EDINBURGH, May 12 (RIA Novosti), Mark Hirst – Western leaders do not know what they are doing by backing neo-Nazis who overthrew the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) leader Colin Fox has told RIA Novosti.
“There is a history there, in that part of the world, where the Nazis invaded Ukraine and some people collaborated with them and other people, rather more nobly, resisted the Nazis,” Fox said.
“You are seeing the remnants and the explosion of that today, a deep seated hatred,” Fox told RIA Novosti.
“I think the so-called West has been backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine for some time and then they toppled the democratically elected president of Ukraine,” added Fox, who is also a board member of the pro-independence Yes Scotland campaign.
“Democracy is meant to be lauded all around the world,” Fox said.
“The West don’t know what they are doing. They are stoking dynamite in Ukraine.”
Fox was joined in his condemnation of US and EU intervention in Ukraine by Councillor Maggie Chapman, the co-leader of the Scottish Green Party.
“What is happening in Ukraine is very concerning,” Chapman told RIA Novosti.
Chapman blames the rise of the far-right – not just in Ukraine, but across Europe – on wealthy elites who, she says, are forcing through deeply unpopular austerity measures whilst their own personal fortunes are increasing.
“When we have the economic crisis that we have at the moment those sort of far-right solutions that target the vulnerable, the poor and the ordinary person are backed by the wealthy, because the structures and institutions of the state exist to serve the wealthy few,” Chapman told RIA Novosti.
Meanwhile Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, who is accountable to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, refused to condemn the right-wing coup leaders who seized power in Ukraine in February. Instead Davidson quoted Ukraine’s parliament-appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk in accusing Russia of “aggression.”
Davidson also sought to “highlight” Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond’s “complimentary comments about President Putin,” but pointedly refused to criticize the Ukrainian authorities.
Asked by RIA Novosti whether the Conservatives supported the anti-Semitic, pro-rape views expressed by some of the unelected officials in Kiev, a spokesman for Davidson said he had nothing further to add.
