Greens vow to examine Donald Trump’s wealth

The Scottish Greens would open an inquiry into how Donald Trump has funded his Scottish golf courses if they win next week’s election, the party has said.

The Greens have long been opponents of the US president, and pushed for an unexplained wealth order to be used to assess how he was able to buy the facilities in South Ayrshire and Aberdeenshire.

The party’s external affairs spokesman and former co-leader Patrick Harvie said the billionaire “should never have been allowed to treat Scotland as his personal playground”.

He said: “He is a convicted fraudster, a racist and a war criminal whose politics have brought fear, violence and instability across the world.

“The evidence suggests that he has been ripping Scotland off along the way.

“Yet the Scottish and UK governments have fawned over him because he is rich, powerful and owns a couple of golf courses. That has to end.

“Nobody should be above the law, especially not the likes of Donald Trump.

“The Scottish Government should be using every power it has to get to the bottom of it, including an unexplained wealth order.

“This would force Trump to reveal where the money he used to purchase assets in Scotland came from, but the Scottish Government has continued to ignore these calls, shielding Trump from any form of scrutiny.

“That is why Scottish Greens would reopen the case and use an unexplained wealth order to force the transparency that Trump has avoided for far too long.”

His comments come after the Green Party’s leader in England and Wales, Zack Polanski, suggested Mr Trump’s golf courses should be stripped from him using international sanctions, describing the president as “unhinged” during a press conference in Glasgow.

Sarah Malone, executive vice-president of Trump International Scotland, said: “These people are completely stupid and will say anything in the hope of grabbing a headline.

“Their juvenile antics totally undermine their claim to be a serious political party.

“The hundreds of Scottish people who work at our world-class golf courses in Scotland, and the tens of thousands of visitors who flock to them annually, see this for what it is – utterly pathetic and divorced from the real world.”