Want to spot a Nazi? Ask them about Humza Yousaf and see what happens

No-hopers eating Wotsits in their dirty underpants at their computer screen can shout all they want. I’m going nowhere. To our national shame, Yousaf - understandably - feels different. He says he may leave Britain because of the racism he endures.

On Twitter, there were far many, far greater, far more evil and malicious attacks against Yousaf in response to my column than were targeted towards me. I won’t repeat the worst, but the screeds of posts telling him "get back to Pakistan" - he was born in Glasgow - were at the lower end of the scale.

You don’t need me to spell out of the worst. You can imagine what they said. White, black or brown, we’ve all heard the filth that pours from racist mouths.

Let’s be frank. If you want to test who’s Nazi - or at minimum an extremist neck-deep in far-right hate - just ask them about Yousaf. Their response will tell you all you need to know. The very existence of the man triggers them.

A quick scan through their social media posts and you’re in a well of despair. These people have nothing inside them, they’re sick in their soul. There’s nobody who gives a damn about them apart from their fellow denizens in Musk’s swamp.

READ MORE BY NEIL MACKAY

Elon Musk and Humza Yousaf are at war, how should we respond

Wannabe Bond villain Musk needs his wings clipped

What 30 years investigating the far right taught me about the riots

You could easily mistake their scribblings as the lonely, basement groans of the incel movement. But a swarm of pathetic no-marks can make a hell of a lot of noise.

Let’s deal with the nonsense they spout claiming Yousaf is anti-white. It relates to a speech on diversity he gave as Justice Minister in 2020, when protests swept the world after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in America.

In the speech, Yousaf addressed “racial injustice” and said “we are still dealing with overt racism, subtle racism, institutional racism and structural racism”.

He went on to say that Scotland “is not immune”, and noted that “there has not been a single black member of the Scottish Parliament”.

In the wake of a racist outrage, a prominent man of colour was making a series of entirely factual points. It was an argument which people of good sense and decency listened to in Scotland.

That was the context in which the speech was given. However, in 2023 a Facebook poster uploaded an edited 55-second clip of the speech stripped of all context.

In the heavily-cut snippet, Yousaf says “most senior positions in Scotland are filled almost exclusively by people who are white”, and gave examples such as the Lord President, the Lord Justice Clerk, the Solicitor-General, the chief medical officer, chief nursing officer and chief social work adviser.

He added: “Almost every trade union in this country [is] headed by people who are white. In the Scottish Government, every director general is white. Every chair of every public body is white.”

In the edited, context-free Facebook post, the user claimed Yousaf “thinks there are too many white people in Scotland”. The post went viral and was eventually amplified by billionaire race-baiter Musk, who called Yousaf a “blatant racist”.

It’s a neat trick the far-right often pull. Whatever sin they’re guilty of, they direct it back at their victims. It’s called "Darvo": Deny, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender.

The international news agency Reuters even fact-checked the allegations against Yousaf and found it was “being misrepresented online by those suggesting it shows the SNP politician arguing that Scotland contains too many white people”.

So, frankly, it’s lies. But when did extremists care about the truth, when they can take lies and wield them as cudgels?

Make no mistake, such extremists were behind the flood of police reports made against Yousaf earlier this year when the new Hate Crime legislation hit the statute books. Police Scotland had to make it clear no crime was committed.

These reports were partly triggered by disinformation in the mainstream media: absurd, dangerous claims that the ‘Stasi’ were coming to arrest Scots in their living-rooms.

The far-right riots may have quelled but hate remains strong. A recent survey, which polled people across Britain, found that 36% thought “xenophobic acts of violence are defensible if they result in fewer refugees”; 32% thought “hostility against refugees is sometimes justified, even if it ends up in violence”; 39% thought that on the issue of refugees “violence is sometimes the only means that citizens have to get the attention of British politicians”; and 34% believed “attacks against refugee homes are sometimes necessary to make it clear to politicians that we have a refugee problem”.

Elon Musk has been engaged in an online row with Humza Yousaf (Image: PA) ind far-right rioting.

Then there’s some who juggle extremist language like hand-grenades, and are feted, even molly-coddled. Douglas Murray, associate editor of the Spectator, once claimed Yousaf “infiltrated our system”, calling him “First Minister of Gaza”.

Some months back, Murray appeared on film referencing pro-Palestine marches, saying “the British people will not take this lying down”. He accused police of losing control of the streets: “If the army will not be sent in, then the public will have to go in, and the public will have to sort this out themselves, and it’ll be very, very brutal.”

Andrew Neil, Spectator Chairman, recently faced anger over Murray’s filmed comments. He replied online that Murray had “not written this for the Spectator or said it on our TV or podcasts”.

Ghanem Nuseibeh, chair of Muslims Against Anti-Semitism, called that a “terrible response”, adding: “It’s an embarrassment to stay as a subscriber.”

Neil’s reply? “Unsubscribe now please.”