A BARRHEAD activist has been banned by a hardline Scottish independence group over a “racist” banner displayed outside the SNP conference hall in Edinburgh.

The banner, which said “England get out of Scotland”, was being held by controversial Scottish Resistance member Sean Clerkin at the weekend.

James Scott, founder of the Scottish Resistance, said a meeting of the group had agreed the banner was “not acceptable” and should instead have read: “Westminster out of Scotland”.

READ MORE: Scottish Resistance man Sean Clerkin gets on dancing shoes at Hope Over Fear rally

Now Mr Scott said that Mr Clerkin, who denies claims that the banner is racist, has been banned from the Scottish Resistance movement.

Mr Scott said it was the latest in a series of issues, which included Mr Clerkin continuing a protest outside the Spanish consulate at the time of the 2017 Catalonia referendum against the wishes of other group.

Six members of the Scottish Resistance group went into the consulate building on North Castle Street, Edinburgh.

They unfurled a banner and stayed for a few minutes before leaving.

But they say Mr Clerkin stayed.

Spanish government officials ended up calling the police and Mr Clerkin was arrested.

Last year he was cleared of behaving in a threatening and abusive manner at the Spanish consulate.

Barrhead News: Sean Clerkin has been involved in a number of controversial incidents Sean Clerkin has been involved in a number of controversial incidents

The group also quoted an incident when Mr Clerkin who claimed he had been assaulted at a Tory party election event was convicted of wasting police time.

Mr Clerkin gained access to a Scottish Conservative party event at Hamilton Academical FC stadium in April last year.

In June, Mr Clerkin was suspended after he said he was quitting the nationalist cause over the SNP’s new economic prospectus which he describes as "a betrayal".

Mr Scott said: "He managed to survive then, but this time he has not survived. The members are sick and fed up with him. I get inundated with lots of emails and messages on Facebook because of his behaviour. So everyone wants him out now.

"He has been banned, that's official. He is no longer with us. He is an absolute menace to the cause."

Asked if Mr Clerkin could appeal, Mr Scott said: "It is a decision that has been made and it will stand."

Mr Clerkin, who is known for chasing former Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray into a sandwich shop in 2011, said in response to the controversy: "The banner displayed at the SNP conference is not racist and is not anti English.

"What the banner is about is the conquest of Scotland in 1707 where the unelected parliamentarians in the Scottish Parliament were bribed by the English elite to sell Scotland out ,what the national bard Robert Burns called a parcel of rogues in a nation.

READ MORE: Sean Clerkin protests against homelessness outside Holyrood

"Scotland is under a Westminster tyranny,an English monarch, the Bank of England etc where our people are enslaved every day to poverty, over a million of our people living in poverty 260,000 of them being children and with record numbers of homeless and food banks.

"The banner is a copy of the Sinn Fein banner that was in the St Patrick’s day parade a number of weeks ago."

His comments on social media concluded: "I make no apology for the banner as it is direct and to the point about our subjugation to the English or British state. Saor Alba."

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