Nicola Sturgeon was yesterday confronted by a far-right bigot who is standing against her in the Holyrood election.
Ex-Britain First leader Jayda Fransen was filmed approaching the First Minister as she left a polling station in the Glasgow Southside constituency.
The 34-year-old accused the centre-left SNP leader of being a ‘Marxist’ who believes in ‘mass immigration’.
Sturgeon later went on to refer to Fransen as a “racist” and a “fascist” as she walked away from the confrontation.
After two failed attempts at becoming an elected official, Fransen is this time trying her hand at taking Nicola Sturgeon’s seat in this year's Scottish parliamentary election.
The 34-year-old has been previously involved with fascist groups such as Britain First and the English Defence League.
Fransen’s first election attempt came in 2014 when she stood under the Britain First banner to become an MP for Rochester and Strood - she won just 54 votes from a turnout of more than 40,000.
Four years later, Fransen this time tried to shoehorn her toxic views into the London Assembly as a Britain First candidate once again. Her party secured just 1.5% of the overall vote.
Fransen has also been found guilty of hate crimes on a number of occasions.
In 2016, she was found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment after hurling abuse at a Muslim woman, in front of her children, for wearing a hijab. Fransen was fined £2,000 for the offence.
Two years later, she was handed a 36-week jail sentence over the distribution of leaflets and posting online videos during a gang-rape trial.
Her former right-hand man at Britain First, Paul Golding, was also given a prison sentence for his part in the offence.
The judge of trial said that Fransen’s and Golding’s words and actions ‘demonstrated hostility’ towards Muslims and the Muslim faith.
Fransen was also convicted in 2019 for stirring hatred during a speech about Islam in Belfast in 2017.
After a CV of convictions and previous failures at the polls, Fransen announced that she would stand against SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Labour leader Anas Sarwar in this year’s Holyrood election for the Glasgow Southside constituency.
On the campaign trail, she has described herself as a “Christian fundamentalist” and an “extremist in every sense of the word”.
She believes that Islam and The Quran should be banned in the UK and anti-monarchists should be hanged for treason.
Documents from Glasgow City Council show Fransen standing as an independent candidate. However, she has been involved in videos under the British Freedom Party.
The party said that it “rejects the evils” of abortion, gay marriage and multiculturalism.
It also says that it ‘asserts the right to defend the UK border by any means necessary’.
Nicola Sturgeon said that the southside of Glasgow will “reject” Fransen and her ideology during the confrontation yesterday.
The result of the constituency vote is expected to be revealed at some point today.
