Tom Gordon

A FORMER President of the Law Society of Scotland who called Nationalists "fascist scum" has been suspended by the Labour party.

Blogger Ian Smart, who describes himself as "lefty lawyer and "Scottish Labour Party hack", was suspending after regularly courting controversy on Twitter.

Last year, referring to the SNP's wartime history, when several key figures were suspected of wanting a Nazi victory to advance nationalism, Smart said: "Are we really going to go through the entire D-day weekend without anybody pointing out the SNP were on the Nazi side?"

And during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, he wrote: "Two black English lassies cheered all the way round Hampden. I suspect Eck [Alex Salmond] is crying into his soup."

After Labour's Kezia Dugdale raised the issue of aggressive online SNP supporters at First Minister's Questions in April, Nicola Sturgeon responded by asking her about Smart.

She told Dugdale: "On April 4, a senior Labour activist described the SNP as 'fascist scum'. "For completeness, will Kezia Dugdale tells us what action Labour took against that activist?"

She added: "The senior Labour activist to whom I was referring is Ian Smart. He appears regularly on television for Labour, putting across the Labour case. He described us as 'the heirs of [former SNP leader] Arthur Donaldson ... Fascist scum then. Fascist scum forever'.

"It was not the first time that he has made such remarks."

The then Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy said Smart had been warned about his Tweets.

"We have told Ian Smart his behaviour is unacceptable. He has been left in no uncertain terms about that," Murphy said last month.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: "Ian Smart's membership has been put under administrative suspension and the party is carrying out an investigation into the allegations."

Smart could not be contacted for comment.