Agony aunt
Dear Margaret,
I have quite the conundrum. I wonder if you could help me with it.
My Scots-born best friend moved to Beijing in 2005. She previously spent a year studying in Canada, but when she came back I found no traces of latent Canadianism.
Over the last few years she has learned to speak Mandarin quite competently. She also works for the EU. That could be another nail in her coffin, right?
Whilst in Beijing she met and fell in love with a Northern Irish chap. Except he was born and spent the first five years of his life in Germany as a “forces brat”. (No trace of a Germanic accent though, or Northern Irish for that matter. He sounds English.)
Anyway, I digress. They’ve been together for a few years and announced earlier this year they are going to have a baby. He was born safely today.
I am not sure if I should be excited. I need to clarify a few points: Did both my friend and her partner move to China and become foreign, or were they already foreign from living in Canada and Germany? Is it worse or better that China is outwith the EU? I am not sure how Labour feel about the EU, you see.
Will their son be Chinese because he is born in Beijing, or is his nationality determined by his parents, and if that’s the case, which nationality is the dominant? Is it his mother’s Scots or Canadian or Chinese? Or is it his dad’s Northern Irish (or German, or Chinese) nationality?
I’m in a real quandary. You’ve been known to express an a opinion or two about folk moving “abroad” and becoming foreigners. Until the point I heard your cogent argument, I was tempted to treat their son as an honorary nephew on account his mother and her family feel as close to me as my own. I was naive to think the bonds that bind us, of blood and/or of love, were more important than borders.
Can you help me?
Should I even buy them a present?
Bamboozled,
Glasgow
Nice one Natalie!
If it’s a No vote next year, let’s hope their son doesn’t want to come to the UK to study at university – he’ll be met by armed border guards at Dover.
Dear Bamboozled,
Im afraid you lost me at “best friend”. Its a foreign phrase to me, whitzitawaboot?
Luv
Magrit
Sounds to me like the child would easily fit in at home in a Coatbridge
My daughter has just moved back to Scotland from a year in Switzerland as part of her university course. I am delighted that she is no longer foreign. That year was an awful time with a foreigner in the family.
As he is too young to vote No, then i’m afraid he is a furriner.
I face similar conundrums. I was born in Yorkshire, and grew up in Greater London, Pennsylvania, and the old West Germany. My wife is a Dutch national, born in Java, and raised in Tanzania and Malawi. Our three children were born in Yorkshire, but spent most of their lives in Scotland, and consider themselves Scots. My baby grandson was born in Elgin to my daughter and her Scottish husband. He has Canadian, Dutch and German nationals (at least) amongst his near family, and other family and family friends scattered even further afield. Not only are lots of my family foreign – some have even lived in Lancashire – we all positively revel in it and enjoy meeting up at family events like weddings. It would make Margaret Curran’s head explode!
Dear Natalie,
we know all about your furrin relatives. We’ve been following their movements by listening in on their iPhone and have been checking their emails regularly.
The simple answer is ship the present (you’ll need a small mortgage though) with our new mail service, as they’ll not be getting back through our border controls.
Margrit
chrszchrsz..essage for Curran….chrszchrszz…what’s wrong with foreigners?…chrszchrssssz beep
The conundrum is easily resolved.
Simply drive a van with ‘Go home or face arrest’ past this bunch of miscegenated miscreants. That’ll do the trick.
Hilarious.
I wonder if Curren knows how completely ridiculous her comments on nationality made her seem to be.
Mind you, she was, in fairness, taking her lead from someone for whom I have, or had, some respect. Tony Benn’, the international socialist, who had a Scottish mother ,was reportedly concerned that had Scotland been independent his mother would have been a foreigner.
That’s even more bizarre when you consider that his wife was an American academic and therefore foreign, and their children are, I imagine, half American, half English…ie half foreign.
Interestingly, it didn’t seem to occur to him that, had Scotland been independent, he would have been half Scottish and half English (or half a foreigner himself).
The preoccupation with “foreigners” makes me feel somewhat uncomfortable and, as someone who once worked with Curren when she was a Scottish minister, a little tainted.
My brother first moved to Switzerland 8 years ago. Since then he’s lived in Norway for a couple of years, met his Bulgarian wife in Boston, moved to Ghana for a year with her, moved back to Geneva and had a daughter there.
He still speaks with an incomprehensible murmur and burns after 10 minutes in the sun. Surely that means he’s still Scottish? Or should he be stripped of his British passport and forced through immigrations this Christmas when all three of them visit?
Lol – good one.
Good question, Natalie! If Ms Curran gives you an answer, I wonder if we’ll understand it. I’ve now got this mental image of Glasgow customs officers checking the luggage off a flight from Toronto, looking for “traces of latent Canadianism”: “Ye canna bring that maple-leaf tea-towel in, it’s no Scottish.”
Curious to have the benefit of Stairheid’s legendary intellect on my daughter, who has a French passport, but considers herself English.
Those of us who hang out on racist hateblogs need all the help we can get.
Dear Bamboozled,
Your enquiry is important to us and is being held in a queue pending instructions from our London Office. Our Glasgow call centre staff will be happy to supply an answer after September 2014.
Can I ask Maggie, I lived n worked in England for 6 yr, I had a flat there n a hoose in Glesga, does that give me dual nationality? Can I lambast the SDL & EDL with equal venom?
I remember Tommy Cooper once saying
“one in five people on the planet are Chinese
now we have five people in my family theres mum and dad Im pretty sure theyre not Chinese, then theres me , Cho Chin Chow, and Dave,
I m betting its Dave 🙂
Hi Natalie, This is a big question you ask, and a big decision for your friend, and we will need to test with forensic examination, but meantime here are my thoughts.
Well, maybe persons such as in case you describe could be defined as ex-regio, just like Scotland’s oil and gas are so defined and the income flows direct to the London Treasury bypassing Scotland for the good of eh eh.Anyway.Ex-regio would enable their child to select whichever region he/she chooses to represent should they excel at sport.
Looking further ahead when inter-galactic travel is commonplace the term ex-mundi may well be applicable. In the present Scotland being ex-Mundell is something to wish for.
I hope this helps with your cordereferenderundrum.
Mairgreet.
Beware these foreign types. I’m harbouring them in the house and think I may have become foreign too.
I was born in Glasgow but brought up in Ayrshire. In 95 I went abroad and never came back. I married a foreigner and my weans were born foreign and have dodgy foreign EU passports. Funnily enough my parents and sister have never mentioned anything to me about foreigners. What should I do Magret?
My wife is from Finland, I’m worried that after Independence, my kids wont see their Mum again after she is deported back home, please advise Wings !
“My wife is from Finland, I’m worried that after Independence, my kids wont see their Mum again after she is deported back home, please advise Wings !”
It’s probably now that you should be worrying:
link to theguardian.com
Entirely O/T
Digging around in the musty archives of the internet, I ran across this letter, sent to Kier Hardy when he was standing – as Labour candidate- in mid-Lanarkshire in 1888.
I just thought it might be of (ironic) interest:
“Scottish Home Rule Association.
“23 Kelly Street, Kentish Town, London.
“Mr. J. Keir Hardie,
“Dear Mr. Hardie,—I cannot refrain from wishing you God-speed in your election contest. Had I been able to have gone to Mid-Lanark to help you—to do so both by ‘word and deed’—would have given very great pleasure indeed. The powers of darkness—Scottish newspapers with English editors (as the ‘Leader’), partisan wire-pullers, and the other etceteras of political squabbles—are leagued against us.
“But let the consequences be what they may, do not withdraw. The cause of Labour and of Scottish Nationality will suffer much thereby. Your defeat will awaken Scotland, and your victory will re-construct Scottish Liberalism. All success be yours, and the National cause you champion. There is no miner— and no other one for that matter—who is a Scotsman and not ashamed of it, who will vote against you in favour of an obscure English barrister, absolutely ignorant of Scotland and of Scottish affairs, and who only wants to get to Parliament in order that he may have the tail of M.P. to his name in the law courts.
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
“J. Ramsay MacDonald,
“Hon. Secretary, S.H.R.A.”
“I’m an Irish Glaswegian, I go an a rate of knots,”
Margaret, you are a stairheid astronaut.
i have a similair confusing story – I am Scottish but for past 15 years have lived in many countries, including 8 in Asia. i speak 3 languages. my second daughter was born in Luxembourg, the other 2 in Thailand. 1 daughter lived in New Zealand. my wife and kids have Thai and New Zealand passports. They speak 3 languages.
is my wife foreign? Are my children foreigners? Am i a foreigner? How can i contact them if i am/they are foreigners?
I’m left wondering which side of my 6 year old daughter is foreign. The left or the right side? Must be the left surely as she’s half French. But then the other half is Scottish so…
I dread the day she comes to me and asks ‘Dad, is it true I’m not a real Scot, but half ‘foreign’ like that lady Magrit on the telly says she doesn’t like?’
Actually, she choose what suits already depending on the situation. LOL’d the other week when she told (French) Mrs SS during an argument about dressing appropriately for the weather ‘I don’t need a jacket – I’m Scottish’. 🙂
All of these brilliant postings and comments and the NO campaigns ridiculous Foreigner rantings makes me think of the Ray Bradbury old story/ TV Series The Martian Chronicles.
At the end, after all the to-ing and fro-ing and, the main character comes from a horrid Earth and takes his family into the ruins of a Martian city, saying they will live there and learn the Martian way. He then points into a pool of water at the family’s reflection and states, “Those are the Martians”
Hehe.. same here Skier. My kids have Finnish passports, I’d prefer it if they remain Finnish until we can get get a Scottish passport, meantime you are what you want to be
This article is obviously a spoof.As if anyone around the globe would employ a SCOT to do anything important.A SCOT! I ask you!
I live in a wee cluster of four houses in the middle of nowhere in rural Fife. My neighbours over the last three years here have included an elderly Chinese Malayan lady who lived alone, but was the widow of a Scot, with a son living with his English wife and their children in Bath, and other family across the UK. We have a Scottish musician with his German wife and their baby son. An Italian/Scottish couple with their children have just moved out, to be replaced by a Scottish/English couple and their children.
Where are the foreigners in all this? We’re a wee community. My neighbours buys eggs from me, I take in deliveries that arrive when they are out, they feed the hens when I’m away. We borrow tools from each other, and we dig each others cars out when it’s snowed. No-one’s a foreigner here, though we aren’t even all great friends, but we are all good neighbours.
Dear Margrit. thankyou so much for educating me. i can now have nothing to do with my mothers loving family in liverpool, although they have cared for me and showed me love and affection all my life, i didnt realise they were foriegners. phew, thanks again magrit.
Thank you Natalie, for once again highlighting the joys of Curran-think.
Oor Mags is a buffoon and Scotland can do so, so much better. There is a political purge coming, and useless idiots like Margaret Curran and Ian Davidson are top of the “Count yourself lucky, now GTFO” list.
I’m surrounded by foreigners here in Germany today. It is a bit unsettling. They treat me very well, and don’t make me feel foreign at all.
American here with a son born in England but for all intents and purposes a Gaelic speaking Highlander. Husband is Edinburgh born but a transplant Highlander. Imagine his horror when he realised that his wife AND his son would somehow be foreigners and he would need to scorn us. It’s going to make our family holidays pretty awkward, I can tell you!
I like foreigners.
Margaret, if you are reading this, you are a disgrace.
I think foreign in Westminster speak means refusing to be ruled by London.
I’ve just realised that I have been an absolute fool!
I am properly not Foreign (like all decent folk) but my wife is a real, non-english-as-first-language foreign foreigner. Our daughter is Not Foreign (hey, she has the passport to prove it, none of that, “oh she is half foreign” business here!) but, and here is where I have been a fool, everyday when I go to work I leave my daughter at home in the care of my wife.
I leave her WITH A FOREIGNER. What must be happening to her? What if my wife is speaking FOREIGN to her? She might be doing that right now!
Does this make me a ("Tractor" - Ed)? Should I turn myself to the nearest police station?
The passport holder’s in the UK have an EU passport.
@Richard Lucas
Please tweet her that info. I have a picture in my head from the 1980 film Scanners.
I would love to see Mags Curran’s head explode! *evil laugh*
Curran is racist
Stupid as well
‘Blogs’ like this, reacting to BT taunts, simply feeds BT and their scaremongering hordes. Independence is more about accountability than ‘Foreigners’.
When i think of scottish labour the first thing in my mind is what an extremely poor leadership. Second thing i think about is who would win a fight between Eric Joyce and Ian Davidson? my money would be on Joycey.
Just imagine, all of this foreigner stuff is going to happen because Scotland will vote Yes to control its own affairs and oil revenues.
I can’t believe that someone as ignorant as Curran actually has a say in how my life is run and gets paid a fortune into the bargain.
Apologies for going off topic but…do Labour NEVER learn?!?!
link to bbc.co.uk
Or is this some sort of ploy to propose a major infrastructure project, creating job but oh, the evil Nats have blocked it! They must REALLY think people are idiots.
Hold on….if Scotland vote NO, and then the EU referendum votes YES to exit…does that mean we then become foreign on our passports?
Oh wee Mags heid must be bursting!
My aunt went to work in the isle of man back in the 60’s. Met a big burly Irishman and later got married. The settled in Reading & had 3 daughters and one son. Despite the Scots irish background, they think of themselves English, but they’re still family. They’re all married and they had kids to, and their kids have settled down, one of them married a spanish woman.
One of my uncles moved to Germany & had a family there. I also have extended family in Australia & Canada.
I myself have friends who are American, New Zealander, English, Irish & German.
Do think differently of them, course not that is absurd. Will that change if Scotland was independent. No of course not, thats equally absurd.
Margaret Curran…you are a cretin
@turnip_ghost
Looks like trams should be last thing on their mind up North
link to bbc.co.uk
“Foreign” is a rather foreign concept to me.Perhaps they should be referred to as “dirty foreigners”.That might kindle a bit more of a Xenephobic feeling among the Scots,who tend to be too much of the “All Jock Tamsons bairns” school.
Now THAT’S sarcasm.
It turns out that one of the first things foreign applicants have to understand for the test to become a British citizen is that British isn’t a nationality, at all. It’s a citizenship. It’s official. English is a nationality. Scottish is a nationality. Northern Irish and, even, Welsh are nationalities but British is only a citizenship in the same way as Scandinavian is a citizenship and not a nationality.
O/T slightly, but still on subject of foreign visitors.
Scotland is the 3rd best country in the world to visit in 2014, according to “Lonely Planet Guide”, (link below). I find that really uplifting and almost up there with the Rev’s Wings poll.
link to lonelyplanet.com
I think Scotland will be THE place to be next year. The country will be awash with Saltires. You will really see the polls move to Yes and Independence.
Like it Natalie. 🙂
A question BT have yet to answer: Just what is wrong with foreigners?
They can answer anytime, we await with interest.
Oh dear, in 1972 our family Mom & Dad and 4 boys emigrated to South Africa. Did we become foreigners? Sadly Dad passed away in 1982 but Mom is alive and well in Scotland. 2 of the boys still live in South Africa, 1 lives in England and I live in Scotland. Is the rest of my family foreign or am I the foreign one?
Us Scots seem to be sowing our seeds far and wide. 🙂
When I listen to Darling and Maigrit bang on about foreigners I keep getting this flashback to old Bill Hicks routines. The one about how a certain type of midwestern gent would greet an alien on his first visit to planet earth…
(sound of safety being thrown and round chambered) Yew ain’t frum around here arya boy?
I’m surrounded by foreigners here in Germany today. It is a bit unsettling. They treat me very well, and don’t make me feel foreign at all.
The swine! They used to do that to me as well. Everywhere from Hamburg to Muenchen..
Dear Bamboozled
If these people could be any more foreign then I’m a Tory, talking of which I have this pal with some spare vans on the go that you could park outside your house to keep them away. Foreign ways are catching and you don’t want us to have to send you somewhere that smells of foreign food do you?
Hope this helps
Magrit
Natalie
What a lucky child. Born in China, wish I had been. I have never met such charming cheery helpful people in all of my life. The most amazing country I have ever visited.
This is all foreign to me!
With the likes of Magrat Curran and Ian Davidson as fellow Scots, I think I actually prefer “foreigners” – even Al Quaeda ones would be preferable!
In the recent House of Commons debate on the latest immigration bill going through Westminster, designed to appease the south-east UKIP demographic, not one Scottish Labour MP voted against it.
Those unfamiliar with ‘They Work For You’ website will find the record of the votes at the bottom of the page –
Immigration Bill -Second Reading
Debates
They Work For You
22 Oct 2013
link to theyworkforyou.com
Dear Bamboozled
As an empee, member of the Labour Party and shadowy Secretary of State agin Scotland, you’re obviously confusing me with someone who gives a f***
Yours for a peerage
Maigrit
P.s. You’ll appreciate that when I voted in favour of privatising the mail service I completely forgot that empee’s expenses were being curtailed. That’s why you had to pay the postie for this personal response.
Technically I was born in England, but because Berwick has it’s own unique liminality I chose to be Scottish, my wife is Greek and my son was born in Buenos Aires.
I don’t think I can cope.
My son was born in Belgium. Now that Magrit has clarified his abominable foreigness for me, I have vowed never to speak to him again. Thank you Better Together.
Well if there’s a Labour government in an Indy Scotland, they could close down the ports and airports and solve the ‘foreigner’ problem just like that – particularly, those confounded 2 or 3-week foreigners who come here and get away with it…. 🙂
Margaret, please give up the day job!
Excerpt of SNP MP Pete Wishart’s contribution to the recent Immigration Bill debate in the House of Commons is worth repeating in respect to the Scottish Labour Party’s problems with johnny foreigner. Incidentally, has Scottish Labour welcomed the rise in Scotland’s population?
Pete Wishart MP –
“This matter is important for Scotland…We have our own demographic issues and population requirements. I will tell Members the difference between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. When the Scottish Government received the latest population figures, they put out a press release welcoming the rise in the Scottish population. Could you ever, Madam Deputy Speaker, imagine a UK Government welcoming a rise in population? That is what distinguishes us as a Government from them—we welcome the contribution of immigration. We have our own population requirements, but we are stuck and burdened with a set of immigration policies that are almost the exact opposite of what we require. That is why we must wrest control of our own immigration requirements.”
UK Immigration Bill
petewishart
22 Oct 2013
link to petewishart.wordpress.com
Oh dear Curran and her cohorts, use the term ‘foreigner’ in a completely derogatory manner and mean it to be, in order to instil the listener into believing that if your ‘foreign’ your not one of us (who ever ‘us’ is).
So we have the spectacle of the likes of Curran spouting that if Scotland ends the union, or as the unionists prefer to say ‘leave the UK’, then we will be ‘foreign’. Not European, Not British or Scottish, but ‘Foreign’. Like suddenly we have obtained all manner of diseases and become a Leper colony. All travel to Scotland will stop at the border as we have become ‘Foreign’.
This is the framing of the reason that the term is freely used by Curran and Darling. Its to put people off the idea of becoming independent.
Ironically, do they see themselves ‘foreign’?. Most likely not, despite being Scottish, they tend to play that part down at the right moment and talk up that they are British in the UK. But after Scotland votes YES, what then for them? you can bet they will no longer think of their fellow Scots as ‘foreign’ but citizens of the world and European to boot!
Curran and the rest of the unionist morons have epic fail, when it comes to our fellow Europeans, they would not dare call the French, Germans or Dutch – ‘foreign’, in fact Europeans, don’t refer to each other as ‘foreign’ , just ‘European’
I like many others have family in Canada, USA, and Australia. To me, like others, consider them ‘family’ not ‘foreign’. I’m married to a Portuguese and she has her family in Portugal. She is not referred to as ‘foreign’ by my own family, but ‘family’. Likewise my wife’s family in Portugal don’t treat me or refer to me as ‘foreign’, but I am ‘family’ (despite me not mastering the language !).
There are no border posts across the EU (you can check yourselves on Google Street View) and there is no mandatory customs check on the Norwegian / Swedish border either.
So Curran, if your reading this. Two words to learn ‘Family’ & ‘European’ . Yes I know they are more warm and welcoming that ‘Foreign’. But then again families do tend to be ‘warm and welcoming’!
Just to add to the horde here, I have family in the *gasp* USA (and friends in China). And although we may disagree on politics, we manage to get along just fine.
Are we supposed to start assossiating “foreign” with “terrorist” or something? Because all this rhetoric is wearing a little thin.
“and their’s many the wain wi’ the red locks of the Cambell’s who’s ne’er seen the coast of Argyl”
The Roving Dies Hard, by The Battlefield Band.
I thought Shadow Scottish Sec, Ms Curran’s lineage was Glasgow, Irish & British (her words not mine its on record) – definitely not Scottish; work that one out ?
My family wouldn’t speak to me for five years, referring to me as “that Kazakh twat”, we were then reconciled for about 6 weeks there, but now I’m “that Norwegian bastard”.
Cannae win, eh? 😉
Natalie you didnt say where the dirty deed took place if it was in a cabbage patch you need to speak to our resident vegetable expert John Harvey on here or Yes Scot neep neep
Richar Lucas must be a nightmare tryin tae orginize a family holiday fur you lot nae wonder theres delays at passport control lol
When I was a laddie living in Stranraer, you were considered a foreigner if you came from Girvan. But life has moved on and with all my subsequent worldly experience I can safely say they really meant Ayr (silly laughing thingy).
Macart – the reason some people hate foreigners is that they are all apparently called Johnny (even the women) – which people find very confusing, hence the hatred.
Nanty Curran NON NO REGRIES fae wee Edifpeedaff ah yer good fue a laugh maggy Ah hpoe you dont develope a brain between noo an 2014 or we wid be in fur a richt good fight Pmsl
Good one Natalie.
Yove just pointed out how farcical, Margaret Curran, and her flight of fantasy ideas really are.
This woman as the picture shows, is way way out there, even further than Pluto.
@Dramfineday
No wonder they’re upset, the poor confused souls. 🙂
By the by the toon has changed slightly since you left. They are far more cosmopolitan now although folk from Kirkcolm still get the hairy eyeball. 🙂
I am a citizen of the World who happens to have been born in the greatest wee country in that World, SCOTLAND!
I’m scottish though I was born in Gemany which my parents at the time were occupying of behalf of the Allies. I’ve lived in seven countries, the last 27 years in Norway. I still feel my scottish identity and would love to see my own country independant like Norway and so many other small successful countries. Sad I don’t qualify to vote in the referendum. PS. Nobody is foreign! We are all the same race and should both cooperate and compete in a spirit of friendship.
@Jim Craig
Hammer, nail, head.
Well said.
[Damn, Illegal aliens taking our jobs](link to i.imgur.com)
Wherever I pay my tax that’s my home.
I’m Scottish, my parents are Scottish, my wife is Scottish, our kids are Scottish, my neighbours for two doors on either side are Scottish and a large number of my friends are Scottish.
Feeling a bit white bread amongst all youse cosmopolitan foreigners!
@ Craig P – must be the best country in the world – everyone wants to live here xx
Paula Rose says:
“must be the best country in the world”
Maybe that’s why our neighbour wants to own us.
Let’s not forget that this same son of hers now lives in France and hasn’t set foot in Scotland for years. JUST SAYING.
Ah, excellent piece well aimed at the ridiculous approach of the person who is only one letter short of being actual fruit; instead of just appearing to have the same intelligence level.
Her ‘foreigner’ pish is exactly that; pish. I am Scottish; spent seven years or so in England. Does that make me somehow less Scottish? My accent got stronger down there; I think it may have been an allergic reaction to the thought of acquiring the local ‘London on Sea’ accent Pompey natives have. My equally Scottish sister lives in France; I’m pretty sure she talks in a decent Scottish accent which forever marks her as Scottish anyway, and I’m almost certain she’s not actually French even though she speaks the language fluently and has embraced at least the grape related aspects of the culture. My best mate now lives in Canada, married to a Canadian, but I don’t catch him saying ‘aboot’ as many Canadians do… his wife once came out with probably the funniest thing I’ve heard ‘No, that’s just people from Ontario; I don’t say aboot, I say aboot….’ said in all seriousness. Laughter was not appreciated.
The point is these people remain Scottish regardless of where they are in the world because they believe they are Scottish first and foremost. Living somewhere outside your country of birth does not make you a foreigner, and indeed I find the term foreigner pretty much exclusively used in a xenophobic way anyway. Living somewhere does not make you a different person. It means nothing more than you live somewhere else.