POLICE are to speak to Lord Livingston over allegations he was subjected to racist abuse online after voting in support of tax credit cuts in the House of Lords.
It has been confirmed police are to act proactively in talking to the Celtic director after he named and shamed those who subjected him to abuse after siding with the Conservatives when he voted against delays to Chancellor Osborne’s tax credit changes.
Ian Bankier, the Celtic chairman, condemned what he described as the “criminally racist abuse” of Lord Livingston, the non-executive director at the AGM.
An online petition demanding that Lord Livingston be removed from his position was launched last month and has been supported by more than 10,000 people.
Lord Livingston defended his stance, saying he believes there needs to be tax credit proposal changes but felt it was not the unelected Second Chamber's role to stand in the way.
Mr Bankier, who was heckled when he expressed his personal disappointment that the vote on the Glasgow-born former BT chief executive’s re-election had gone to a poll, hit out at the “highly personal campaign” against the Conservative peer. Lord Livingston was reappointed to his role after being voted back in at the Celtic AGM on Friday.
“Ian has been subjected to a torrent of utterly base personal abuse conducted over social media in recent weeks," said Mr Bankier. "The messages posted in quite a few cases are criminally racist and in all cases the vocabulary chosen is base and highly abusive. What sickens me to the core is that the campaign is conducted in the name of Brother Walfrid.”
The club was formally constituted at a meeting by Brother Walfrid on November 6, 1887, with the purpose of alleviating poverty in the east end of Glasgow by raising money for the charity he had instituted, the Poor Children's Dinner Table.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: "We have not received a report regarding this however officers will be making contact with Lord Livingston regarding the matter. We need to get in contact with him to find out what has happened."
Police are to take action after the peer made a statement on the Affiliation of Registered Celtic Supporters' Clubs website forum raising concerns about anti-semitic abuse directed at him.
"I hope you don’t mind me posting this," he wrote. "As the person about whom a number of abusive comments were made, I thought you may be interested in a couple of the racist ones so you can perhaps see why the chairman was upset about them.
“M*****l H*****s: Get this Ashkenazi c**t out of OUR club and take that other fake jew p***k Biton with him. This is typical of their sort, infiltrating and destroying every country and establisment (sic) from within.
"Or someone under the name R**s G***t saying. 'He’s a Jew what do you expect'.
"Many others were simply abusive. Not I assume anything to do with my religion rather because I had a different political view.
"Actually I wasn’t in agreement with the nature of the tax credit cuts but believed that this motion was not something the unelected House of Lords should do, so voted against it.
"No doubt some will disagree but you might consider the nature of expressing your view and whether abuse is also in line with your view of Celtic’s ethos.
"I have always believed Celtic fans are the best in the world and a few racist postings of social media will not change that as I know the overwhelming of fans whichever party the vote for would codemn (sic) them equally."
Several Celtic fans groups have called for Ian Bankier to consider his position following his remarks about the abuse by some fans when he came to the defence of Lord Livingston at the club's annual general meeting on Friday.
Peers voted by 289 votes to 272 to provide full financial redress to the millions of recipients affected, but Lord Livingston was on the losing side of that vote. Peers also inflicted a second defeat by backing a pause until an independent study of the impact was carried out.
Livingston quit BT in 2013 and was appointed Trade and Investment Minister as a surprise replacement for the former HSBC chairman Lord Green. He joined the House of Lords prior to his ministerial appointment.
@Gerry31D I saw no racist/anti-Semitic abuse. I didn't even know he was Jewish.
— Celtic Trust (@TheCelticTrust) November 23, 2015
I won't go to a Celtic game while @Lord_Livingston is there. I hate tories and everything they stand for, greed, and an hatred for the poor
— Steven McNamara (@irishmcnamara11) November 24, 2015
It doesn't matter what ethnic/religious background Lord Livingston comes from. No excuse for racism but he has to go for being a Tory shill.
— Tony McK ll*ll (@oakroyd) November 23, 2015
Lord Livingston of Parkhead it's not your religion we have a problem with its your political views. Many in (cont) https://t.co/GHoagRcYuT
— Maccasixty7✌ (@CRPSMACCA67) November 23, 2015
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel