SNP activists invite conspiracy theorist Craig Murray for speech in Edinburgh

Activists from the Scottish National Party (SNP) have invited a controversial former diplomat, Craig Murray, to address them at an event in Edinburgh.

Mr Murray, a blogger and conspiracy theorist, suggested in March 2018 that Israel was more likely than Russia to have been behind the Salisbury poisoning of the Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, reportedly writing on his blog: “While I am struggling to see a Russian motive for damaging its own international reputation so grievously, Israel has a clear motivation for damaging the Russian reputation.”

It is understood that Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s Justice Spokesperson in Parliament, will not be present at the event at the Party’s Braidburn branch to hear Mr Murray, a former ambassador to Uzbekistan who failed vetting to become an SNP candidate in 2014 apparently due to a “lack of a commitment to group discipline”.

A spokesman for Ms Cherry said that she planned to leave the branch before Mr Murray’s speech.

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