MSP Jamie Greene has defected to the Scottish Liberal Democrats, just a day after dramatically quitting the Tories. The West Scotland MSP was unveiled as a Lib Dem at the party’s spring conference in Inverness. He had left the Scottish Conservatives on Thursday, writing a stinging letter to party leader Russell Findlay which accused his former party of having a “Reform-lite agenda”. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I have to say I'm not sure who's more surprised to see me here, you or me, to be quite honest with
00:04you. Can I thank you for that really kind opening remark. I am really happy to be here. As you've
00:11probably spotted the last few days have been tumultuous to say the least in my life. In the
00:18last 48 hours I've gone from being politically homeless, like many Scots right now, to joining
00:26you here today in my new home. I've been to many party conferences over the years and I know it's
00:32a chance for you to speak to each other and speak to those in the room, but I also want to speak to
00:37those outside of this room and outside of the entire political bubble. I especially want, if
00:44you don't mind, to talk to those compassionate centre-right and decent Tories, like the many
00:50of them who have written to me in these last 24 hours. Why? Because like me they were simply
00:56scunnered. They were scunnered with the endless culture wars and the fringe issues that my former
01:02party has become obsessed with. In these dangerous times that we live in, let me be direct, the
01:11language of hatred, of right-wing populism and of scapegoating people must be fought against and must
01:19be defeated. I also say to those people watching, there is light at the end of the tunnel. If you
01:32too, if you too want to fight the Trumpism that has appeared on our political backyard,
01:39if you feel the same way as I do, then there is a home for you and that home is here, right now.