Craig Houston, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Scotland, has found a new way to court attention: by filming outside schools and pretending it’s journalism.
In Renfrew this week, Houston turned up outside St James’ Primary School with a camera, claiming to be “exposing” migrants. What he actually exposed was himself - a man loitering near a primary school and spinning a routine community-learning project into a conspiracy.
The reality is simple. The St James’ campus includes a community-learning wing where adults - including asylum seekers and new Scots - attend supervised English-language classes. They are not in classrooms with children. They are not teaching, or mixing, or “grooming.” They are learning English under council supervision, in a secured section of the site.
Locals didn’t miss the irony. On X, parents and community voices quickly called Houston out for what he was doing. One post that really cut through though came from user @FootballTrikot,
Houston ignored the criticism, doubling down and reposting more footage from outside the school. Within hours, the clips were circulating through the usual ecosystem of right-wing accounts and conspiracy groups, feeding the same outrage economy that thrives on fear of migrants and disdain for facts.
Renfrewshire Council later confirmed what everyone already knew: the adults in the footage were attending English classes in a secure, separate wing. There was never any danger - except the one posed by Houston’s camera.
This is how modern demagogues work. Find an ordinary civic space - a school, a library, a housing scheme - add the word migrant, and film yourself pointing at it until the algorithm rewards you. It isn’t journalism, it’s paranoia on autoplay.
Craig Houston isn’t protecting children. He’s using them - as backdrop, as bait, as props for his performance of patriotism. In the process he endangers the very communities he claims to defend.
There’s a word for people who hang around outside schools with cameras for clicks. And it isn’t campaigner.
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