Scotland needs ‘at least one million more’ immigrants to ‘work the land’ and tackle climate change, a Green MSP has claimed.
MSP Ariane Burgess admitted it would create a challenge for the Highlands – which may not be ready for ‘multicultural’ impact of the mass influx.
She said migrants may be better suited to farming than indigenous Scots and the country must ‘be welcoming and embrace people’.
The Highlands and Island MSP is a champion of land reform but criticised recent legal changes to force the break-up of some large estates for not being radical enough.
Her comments come amid plans to provide temporary accommodation for hundreds of asylum seekers at a barracks in Inverness city centre, sparking a major row.
Last night Scottish Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden said: ‘These bonkers remarks show just how out of touch the Scottish Greens are with the public.
‘If Ariane Burgess and her Green colleagues had their way, we wouldn’t have any borders at all — and yet John Swinney still won’t rule out a grubby deal with them after next year’s election.’
Green rural affairs spokesman Ms Burgess, convener of Holyrood’s local government, housing and planning committee, spoke at a land reform conference hosted by lobby group Revive in Perth last Saturday.
Green MSP Ariane Burgess has called for an influx of a million migrants to Scotland
Ms Burgess believes migrants may be better suited to working the land than Scots
She said: ‘If there aren’t any people in the straths and the glens, we’re not going to be tackling climate change – we absolutely need people in our rural communities.
‘I go round my region and I think, “are people in the Highlands and Islands ready for a multicultural Highlands and Islands” – because that’s absolutely what we need.
‘What I learned when I was busy with the independence campaign is that Scotland needs at least one million more people and they’re not going to come from here, they’re going to come from elsewhere.
‘They’re going to come because they can no longer live where they grew up because of climate change, because of wars.
‘So we need to be welcoming and embrace people and actually many of those people possibly have more of the earth and the skills in their bodies and their bones and possibly know how to work the land better than we do – maybe not specifically to our climate, but they could have a lot to bring and enrich Scottish culture.’
Earlier this month, the Scottish parliament passed land reforms which could force the break-up of some large estates.
The Bill is designed to help reduce the concentration of rural land ownership among a small number of people, and to give communities a greater say in what happens on privately owned land.
It also seeks to increase opportunities for community buyouts of land and could allow for large estates to be split into smaller plots when they are put up for sale.
Cameron Barracks in Inverness where 300 immigrants are going to be housed
But Ms Burgess said ministers had shown a ‘lack of ambition to deliver the real land reform that is so vital’.
Meanwhile, a Green councillor has claimed that asylum seekers who are being moved into Cameron Barracks in Inverness should be offered a civic buffet.
Chris Ballance told a meeting of Highland Council that the 300 men who are set to be housed at the site must be welcomed.
In a bizarre intervention in the debate surrounding the contentious scheme, the Left-wing politician, who was wearing a white poppy, told councillors: ‘I will be asking the Inverness Common Good Fund at our next meeting to grant a civic buffet to all of these asylum seekers, in due course, to give them a great welcome in our great townhouse.’
Mr Ballance, who represents Aird and Loch Ness, also said that it was a cure to the depopulation crisis facing the Highlands.
He said: ‘Of course some may be economic migrants, so what?
‘Last week we were discussing the huge problem of depopulation in rural Highlands. Economic migrants, by definition, are people who come here to work.
‘Young people, with enough get up and go, to risk their lives crossing seas and continents to work. Isn’t that just what we need?’
He said that the ‘reasonable people of Inverness have sympathy and compassion for people escaping persecution’ and added: ‘I see the racist bile on social media, and I guess that most of it comes from Peterhead or England rather than the Highlands.’
The Scottish Greens said: ‘Rural depopulation is a massive problem for Scotland, and so is our ageing population.
‘We need more people to build homes, provide care and support small businesses who are crying out for more workers.
‘Migration is good for Scotland and can give us the people and skills that we need to build our economy and power our public services which have been so badly harmed by the disaster of Brexit.’
A Scottish Greens spokesman said: ‘Rural depopulation is a massive problem for Scotland, and so is our ageing population.
‘We need more people to build homes, provide care and support small businesses who are crying out for more workers.
‘Migration is good for Scotland and can give us the people and skills that we need to build our economy and power our public services which have been so badly harmed by the disaster of Brexit.’