A candidate for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK compared parking chaos in an Edinburgh street to Gaza. Grant Lidster has been condemned after claiming residents in Gorgie face a “similar sort of nightmare” over nuisance parking.
Scottish Greens MSP Lorna Slater said: “Children and innocent people in Gaza are being murdered in a genocidal campaign by an Israeli regime determined to destroy Palestine no matter the cost. This is no laughing matter. I hope Reform condemn these comments and denounce this candidate”.
Lidster, who is standing for Reform in next month’s Colinton/Fairmilehead by-election, made the comments in November last year after the outbreak of war in the Middle East.
Parking charges had been extended to the Gorgie area in an attempt to make it easier for residents to get a space nearer their homes. But locals on Westfield Street, which is on the edge of the controlled parking zone (CPZ), complained of fewer spaces for residents as other drivers were hogging the road.
In a written submission to Edinburgh council, Lidster wrote: “Our normal daily lives with adequate parking spaces have changed dramatically and has been totally transformed and completely intruded upon by an invasion of mostly static ‘nuisance parkers’.”
He gave oral evidence to a council committee and said: “It’s now turned into a street of hell. It’s like the Gorgie Strip, we call it, rather than the Gaza Strip. It’s the Gaza Strip that gets all the headlines – this is a Gorgie Strip and it’s a similar sort of nightmare, you know, hitting the news headlines.”
Scott Arthur, a Labour councillor at that time, responded at the meeting: “You compared the situation to Gaza and I think probably right now that’s probably not the best comparison to make. But I know you didn’t mean any harm by it.”
Lidster replied: “I wasn’t meaning the history. I was just meaning the headline that says the Gaza Strip. We’ve got a Gorgie Strip.”
He added: “Nothing in relation to what is happening in Gaza.”
The latest conflict in the Middle East was triggered after terrorist group Hamas launched an attack on Israel, killing around 1200 people. This led to a massive Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza, with the UN estimating that 45,000 people have been killed in the enclave in fourteen months.
Labour MSP Daniel Johnson said “This comment is either insultingly crass or simply disconnected from reality, most likely it is a desperate attempt to get noticed by saying something controversial. I hope people in Colinton, Oxgangs and Fairmilehead see this for the pathetic political attention seeking that it is.”
A Scottish Conservative spokesperson said: “These comments are ill-judged. Only a vote for the Scottish Conservatives is a vote for a credible local champion who will focus on the issues that really matter such as repairing our roads and stopping cuts to local schools.”
Reform UK have performed strongly in recent local by-elections and the right wing party is on course to make a Holyrood breakthrough in 2026. The Record recently revealed that the party’s Central Scotland Organiser, Craig Campbell, had family links to convicted terrorists. He was removed from the post.
Reform have been contacted.
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