Dewar Gibb's descriptions of the Irish in Scotland were very similar to the views expressed about Jews in Nazi Germany."

He also points out that the Irish Republic's reaction to this – stressing Celticness in contrast to the Anglo Saxons and arguing that to be Irish you had to be Catholic – deepened the divide.

Sectarianism, Politics and the Law will be led by Professor Barbara Fennell and Dr Michael Brown, both of Aberdeen University, and chaired by the university's Glucksman Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies, Cairns Craig.

Other contributors include Dr Gladys Ganiel, assistant professor in conflict and resolution at Trinity College, Dublin, and the Rev Dr Alan David Falconer, former minister of the Cathedral Church of St Machar, Aberdeen, and a former director of the Irish School of Ecumenics.

Dr Ganiel will reflect on the way sectarianism has become embedded in Northern Ireland's politics, in spite of legislation working to soften its impact.

She said: "Sectarianism often gets reduced to individual attitudes, so most people don't see it as any of their business.

"That attitude is especially problematic in Northern Ireland, because it allows the sectarian system to continue. The political parties who are running the Northern Ireland Assembly have no incentive to smash the sectarian system, because their votes depend on it."

Dr Brown, the acting director of the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies, said: "Although sectarianism in Scotland often revolves around football rivalries, we know it goes far beyond this and it is important to look at the issue from all perspectives.

"Scotland and Ireland share many similarities and many of the same problems, though they manifest themselves in different ways."

Like many of the events at this eighth year of the Festival of Politics, which runs on Friday and Saturday over the next two weekends, the opening debate is free but requires a ticket.

Tonight the festival presents an updated version of Des Dillon's play Singing I'm No a Billy He's a Tim, bringing the newco Rangers story up to date. There is a charge for this event.

l www.festivalofpolitics.org.uk