Lisa Cameron, an SNP MP who defected to the Conservative Party on Thursday, said she and her family were forced to go into hiding in Scotland after being threatened with being “bricked” in the street.
Cameron, her husband and two daughters have moved to a secret location in the Scottish countryside after the MP received email threats of violence, including "I hope someone throws a brick at you in the street", "I hope burn yourself out" and "Think your mental health is bad now; cry until you see the abuse and evil that you are. [sic] "We're going to have to hold on."
In his first interview since resigned from the SNP to join the ConservativesThe MP told the Times she had received a barrage of insults and threatening messages.
She said: “We have received many personal threats. “Unfortunately, I think that is where the political discourse in Scotland has reached: aggression, violence and anger are combined with the debate about nationalism.”
The former NHS psychologist, elected in 2015, resigned from the SNP on the eve of her party conference in Aberdeen, hours before a planned selection meeting to choose the next candidate for her East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow constituency. She had faced a challenge from SNP staffer Grant Costello, who was supported by Scottish Government minister Christina McKelvie and current and former East Kilbride MPs Collette Stevenson and Linda Fabiani. .
In the interview, Cameron said that because she repeatedly opposed the SNP's "progressive" policy positions, she had been ignored by party colleagues in the tea room and corridors of the House of Commons and was forced to seek help from a counselor and your family doctor after experiencing panic attacks. and loneliness.
"I found it to be a psychologically coercive situation," Cameron told the Times. “They are always right. If you question things you are wrong and you are isolated. “There is a lot of fear and intimidation.”
He was prescribed antidepressants and received counseling, but his doctor told him that he should consider his environment as the main cause of his problems.
He said “the final straw” was the way the party had handled complaints against SNP MP Patrick Grady. When allegations that he had made unwanted advances to a teenage party worker first emerged, Ian Blackford, then the party's leader at Westminster, called on his colleagues to support Grady by "giving him as much support as possible". An independent investigation confirmed the allegations and Grady was suspended from the party for six months, but the whip was reinstated late last year. Cameron said the process had let the party worker down. “The way the victim was treated was something I could never be complicit in or tolerate,” he said.
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Cameron, the first MP to switch from the SNP to the Conservatives, said: "I don't think the government is being run competently in Scotland."
His decision was dismissed on BBC Radio Scotland as “a rather strange tantrum by someone who was going to lose his nomination” by SNP president Mike Russell, while Scottish First Minister and SNP leader Humza Yousaf said: his constituents would be “deeply disappointed” by his actions and he added that he should “do the honorable thing” and retire.
