Donald Trump thrown out of Scots business network

Donald Trump has been kicked out of a worldwide network for business professionals with Scottish connections after the presidential hopeful said Muslims should be refused entry to the United States.

The US tycoon, who was invited to join the GlobalScot network in 2006, has called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on”.

His comments, which followed a mass shooting in San Bernadino, have attracted condemnation from across the political spectrum with calls for a boycott of Trump’s Scottish hotels and golf courses.

GlobalScot was started by Scottish Enterprise in 2001 as a network of business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives with a connection to Scotland that could help support homegrown companies compete internationally.

An attempt to have the former presenter of The Apprentice US removed from GlobalScot failed in 2012. However, Nicola Sturgeon has decided that the business tycoon’s latest outburst justifies his withdrawal.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Mr Trump’s recent remarks have shown that he is no longer fit to be a business ambassador for Scotland and the First Minister has decided his membership of the respected GlobalScot business network should be withdrawn with immediate effect.”

Green MSP Patrick Harvie lodged a motion at Holyrood in February 2012 calling for his membership to be revoked amid claims the Scottish Government had been "deeply misguided in its previous dealings with Mr Trump".

The motion noted "the threat from Donald Trump not only to fund a private campaign against renewable energy in Scotland, but also to use the courts to delay what it believes to be the vital European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre".

Meanwhile, the Chancellor George Osborne has rejected calls for Trump to be banned from entering the UK after a petition on doing so reached 100,000 signatures - making it eligible for debate in parliament.

During Prime Minister’s Question SNP MP ​Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh asked if the Government will step in and ban Mr Trump from entering the UK.

Standing in for David Cameron, Osborne replied: “I think the best way to confront the views of someone like Donald Trump is to engage in a robust, democratic argument about why he is profoundly wrong... rather than trying to ban presidential candidates.”