The Church of Scotland has suspended a minister who branded Jeremy Corbyn a “terrorist sympathiser”.
Richard Cameron, the minister at Scotstoun Parish Church, directed the comment at the Labour leader at an event on Wednesday. He was also found to have posted a series of homophobic tweets.
A Church of Scotland spokesperson said: “In accordance with our procedures Rev Richard Cameron has been administratively suspended.
“This is to allow us to carry out an enquiry in relation to the incident which took place earlier this week and the subsequent complaints about his social media use.”
As Mr Corbyn was entering the Heart of Scotstoun community centre on Wednesday, he stopped to tell reporters about a scarf he was wearing, which had been given to him by representatives of the Who Cares Scotland charity.
But he was interrupted by Mr Cameron, who shouted: “I thought you’d be wearing your Islamic jihad scarf.”
He added: “Who’s going to be the first terrorist invited to the House of Commons when you’re prime minister?”
After footage of the encounter attracted attention online, Labour pointed to a series of controversial past tweets from Mr Cameron, who posted that “homosexual behaviour is a sin” and “allowing children to change their gender is wicked”.
In September he tweeted: “Christ has the power to help and change anyone. Obviously many gays hate this because want to carry on in their perversion.”
He also shared a series of controversial views on Islam, describing terrorism as “a problem Islam needs to deal with”, a full face veil as “oppressive and unBritish” and the prophet Muhammad as “a violent man”.
Green MSP Ross Greer, a member of the Church of Scotland, tweeted: “Bigoted nonsense directed at Corbyn today doesnt represent the @churchscotland. The bigoted tweets surfacing certainly don’t.
“Do I wish the Kirk were robust in rejecting fringe figures like this guy? Yes. We must do so much better to say this isn’t who we are & isn’t acceptable.”
Mr Cameron had also said to Mr Corbyn: “Do you think that the man who is going to be prime minister of this country should be a terrorist sympathiser, Mr Corbyn?”
The Labour leader did not react to Mr Cameron and was ushered into the community centre by Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard.
Mr Cameron then accused Mr Corbyn of “running away”.
The Church of Scotland had rebuked Mr Cameron for the way he approached the situation, saying: “Whilst we may occasionally robustly challenge policy issues with which we disagree, we always intend to do that in a way that is polite and measured and allows for reasoned debate.”
