The NUS Scotland LGBT Campaign condemns the knighthood that was given to Brian Souter in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list and is calling on the public to sign a petition to have the honour revoked.

Brian Souter, the businessman behind Stagecoach, was a prominent leader of the Keep the Clause campaign in 2000, where he campaigned to keep Section 28 which forbade local authorities to “intentionally promote homosexuality”.

Peter Tatchell, gay rights campaigner, said of Mr Souter, "… his support for Section 28 is the moral equivalent of the business-funded campaign to maintain racial segregation in the Deep South of the USA in the 1950s."

He was implicit in the running of the first privately funded postal referendum in Scotland to ‘gauge public opinion’ on Section 28 and over 60% of the ballots where not returned. The poll was criticised as “an exercise in chequebook democracy”  and the then Communities Minister, Wendy Alexander said: "I think what is significant about the ballot is that two out of three voters rejected, or binned or simply ignored this glorified opinion poll.”

Honoring a known homophobe in this manner for his services to transport and voluntary sector is despicable. Such a man should not be provided with the platform of a knighthood.

The NUS Scotland LGBT Campaign is calling for this knighthood to be retracted in support of the people who suffer from homophobic or transphobic bullying and harassment, and to send a clear message to the homophobes that that kind of behaviour is not acceptable.

Please sign & share the petition and join the Facebook group Withdraw Brian Souter's Knighthood.