Trade union chief Roz Foyer has called for ‘the redistribution of wealth’ – while defending her property empire worth £1million.

Speaking for the first time since the Scottish Mail on Sunday revealed she owns five homes last year, the defiant socialist claimed her wealth and ideology were not at odds.

Ms Foyer stressed that stockpiling properties while repeatedly condemning second home ownership was not hypocritical, but in fact a sign of her selfless politics.

The STUC leader said: ‘There’s a difference between success and greed.

‘Yes, I’ve been successful. But I get up every day and campaign that people like me, with broader shoulders who own more than one property, should pay the appropriate tax.’

She added: ‘It’s entirely possible to have socialist principles and not run around in a hair shirt or have no property.’

Ms Foyer faced calls to resign after it was discovered she owned a four-bedroom home and a terraced house in Glasgow, a holiday cottage on Jura, and a flat in Edinburgh.

She also owns a Spanish flat that she rents out for £1,000 a week, and has purchased a £100,000 plot of land with the intention of building yet another home.

But despite her extensive property portfolio, the trade unionist previously argued that ‘second homes can have significantly negative impacts’ that place an ‘unbearable strain on working people’.

In 2023 she also called for a 300-per-cent council tax premium on second and empty homes to tackle homelessness.

Now, Ms Foyer has explained she bought one of the flats for her daughter to use during university, and has since passed ownership to her entirely.

She added that she needed the Spanish flat to take her disabled parents and in-laws on European holidays, and rents the property to tourists to cover its mortgage.

Speaking to The Herald on Sunday, the campaigner said: ‘The truth is: we’re a couple of working-class people who are doing all right and used their money to look after their family.'

She continued: ‘I could have bought a big house in a posh suburb but I’ve lived in Maryhill almost 30 years. I chose to use my wealth to look after and accommodate my family.

‘That’s meant I’ve ended up owning a number of properties. I haven’t pulled the ladder up behind me, or abandoned my principles.’

The trade unionist, who earns up to £100,000 a year, conceded: ‘Maybe I have residual guilt for doing well. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

She also warned voters against people who ‘cosplay as representing the working class’.

Ms Foyer’s comments have drawn ridicule from politicians, who claim the attempt to square campaigning for harsh taxes while living in luxury reveals her detachment from the working people she represents.

Thomas Kerr, Glasgow MSP and Deputy Leader of Reform UK, said: ‘Roz Foyer is your textbook champagne socialist: happy to lecture working people on how they should think and vote while living a lifestyle far removed from the reality many ordinary and hard-working Scots face every day.’

He stressed that Ms Foyer looks increasingly ‘like someone who climbed the union ladder for personal gain and status, becoming part of the very establishment ordinary workers feel abandoned by’.

Scottish Conservative housing and transport spokesman, Tim Eagle MSP, added: ‘Roz Foyer’s comments will strike many Scots as a classic case of “do as I say, not as I do”.

‘At a time when so many people are struggling to buy even one home, it’s ordinary Scots who are paying the price for the SNP’s housing failures and punitive property taxes.’