{"id":611968,"date":"2025-12-04T16:11:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T16:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/611968\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T16:11:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T16:11:17","slug":"john-swinney-slams-nigel-farages-remarks-on-glasgow-schoolchildren-as-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/611968\/","title":{"rendered":"John Swinney slams Nigel Farage\u2019s remarks on Glasgow schoolchildren as ‘racist’"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Swinney condemned Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader claimed one in three Glasgow schoolchildren do not speak English as a first language, calling the remarks \u201csimply racist\u201d.Rachel Keenan, PA Scotland News and Politics Reporter<\/strong> and Gemma Ryder<\/strong><\/a> Reporter<\/p>\n

15:00, 04 Dec 2025<\/p>\n

Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK Party.(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Comments that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage made about Glasgow schoolchildren are “simply racist”, First Minister John Swinney<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

Mr Farage, in a video on social media, claimed one in three schoolchildren in Glasgow<\/a> do not speak English as their first language.<\/p>\n

He said: “This is not diversity, as the left always preach, this actually is the cultural smashing of Glasgow.<\/p>\n

“It’s turning it into a completely different city in every way. My question is, who voted for this? Who told anybody in Scotland this was actually happening?”<\/p>\n

Speaking to media on Thursday, Mr Swinney said the comments demonstrated that Mr Farage<\/a> is “a purveyor of racist views”.<\/p>\n

He said: “I think Nigel Farage’s comments are just quite simply racist. That’s what they are. There’s no other way to describe it.<\/p>\n

John Swinney during First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament, on December 4, 2025.(Image: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

“I don’t know quite when we believed that multilingualism was something of a problem in our society, and certainly not the view I take. I think it’s a benefit. I think it reflects the diversity of our country.<\/p>\n

“I think what these comments from Nigel Farage demonstrate is that he is a purveyor of racist views and people should think about that long and hard before they think about voting for his party.”<\/p>\n

Reform UK has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Swinney condemned Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader claimed one in three Glasgow schoolchildren do not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,7618,918,4884,7852,384,15894,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-611968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england-cricket-team","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-john-swinney","13":"tag-nigel-farage","14":"tag-racism","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115662179434661010","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}