A PRO-INDEPENDENCE campaigner who tweeted as the great-great-grandson of Labour Party founder Keir Hardie is not quite what he seems.
Ross Hardie slammed current Labour leader Ed Miliband saying his ancestor would be “embarrassed” by his stance on independence.
Thousands of Yes campaigners leapt on the message, retweeting it and sharing pictures of the exchange.
But a check by the Record discovered that Ross isn’t actually a direct descendant of the late politician.
The 36-year-old, from Dunbar, East Lothian, sent the message in the wake of the independence referendum last night.
Miliband had written: “Alistair Darling showed once again tonight that Alex Salmond has absolutely no answers on key questions around independence.”
Ross replied: “My great, great grandad found the Labour Party & would be embarrassed by the state of the party in Scotland & by this tweet.”
The message went viral and was shared across various social networks, attracting mainstream media interest.
We contacted the dad-of-one to write a story about his views and carried out a background check.
But we found out that Ross’s claim at being Hardie’s great-great-grandson doesn’t actually hold water.
When we asked him about the mistake, he insisted he was a relation and had always been told he was a descendant of the working-class champion.
He added: “I was just responding to a quite frankly ludicrous tweet by Ed Miliband.
“Whether Keir Hardie would have agreed with it or not, it was an embarrassing tweet he put out.”
Later Hardie deleted his Twitter account after posting: “I’ve had enough of media intrusion. Wish never tweeted.
“I don’t want in the papers or family being pestered. I’m giving up social media.”
The Yes campaign told the Record they hadn’t been in contact with Ross.
A spokesman for Better Together said: “Keir Hardie was a Scot who represented an English parliamentary seat and a Welsh parliamentary seat and who campaigned for home rule for Scotland within the United Kingdom.”
Born in Lanarkshire in 1856, James Keir Hardie helped form the Labour Party in 1900.
He went on to become a working class champion campaigning for workers’ rights and became one of the most influential politicians of the early 20th century.
He had four children – three of whom died childless. One of them, Jamie Hardie, emigrated to the USA at a young age and had a family abroad.
Hardie died in 1915, aged 59.
