Foreigner Watch
It’s not the first time we’ve had to raise this subject. But as the rhetoric ramps up from an increasingly nasty and unhappy No camp, we have to ask again – just what is the Labour Party’s problem with foreigners?
“My son, for example, who went to university in England, I think I’d be uncomfortable with the thought that he’s now a foreigner.”
– Margaret Curran, Good Morning Scotland, 25 May 2013“If Scotland wants to be independent they have the absolute right to do so. But I think nationalism is a mistake. And I am half Scots and feel it would divide me in half with a knife. The thought that my mother would suddenly be a foreigner would upset me very much.”
– Tony Benn, The Scotsman, 18 August 2012“We’ve got friends and relations north and south of the border and we don’t want to make each other foreigners.”
– Alistair Darling, Euronews, 31 August 2012“We have the spectacle of a hard line nationalist saying ‘you will still be British after independence’. If you are no longer part of the UK how can you be British? Your friends in Wales, your family in England and your workmates from Northern Ireland will, effectively and overnight, become foreigners.”
– Alistair Darling, John P Mackintosh lecture, 10 November 2012“Alistair Darling will today accuse the SNP of attempting to ‘turn family into foreigners’ with its plan to break up Britain.”
– The Times, 14 February 2013“In simple terms, why make Sir Alex Ferguson a foreigner?”
– Johann Lamont, May 2013“The Aberdeen schoolgirl said she and her friends were going to vote to remain part of the UK because they did not want their relatives in England to become foreigners”
– The Telegraph quotes young activist Iona Macdonald (daughter of MSP Lewis Macdonald) speaking to the Scottish Labour conference, April 2013“The nature of my work means that I am based in London, like tens of thousands of Scots now facing the same prospect of becoming foreigners in our own land.”
– slightly confused “Better Together” main donor Ian Taylor, 7 April 2013
It’s worrying enough that this blatantly xenophobic line is being repeated more and more often by the anti-independence campaign, almost always from the Labour side.
(The Tories, having rather more experience in the field, tend to be a little more circumspect with their casual racism. You wouldn’t catch any of them coming out with anything as crass as Ian “Poles and Pakis” Smart nowadays, say.)
It’s also concerning that – as far as we’ve noticed – they’ve never been challenged on it by a timid, compliant Scottish media. Curran’s interview on Radio Scotland at least took her to task over the technicalities of whether people would really be “foreign”, but not on her implication that being foreign was in itself a bad thing. (Because if it’s not, why would you be “uncomfortable” with it?)
Finally, though, it’s disturbing because it’s simply untrue.
The survey was carried out for the think-tank British Future as part of a wider 2013 ‘state of the nation’ report. Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, said: “Our polling shows that although some people feel the debates about devolution and an independence vote are divisive, there is a strong underlying connection between the people of this island. There’s something heartening about that.
It’s a clear endorsement of Alex Salmond and the civic Scottish Nationalist claim that an independent Scotland would still think about a ‘social union’ of history, geography and culture which would survive after independence, along with good relations with the neighbours to the south.”
– Scotland on Sunday, 13 January 2013
Time and again, those on the (notional) left of British politics attack the Scottish independence movement for “narrow nationalism” – including, with no detectable sense of irony, Gordon “British jobs for British workers” Brown – and the affront it represents to the values of internationalism they claim to stand for. But just how “internationalist” is it to paint being foreign as some sort of disfiguring, undesirable disease?
We’re all foreigners to someone (indeed, we’re all foreigners to the vast majority of the world’s population, even if we’re Chinese or Indian), and most people are entirely at peace with that fact. So why do Scottish Labour – in such distinguished company as the BNP, EDL and National Front – continue to insist on using the word as an insult?
And if these are the depths to which they’ve already sunk, how vicious and ugly might the independence debate be by next year? It chills the (rivers of) blood to imagine.
I used to live abroad. Being a foreigner is cool.
‘If you are already burdoned with one vote Tory’
My God, these people who come over here and can barely speak our language.
I live abroad; the wine is cheaper, the weather better ( OK not this bloody year ) and the food is really good. That is “foreign” to me but it doesn’t make me anything like a foreigner, even to my foreign friends.
Here’s the thing… leaving aside the desirability or otherwise of foreigners, if a citizen of country A lives in country B how could any other citizen of country A regard him as a foreigner? Wouldn’t Margrit Curran’s son have the same nationality as she does (UKanian, presumably)?
I lived in Canada for a while, but retained my UK passport. Would any British person at the time have regarded me as a “foreigner”? My wife’s family emigrated to Canada when she was a child. Some of her siblings were born in Canada and are Canadian citizens. Some of her siblings were born in England and became Canadian citizens. Some of her siblings were born in England and remain UK citizens to this day. She and some of her siblings were born in Scotland and remained UK citizens. None of them regard any of the rest of them as “foreign” but even if a British stranger regarded her Canadian siblings as “foreign” would they also regard her Canadian domiciled UK citizen siblings as “foreign”? If you lined them all up you couldn’t tell by looking or listening to them which are the Canadians and which are not!
I am going to Wiltshire on business soon. I will be a potential foreigner for a wee while, but I’ll be back well before 2014. Phew!
Some of my best friends are Foreigner fans.
link to youtu.be
(Not really, obviously.)
The Urban Dictionary maybe has the answer.
Original definition: Foreigner – Someone who does understand how American society works. Nowadays it can mean just about anything. “Wow, ur so foreign.” – Calling someone stupid or gay or something. Or, “Wow your so foreign!”, as a compliment because they had a good idea or it can be like, “Im gonna foreign u in the face!’ meaning, I’m gonna punch you in the face, or “Let’s foreign” meaning let’s fuck or lets go ect, or “Foreignocracy”, politcal party. or “Foreignology” the study of all things foreign, and much more
For a party that claims to be internationalist in outlook, Labour seems to have acquired an unhealthy obsession with “foreigners”.
Definitive version.
link to youtube.com
Lord Foulkes could do himself a huge favour by leaving his photo off his Twitter account. The Better together campaign seems designed to fragment rather than to unite.
Juteman says:
27 May, 2013 at 9:12 am
The Urban Dictionary maybe has the answer.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Smiley thingy, but scratching the head at the same time.
Anyway, I think the whole “foreigner” schtick exemplifies British nationalism and the sort of small-minded obsessions inherent in a nationalism based on a diminishing entity that was once the most powerful empire in the world, and is now little more than an island (although still the 9th biggest island in the world, to be fair – perhaps the only list where the “UK” beats Iceland). Going by tweets from a Catalan I follow on Twitter, it seems Spanish nationalism is not too dissimilar, particularly in their readiness to call Catalan nationalists “Nazis” etc. It’s almost like a mid-life crisis, except instead of buying a sports car, British nationalists just become paranoid about Others.
Foreigners are great. How boring would the world be without foreign languages, foreign cultures and foreign food? And a world without foreign women (particularly ones from Eastern Europe) is not one I would want to inhabit…
Just for the record, I feel I have much more in common with working class folks from Liverpool than arch-bourgeouis Lord Foulkes.
Aw naw! Iv’e got 3 daughters, a son in-law and two grandsons all living in Australia.
THEY’RE ALL FOREIGN. The Horror, the Horror! —Oh wait- my son in law was already foreign being Welsh. What was my daughter thinking? now my grand children are double foreign. AArrgh!!!!!!! (goes into insanity mode and over does it in the exclamation mark stakes)
Worth, prrhaps, repeating what I wrote on one of yesterday’s threads. it came not long before the end, and so perhaps was not seen by many.
The SNP has spoied the fun of this thread by pointing out that, by Westminster law, Curran’s Irish relatives are not foreign:
http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2013/may/curran-interview-exposes-lack-basic-knowledge
(The same article points out that Australians, New Zealanders, etc are not foreigners either.)
@pmcrek
I worked in Cammel Laird’s shipyard in Birkenhead. We discussed nationalities and I was told by an excellent Scouser “That I wasn’t British… you’re Jockanese and proud of it !”
Salt of the Earth these guys.
It is quite surprising how often Lord Foulkes can open his mouth or pick up a pen just to prove himself a complete fool.
Seems to be a habit in the Labour Party outpourings.
It is quite surprising how often Lord Foulkes can open his mouth or pick up a pen just to prove himself a complete fool.
Seems to be a habit in the Labour Party outpourings.
And no ,I have not already said that!
It’s all Greek to me.
Who would want to share anything in common with the despicable Foulkes? He’s the type you body-swipe in your local.
Deconstruct the very common usage, by some of the word ‘foreigner’ – GB represents UK, which represents England, which represents London, which to anyone not in London-shire represents you have disappeared up your own bahookie.
The last time I looked there was a kind of solid geological link betwixt Carlisle and Annan, not to mention right through the middle of Berwick, which means England is as much part of Britain as Scotland is and it’ll take some size of chainsaw to do much about that.
Maybe the Freudian slip is that it’s the London- shire: England:UK: GB brigade who see us as being outside their conceptual tent and ergo – ‘foreigners’. Yip – they’re making it up again!
Very surprised to see Tony Benn on this list.
@Patrick Rodden.
Oh no we can’t use the Q word.
Vidkun Quisling was also a “Son of the Manse” What is it with these people (G Brown, Wee Dougie and his sister with “a brain the size of Uranus)” ?
Labourites justify their position by denying that Scotland is a nation/country.However,the fact that they introduced a Scottish parliament in Edinburgh (not Manchester) under their devolution settlement says that they are,as usual,lying.
I have relatives in Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Germany and Zimbabwe.
Regardless of where they were born or the country they’ve become nationalised in, I never considered them to be anything other than family. Perhaps when one is a Labour Party member, one has to have a different perspective.
O/T
Would it not be a good idea for the Scottish Government introduce by law , even on a temporary basis, a Scottish Truth team”?
Whereby lies and manipulation of truths by the Unionist Conspiracy can be fully and legally examined in front of a committee, where MSP’S could be cross examined on claims that they make. The results made public.
It may be a way to counter act all the lies and manipulations being thrown at the Scottish public. Plus other things called to account ie full details of who was involved in ceding 6,000 sq miles of Scottish seas to the account of England. This was outrageous treachery by Blair and well known Scottish Labor politicians, yet no real explanation has been given, that I am aware of of how, why, and who was all involved is available. That would be a good starting point.
The Tories are not too much of a problem in Scotland, of course their spin team are, but Labour is our main problem and are deep in up to their necks in their necks in deceit and lies. Including of course with their MSM backers.
Such a committee could expose much more than comes to light if allowed to, by law, cross examine the perpetrators of the lies and manipulations we have to listen to on a daily basis…….. Just a thought!
My partner hails from Ohio and has a US passport. She also has a Swedish one as she lived there for 9 years. As she now lives with me in North Britain is she one of us or still doubly foreign? I’m confused. Maybe best to assume Labour are talking out of their collective rings as usual.
Les Wilson – that looks a good idea to me. However, the problem as usual is how would the public get to hear about the outcomes? The MSM wouldn’t print them and the UBC wouldn’t broadcast them.
Really does beg the question just who is spouting the narrow minded nationalism? I’m with Jimbo above, friends and family all over the globe. I just call them friends and family.
Down here in Berkshire I’m quite looking forward to becoming a foreigner.
Going to Scotland and receiving the warm welcome received by international visitors will be special.
Here in England it will be even better as, according to the Daily Mail, I’ll become eligible for all sorts of benefits and privileges unavailble to the herrenrasse.
When I listened to Magrit Curren’s interview with Batemen it struck me that A Scottish MP (proudly Scottish of course but apparently also proudly declaring to have no Scottish blood???) when contemplating the ‘break up of Britain’, voiced its result as her own country becoming the ‘foreign’ one and not the Country adjoining it!? (‘we will become a foreign country’)
This woman who unbelievably holds the office of Shadow Sec. of State for Scotland and it seems most other SLAB politicians of any position are poor confused souls, who identify themselves outwith their Country and culture.
Can a person become a foreigner to themselves? I suppose we shall see by watching Magrit and her like in betterNO very closely after the YES vote.
I rejoice in being a physical foreigner to whoever thinks in such parochial terms.
I also have a Spiritual affinity with all Life.
Define that in narrow political terms, if you can.
BTW, I am pureblood Celtic family.
(should I call the Samaritans?)
The causal racist sitting in his sofa made in italy, eating an indian take-away delivered by a pole who was driving a skoda, watching a TV made in korea, powered by electricity he gets from a german firm…bloviates at length about how multi-culturism doesn’t work. People that stupid need to be taken somewhere and have it slapped out of them.
But to me what is unforgivable is when polticians feed on this ignorance to provoke fear of the “foreigner” …. the argument being that when independent we’d treat the English the way racists in the UK treat everyone elese.
@Neil
I’m with you on that one. It’s even better to be a Scottish foreigner abroad. the difference in attitude I get when I tell people I’m from Scotland is palpable. Usually followed by a “Glad you’re not English.” or “That’s better than the English”. I have lived in the Balkans now for over ten years, never been treated in any way except with great open hearts.
By the way, we have a son born here, I guess my father will disown him, after all he’s foreign! [Of course he doesn’t]. But then he’s had to adjust to the terror of having “Foreign” family as by brother married a Dutch girl and they have three kids.
Oh, God, these foreigners are EVERYWHERE!
So my brothers, (all born in Scotland), 2 of whom still live in South Africa, and 1 who lives in Maidenhead (England). All 4 of us see ourselves as Scottish first and not British at all. We all carry a EU version of a British passport, 2 of us have dual nationality and carry a South African passport (1 in SA other in Maidenhead). We all married in South Africa to (in order of oldest brother to youngest)
Rhodesian born, naturalised (South African), now naturalised (Scottish) does not see herself as British.
South African, sadly passed away last year from cancer.
South African.
Scottish.
as you can guess we do not see ourselves as foreign, why should we. I could go on and explain the extended family on my wife’s side, suffice to say 3 girls born in Rhodesia, 1 boy born in South Africa, 1 girl now in New Zealand married to a Welshman, 1 Scotland married to a Scot, 1 in South Africa, married to a South African, and the boy now in Australia, married to a South African, needless to say they are not foreign to us either. I could go on but I think you get the gist.
Call me crazy but isn’t a Scot/English/Irish/welsh person STILL a scot/English/Irish/welsh person even if they move to another country? To me it’s people who come from another country who are “foreign” not my own people who are anywhere in the world.
Lets keep in mind that by their logic, ANYONE who moves to the UK is NOT a foreigner and as such we have no need to be “tough on immigration”. Or does it not work like that?
The politics of Scottish Labour are foreign to me.
foreign: as defined as strange; as coming or introduced from outside.
PS to my above comment.
We await the day we can carry an EU version of the Scottish Passport.
@ Lee Wilson, South Africa had something similar, may still have it actually, it was called The Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
link to justice.gov.za
One thing for sure, not many of our politicians, especially those in Westminster would stand up under it’s scrutiny.
I lived in England and always considered myself a ‘foreigner’ there at the time. I was pleased to be different instead of a common or garden member of the herd. And I would be quite happy to go and live again in England as a ‘foreigner’. God almighty, I have French relations and I don’t think they are foreign.
I’m a foreigner in Scotland, except I have never been made to feel like one, until I read Curran’s comments which did make me feel uneasy! Why does this politician sees problems where there aren’t any, and opens her mouth without thinking of the harm she is doing to this country!
A met a foreign once, and it hardly mattered at all that he was different.
Lets see now:
My son was born in York district hospital Dec 2003, is he my son or a foreigner ?
The people who come up from Yorkshire each summer to camp with us, foreigners or friends ?
The three children who also come up from Yorkshire each summer, foreigners or kids ?
Answers: My son, my friends, my friends kids.
And I love them all, there are no foreigners with friendship and understanding.
Vote Yes, Vote Scotland.
I have friends and family all over the world and don’t regard any of then as “foreign” even though technically many are.
But “foreign” is good anyway. Being a Scottish person in Canada was a great experience, because being “foreign” makes you that bit more exotic and interesting. Having a different accent, background, outlook is something to be celebrated not a cause of deep fear – though Labour types seem terrified of everything these days, feart of their own shadows and bogeymen under the bed.
The interesting thing imagining independence has done for me though, is that last time I was in England, and travelling on a train which briefly went through a bit of Wales, I really wished there was more to distinguish the countries. We are all separate countries, and the various regions of England are all quite distinct too. The idea of “Britishness” successive political types in Westminster have tried to straight-jacket us all into is stifling and dull compared to the cultures and arts of various people within the UK.
I think it would be great if when travelling in the UK you were much more aware you’d crossed a border and were in a different country – because you are. That should be celebrated, not hidden as if it’s a dirty secret.
I remember visiting a Royal Bank of Scotland Branch in Streatham London to get quite a lot of cash out of my account in Greenock. The Indian lady who served me called my Branch and described me to them as being a foreigner!
Ach We are all Jock Tampson’s bairns.
link to heraldscotland.com
The Herald seems to find skin colour important. I assume we will be seeing headlines of “White George Foulkes says something in the House”.
Sorry for being off topic here but a friend of mine e-mailed me this link earlier on Papers released under the 30 year rule which prove that Westminster (despite Tory claims today in the MSM to the contrary) did deliberately lie about the true worth of Scotland’s oil.
link to tomgriffin.org
Nkosi @
Yes indeed, that was my point.
Cheers
When I lived in Lithuania in the 1990’s, my colleagues expressed that they could never view people of any ethnicity living in Russia as ‘foreigners’. Despite occupation, deportations and violent resistance from Moscow to moves towards independence, Lithuanians didn’t deny a common cultural heritage that grow from living within the same state for many years. The same will be true if the UK breaks up, even more so if we continue to share membership of the EU.
I noticed that Herald article. There’s something about the timing and phraseology that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Just carried out an audit on the family to check for “foreigners” turns out my mother is one, wonder how my dad never noticed the passport thing and different voice!
This whole foreigner thing is to divide and cause doubt, building on the current MSM anti foreigners crap.
@Doug Daniel
All women are foreigners. in that I can’t for the life of me work them out but find them exotic and interesting at the same time
Dave Beveridge@
Dave do you not think that it would make life decidedly uncomfortable from them?
Also,given a high profile, in terms of legal issues, I think at least some of it would find it’s way out ie internet for example.?
I think this was one of the main reasons why Unionists did not want a referendum on Scottish independence. As has been said by others, Unionists simply do not view Scotland as a nation/country in any meaningful way. In fact they see Scotland as more of a region than a nation. They do not want to admit this though. More importantly, I think they realised that a referendum on independence would force them to become much more explicit in their British Nationalism. The whole claimed internationalism of the Labour Party was largely a sham for the Unionist core of the party. This element is essentially made up of British Nationalists. The rhetoric from them on ‘foreigners’ is a key component of their British Nationalism. British Nationalists have scorn and contempt for small nation states. That is why the SNP has attracted so much ‘attention’ from Unionists in Scotland over the past 50 years or so.
The point in the article about it being noticeable that the media in Scotland is not challenging Unionists on why being a foreigner is a negative thing is well made. There has been no comment about it from the MSM. Imagine if the roles were reversed and SNP politicians kept on making clearly negative comments about foreigners? There would be an outcry from the MSM in Scotland. Instead all be get is complete silence…
Foreigner is a derogatory word because it it never used a positive way.
You never hear of a ‘good foreigner’ but a ‘bloody’ one, nor a ‘lovely’ foreigner nay a ‘stupid’ one.
Is seems us Scots are ‘foreigners’ in our land because you never hear unionists speak of us in good terms.
Pointless idiots like George Foulkes and his xenophobic Labour/Tory drinking chums may think they have loaded guns in their hands when they spout their shite, but isn`t it up to every one of us to decide whether they are actually shooting blanks or not?
Just point and laugh at George. He is probably drunk.
Perhaps someone can tell me and my entire MacLeod clan if we are “foreign”
The Macleods are descended from 2 Norwegian Princes Torquil and Normand does this mean anyone called MacLeod is actually not Scottish?
I’m sure someone turned up some official document, about a year ago when this first came up, which stated unequivocally that people from the Republic of Ireland were not considered foreigners in the UK. Can anyone remember more detail on this?
“I’m sure someone turned up some official document, about a year ago when this first came up, which stated unequivocally that people from the Republic of Ireland were not considered foreigners in the UK. Can anyone remember more detail on this?”
It’s in an SNP press release this morning. From 1949 or so, off the top of my head. Explictly states that Ireland is not a foreign country.
@Max
Plus, they’re all called “Johnny” (apparently). You’d think they’d have more imagination….
Re. SLabour. Do we get to call them the National Socialist Party now?
Remember George Foulkes is the man who persuaded Hearts share holders to sell their shares at a knock down price to a ‘foreigner’ as he now puts it.
All women are foreigners. in that I can’t for the life of me work them out but find them exotic and interesting at the same time
Men are from Mars ….Women are from Venus… does that make us all aliens… not foreigners??
Spot on. Here’s the link. Section 2. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/12-13-14/41
@Donald 12.08 pm
There’s also another link to another government paper hidden for 30 years, Donald:
“You will recall that I mentioned my concern at the Scottish problem (my bold) at a recent OF meeting. I undertook on that occasion to prepare a short paper setting out the problem as I see it, and the attached is the result: this draws on comments kindly contributed by Mr Mountfield and Mr Buckley.”
link to tomgriffin.org
I think some of guff coming out of Labour in Scotland is quite sinister, especially the remarks about foreigners. Make no mistake about it, there has always been a certain amount of racism in the labour movement, including within the Labour Party. While the official creed was solidarity, though, racism was obviously a bad thing that could not be expressed by anyone in the organisation.
As the Labour Party has spent years abandoning principles, and policies based upon those principles, in a cheap bid to win votes, should we be surprised that they are now using fear of the foreign/foreigner in their campaigning?
Labour, shorn of it’s traditional principles, values and, yes, morality is just a deeply tribal party of power-seekers. In Scotland, with the narrow and ethnic British nationalism it is now pushing, I fear it is on its way to being something far worse.
Why is Labour obsessed with the word “foreigner”. Are they really that scared of UKIP?
Why is Labour obsessed with the word “foreigner”.
Because they recognise that there is an element of xenophobia in many people and they’re willing to exploit any fear they can to thwart independence. If they thought they could get away with it, they’d be telling us that there would be more spiders, heights and darkness in an independent Scotland.
In 1961 I went on at school trip for a fortnight to Norway. We met lots and lots of lovely people over there. We didn’t think of them as ‘foreigners’ but rather as soul mates. We had a great time.
At the end of the holiday we took ship from Oslo to Newcastle where we boarded a train back to Scotland.
As I was sitting in our carriage chatting to my mates we suddenly became aware of a lot of tumult and cheering that started at the front of the train and speedily moved down the carriages to the rear. What was going on? we wondered.
At last the cheering reached our part of the train and with it came the information that someone at the front had noticed that we were crossing the border from England into Scotland.
No one will ever be able to take that moment of elation away from me and my friends. We were home.
Norway wasn’t foreign to us, but England most definitely was.
Foreign: from Latin Foras, meaning ‘outside’.
What is it about right-wing parties like Labour, BNP and UKIP, that they are so obsessed by “foreigners”?
For Labour it’s just the Bain principle in action again.
The Scottish independence movement (and hence, in their minds, the SNP) is clearly about the civilised and measured journey towards a rational civic nationalism – so they have to go the opposite way and encourage irrational fear of foreigners, accuse nationalists of racism, provoke both sides of the sectarian divide to oppose independence and generally plant inane (and contradictory) fear-bombs by the roadside.
You’d think they had no robust or convincing arguments for Scotland staying in the Union or something…er…
The Rough Bounds says:
I have been on the East Coast service from Doncaster to Edinburgh twice in the last fortnight and a “Special Announcement was made for the benefit of younger passengers and foreign visitors” that we are currently crossing the Border into Scotland…. It wasn’t an Edinburgh Crew I believe!
Of course it started a King Salmond discussion amongst some in First Class !!
A bit off topic but concerning foreign. In the Telegraph, UK Government Ministers and regulators very concerned about Foreign investors buying and controlling Water Companies in England.
Brings me to something that has concerned me for a long time :after Scottish oil they will want Scottish Water.
Who knows for how long, without Independence, will Scotland be in control of this resource. Devolution won’t protect it if the Westminster puts the screws on the block grant. It could come into ‘negotiations’.
The Scottish Government(SNP) keeps control.
Though Labour has also resisted franchising it, but with their roll-over attitude how long would that last.
O/T
A book has just been published on the destabilising effects on democracy of over reliance on the Financial Centre, e.g. London and the UK.
I have been reading a snippet as follows
“Claims that the UK’s finance sector contributes over £63bn in tax annually are wildly exaggerated and disingenuous. The true figure policymakers should reflect on is at most £20bn, and could be as low as £2.7bn.”
As low as £3 billion.
Puts the Scottish oil Sector and all the obfuscation around it in perspective.
If anybody is interested it is available as a free pdf download
link to taxjustice.net
The taxjustice network campaigns against offshore tax havens and money laundering practices
I am in daily contact with a friend who moved with his wife, to the USA forty years ago. Although they are US citizens, they both still consider themselves as Scots, and always will.
BTW. I often send links to Wing,Newsnet, Nat Collective, Bella etc, but the links never seem to work for them. I thought in the world wide web, anyone can read anything. Can someone here tell me why this is?
@SCED300
Scottish Water is not privatised and therefore investors, foreign or otherwise, can’t buy it – and the current Scottish Government has no plans to privatise SW. However, Wendy Alexander and others are keen for it to be sold off, but of course Labour would have to be voted back in to power in Holyrood for that to happen.
However, as you fear, in the event of a No vote it is possible that devolved powers will be forcibly removed from the Scottish Parliament (or willingly given away if SLab ever get back into power), including control over Scotland’s water resource, so this is yet another reason to vote YES!
Bugger (the Panda) says:
27 May, 2013 at 1:59 pm
O/T
A book has just been published on the destabilising effects on democracy of over reliance on the Financial Centre, e.g. London and the UK.
I have been reading a snippet as follows
“Claims that the UK’s finance sector contributes over £63bn in tax annually are wildly exaggerated and disingenuous. The true figure policymakers should reflect on is at most £20bn, and could be as low as £2.7bn.”
As low as £3 billion.
That would king of support a report in to the scale of tax avoidance in the UK, by most of the FSTE 100. Amongst the worst offenders are, of course, the banks. So they are not satisfied with fleecing us, they don’t even want to pay the tax they are due.
Would I be out of place to suggest that we burn all banks to the ground?
link to guardian.co.uk
Not a bad starting position though
Sorry to go off topic (always seem to be) but,
Did anyone catch More or Less on BBC Radio 4 – discusses public spending in Scotland and England? Starts at 4:34. No real criticism of the Treasury figures, but we get “It’s a nice piece of fine print”.
Re Herald and it’s attitude to the colour of people in the news, that weird guy who writes for them (Andrew McKie?) has a bee in his bonnet about independence and foreigners which he has raised in several articles.
I’ve always hoped that someone in Scotland with Irish ancestry would write to the Herald and point out that they do not consider their relatives to be foreigners.
The posters here have shown what a load of nonsense it is, but how to get it over to the masses?
I am from Iran and have made Scotland my home since 79. I have never been made to feel like a foreigner in Scotland, most of the comments above reinforces this. Thank you Scotland!
Getting pretty sick of this Labour claptrap.
I’m waiting for one of them to express the ultimate Scottish cringe – ‘I wonder if Jock Tamson himself is worried about his bairns becoming foreigners….”
What are they really scared of?
Would I be out of place to suggest that we burn all banks to the ground?
It might be seen as incitement to commit a crime. But you could probably get off on the basis that they started it.
I was also careful to frame it in the form of a question. And yeh, they started it.
I’ve lived and worked in Taiwan, China and other countries in East Asia for over twenty years and have never had any problems because of my ‘race’ and being a foreigner. The people there have been faultless in their reception and politeness to me and I have been welcomed as a foreigner wherever I have gone.
What the ever-similar political parties in the present-UK spout about ‘foreigners’ is, in reality, inherent BritNat racism. The racism, so overt and commonplace from the the days of Empire which hasn’t gone away: it is there just under the surface and only needing a scratch to rise to the surface.
With Labour and the LibDems the ‘underlings’ to the Conservatives working under the umbrella of Better Together they have to voice opinions as though as one entity, hence we get the likes of Curran attempting to make the issue of foreigners, a Conservative-UKIP-BritNat xenophobic/racist ideology, another scary-scary-woo-woo shit-stirring component of Scottish independence. For shame Labour. Not in my name.
Seanair says: 27 May, 2013 at 3:08 pm
Re Herald and it’s attitude to the colour of people in the news, that weird guy who writes for them (Andrew McKie?) has a bee in his bonnet about independence and foreigners which he has raised in several articles.
I’ve always hoped that someone in Scotland with Irish ancestry would write to the Herald and point out that they do not consider their relatives to be foreigners.
The posters here have shown what a load of nonsense it is, but how to get it over to the masses?
We don’t need to get it out to the masses. We are part of the masses so if we know they know.
@ David McCann,
If you’re using Yahoo Mail, then I’m afraid it doesn’t make the links that you put n your emails clickable. Just found this out recently myself and was pretty annoyed. The people you’re mailing will have to highlight the link (drag a blue block over it by holding down the left mouse key) then right-click on it and scroll down in the menu to where it says “Open link in New Tab.”
It’s hard to describe, and irritating to do, but that’s the only way to open links in Yahoo Mail that I know of.
Many thanks to Donald for the links to the declassified Whitehall stuff.
We don’t need to get it out to the masses. We are part of the masses so if we know they know.
I’m not sure the hivemind works with humans. We know, because we’re here (and we’re here because we know). But we’re a very small part of the masses and the large part doesn’t know. The masses will know if we tell them, even if we have to tell them one at a time.
Thanks BillyBigbaws.
I use Entourage for Mac to send all my mail, but it goes through BT Yahoo. I have no trouble with recipients in the UK, it only appears to happen when posting links to the US. Could it be that I need to add the full http:// each time, rather than simply copying the link?
Those of us old enough to remember Flanders and Swann will know that they summed up the attitude of Scottish Labour admirably:
“It’s not that they’re wicked or naturally bad
It’s knowing they’re foreign that makes them so mad!
For the English are all that a nation should be,
And the flower of the English are Donald and me!!”
Do the Labour party not understand how xenophobic their comments are?? Day after day, we see them decrying the very notion of somebody being ‘foreign’.
I’m actually astonished at the things better together are coming out with. They sound like the BNP, FFS!!
@ Keith Brodie (2.35)
Thanks for the link to More or Less
Typical Unionist obfuscation: unable to admit the fact that we arent too poor, so they squirm around and try to confuse the issue.
Facts are Scottish Public Spending per head is about £1000 per head higher than the UK average (some of this is due to the fact that some services in rUK are now privatised so they don’t count as Public Spending down south, but are still part of public spending in Scotland)
What they don’t tell you is that average tax take per head in Scotland is £1700 higher than the UK average (£10,700 vs £9,000).
So Scotland more than pays its way.
Also Scottish GDP per head is £28,000 vs a UK average of £24,000
And yes these numbers include the geographical share of North Sea Oil – which is what would happen under International law. Still waiting for someone to explain why International Law WOULDNT apply at Indy. Suggesting it wouldn’t is as ridiculous as saying you can’t include Edinburgh Financial Services in Scottish GDP as they might decide to redraw the land border at Queensferry as part of the Indy negotiations….
The other point to note is that in the event of a NO vote there will be huge pressure from UKIP fuelled south of England voters to drastically reduce public spending in Scotland to the UK average, ie a 10% cut in Scottish public spending (on top of anything they cut in England)
This isnt about Indy vs Status Quo. The future after NO is pretty scary,
Better Together know though there comments aren’t going to be reported widely outwith Scotland, they know their imagined scaremongering re. being foreign will not go much beyond the ears to which it is directed – namely those attached to heads currently residing in Scotland.
What Ffoulkes says is neither here nor there – no one listens to him anyway. But Curran on the other hand is a current Labour politician, its a lot harder to say what effect her words will have, I get the impression she’ll have a die-hard following of fairly blinkered fans… Beyond that? Again, I don’t think people will listen, I mean, look at her – who would?
As has been said, most telling is, if this was coming from the Yes side, the press would be all over it.
@ Jiggsbro
Flanders and Swann also had another ditty;
“The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We’ve left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You’ll find he’s a stinker as likely as not
The English the English the English are best
I wouldn’t give tuppence for all of the rest”
Bet that had them rolling in the aisles. I wonder if they ever tried that one at the Glasgow Empire?
This row confirms what I have long believed – that the majority of pro-independence people are in fact much more internationalist in their outlook than the unionist camp. For many of us it was the experience of living outside Scotland that made us pro-independence. We know the ‘foreigner’ argument is rubbish because we have been those foreigners! Labour are unbelievably parochial in that respect.
@ Susan
welcome to Scotland, you’ll find we’re even more welcoming when you’ve had a chance to settle in.
“My God, these people who come over here and can barely speak our language.”
bloody foreigners cant even be bothered to learn the lingo
who the hell do those people think they are,
coming here and taking our jobs and chucking old ladies out of their houses, abusing the bleeding disabled, thats wot appens when you let bleedin furriners in, chuck em out I say, get rid of the bleedin lot of em
bloody tories
This is dog whistle politics so high pitched the only thing they are attracting is bats.
Curran seems to be suggesting that if her son had studied at the Sorbonne she would be turning him sorrowfully from her door.
That observation aside I have found these comments deeply confusing.
I have tried to follow the rationale whereby your own flesh and blood can become foreign to you by living in a different country to you.
Scotland and England already are different countries. Different legal systems, different education system, different public services, a different government in a devolved sense. Not to mention the more incohate cultural differences. To any outward observer it would be abundantly clear that we are two different countries already. Independence may enshrine those differences in a political sense but it will not create them.
So how could it be that, by the act of political independence, you could create such a difference that the very act of living in England could render your own flesh and blood foreign to you? It defies any kind of logic. In the vast majority of day to day actions and transactions, in our workplaces, our leisure, our home and family lives, independence will not actually make that much difference.
That is maybe a slightly uncomfortable truth for those – and there are some – who see independence as a panacea, a magic wand which will create a perfectly egalitarian society at one stroke. That won’t happen of course. Scotland will become a better place I believe but not in any kind of super dramatic way. Life will go on for people on both sides of the border broadly in the same way it does now.
Basically we are just talking about changing the centre of government. How on earth could that affect peoples relationships with their families, far less divide them? Unless Margaret Curran has some sort of ancient medieval mindset that sees things in clan terms and if her son is no longer in the same political clan as her he becomes a foreigner .. but that is too ridiculous. It’s an absolutely bizarre argument and the more you think about it the more bizarre it becomes. I can only assume they are trying in some way to subliminally project an image of families being divided by some form of Berlin Wall in an apocalyptic post-independence scenario.
Flanders and Swann also had another ditty;
It’s the same song. I think it was intended to be post-modern irony, or something. But it falls foul of Poe’s Law. I’m a fan, but it wasn’t their finest hour.
What they don’t tell you is that average tax take per head in Scotland is £1700 higher than the UK average (£10,700 vs £9,000).
Well, there you are. Proof that we’re too stupid (to avoid taxes).
Martin says:
“I’m sure someone turned up some official document, about a year ago when this first came up, which stated unequivocally that people from the Republic of Ireland were not considered foreigners in the UK. Can anyone remember more detail on this?”
Martin, it is actually the Ireland Act of 1949, passed in response to Ireland declaring itself a Republic.
Section 2 is entitled: Republic of Ireland not a foreign country
Subsection 2(1): It is hereby declared that, notwithstanding that the Republic of Ireland is not part of His Majesty’s dominions, the Republic of Ireland is not a foreign country for the purposes of any law in force in any part of the United Kingdom or in any colony, protectorate or United Kingdom trust territory, whether by virtue of a rule of law or of an Act of Parliament or any other enactment or instrument whatsoever, whether passed or made before or after the passing of this Act, and references in any Act of Parliament, other enactment or instrument whatsoever, whether passed or made before or after the passing of this Act, to foreigners, aliens, foreign countries, and foreign or foreign-built ships or aircraft shall be construed accordingly.
link to jimfairlie.blogspot.co.uk
@ Jiggsbro re F&S
Thanks – just shows a little knowledge can be dangerous. Do you know the title?
Keith
A song of patriotic Prejudice link to youtube.com
I think, or at least always supposed it was irony.
OT but interesting.
From The Guardian today.
“The Obama administration has warned British officials that if the UK leaves Europe it will exclude itself from a US-EU trade and investment partnership potentially worth hundreds of billions of pounds a year, and that it was very unlikely that Washington would make a separate deal with Britain.”
Now that is what I would call “Becoming a Foreigner”.
It’s all another of those time/space dislocation at the border thingies. England seems to be having a big anti-foreigner binge (in all fairness, I suspect it is entirely superficial). So various No types, thinking what plays there plays here, start jumping up and down about how foreign everyone is going to be after Indy… Not surprisingly, reaction up here is bemusement.
o/t but Analysis on radio 4 at 8:30 this evening may be interesting.
It’s trailed as; ‘Leading labour figures urge their party to adopt a radical new welfare settlement’.
One thing for certain they won’t be advocating an increase in benefit payments or the abolition of the bedroom tax.
If we vote YES in 2014, perhaps “Johnny Foreigner” will become “Jocky Foreigner”!
Apologies Rev!
But could I get away with ” it was worth saying twice”?
@ Aplinal & Jiggsbro
I’m not sure if, in the context of a stage performance, it escapes Poe’s Law, however, I doubt everyone (anyone?) in the audience gets the joke. Sending up the English by listing their stereotypes and prejudices of Irish, Welsh and Scots seems a strange way to go about it. Replace any of these nationalities with Jamaican or Pakistani and nobody would ever dream of getting up on stage and delivering such a rendition today. I think the audience thoroughly enjoyed having their prejudices confirmed.
Paul Steele says:
27 May, 2013 at 12:09 pm
“When I lived in Lithuania in the 1990?s, my colleagues expressed that they could never view people of any ethnicity living in Russia as ‘foreigners’”
Small world. I lived there from 95 – 07. Never was made to feel a foreigner. Now I live in ROI and am not a foreigner. My lithuanian wife is not a foreigner. Neither are my Lithuanian born Kids.
Strange to see all these purported internationalist labourites going on about johnny foreigner. Not what i thought international socialism is about………..or do they just pay lip service to all that (SHHHHH).
Foreign or not?
Currently I do not have and cannot have a classic British Passport. I do have a European Passport and I am a British national. I am a European citizen and all other EU citizens are not foreign.
Eg.I may receive consular help from any EU consulate/embassy if there is not a UK consul near me while I am outside the EU. So, another myth busted is that Scotland does not need a huge amount of embassies per se as we will are already covered by all EU where any member has such a service. Post indy. rump UK facilities – if UK remains in EU (all of which are pro rata ours anyway, but who knows how facilities will be split), can be used by us.
This EU passport is however property of the UK Gov and may be withdrawn by them at any time but essentially no EU person is foreign in the classic sense to any other.
On the contrary, someone from the Falkland islands can have a classic British passport. However they are not EU citizens.
If rUK decides to leave EU while Scotland is within then it is very likely we would have bilateral arrangements within the British isles, but rUK ‘subjects’ would no longer be citizens of Europe.
The last time I was at the centre of the universe in London, I was completely amazed. There are foreigners everywhere, the place is crawling with them.
And they’re cunning little buggers – they dress like us, eat like us, get pi***d like us, they even drive on the same side of the road as we do. Some pretend to be Aussies, African, French, Brasilien, American or well well well – Argies. The whole thing reminded me of my family.
I’m a foreigner as well, I’ve spent the last forty years living and working in different places round the world. OK, I was surrounded by foreigners but hey what can you do, they were probably there before I came.
Join up. Be a foreigner and see the world!
Why did Foulkes highlight in his tweet that only English citizens would be foreigners and omitt the Welsh and Nothern Irish ? Why is this always about the English ?
Oh course not a metion of all the young folk that had to emigrate and become foreigners as a reult of unionist policies
@Susan
We’re just folks like everyone else. Good, bad and bonkers.
For the most part though we make the effort to make people feel welcome. We’ve spent a fair bit of time being guests in other folks countries ourselves. It’d be downright rude not to extend a hand to people coming to stay with us. Better yet if they’re coming here to be one of us, both arms open is the right attitude.
Oh come on guys, that Flanders and Swan song is fall-down funny. Some people seem to have had their sense of humour disconnected.
This is dog whistle politics so high pitched the only thing they are attracting is bats.
And that is so funny it deserves repeating.
O/T – The Guardian have a very good article on MPs earnings:
Gordon Brown earned more than £1.37m from giving speeches around the world. Brown said the income supported an office that he uses to “support my ongoing involvement in public life”, with £600,000 going to charity and none of the money to him personally.
Former Labour ministers Alistair Darling and Jack Straw declared earnings of £263,000 and £183,000 respectively. Straw said that his work as an MP allowed ample time for outside work, which was mainly a mixture of speaking engagements and writing.
link to guardian.co.uk
@Morag
As I said, I always took it to be irony. If you listen to a lot of their stuff it was. “The Gasman cometh”, is pure English bureaucracy/union ‘demarkation’ gone mad.
“For many of us it was the experience of living outside Scotland that made us pro-independence.”
Exactly….
I have my own wee cheery story for this evening.
Got picked up by friends to go to a concert in the church in the next village. Me wearing my Yes Scotland badge, my friends’ car likewise. Picked up another friend on the way. This lady has a pronounced English accent, and in my knee-jerk bad assumptions way I silently ticked her off as a probable No.
Fast forward to after the event and the whole boiling of us are washing up wine glasses in the church kitchen. Another friend, long-time Labour activist, like her husband, was talking about her sons and grandchildren in America. I wandered off, remarking sotto voce that I had to get out before my evil twin asked her how she felt about her sons and grandchildren being foreigners. Then I remembered that she herself was originally from Yorkshire.
I went back in to collect the empty wine bottles for recycling, and the conversation had turned to her younger son’s plight with the terrible US health service and the treatment he needed for his asthma – he’s a free-lance musician. As usual, it went on to praise the NHS and we don’t know how lucky we are. I said something about NHS privatisation and being worried about it, not sure if it was politic to point out that it was only the Scottish government that was protecting us from that.
Well, I didn’t really engineer the way the conversation went. It was the Yorkshire-born lady, married to the dyed-in-the-wool Labour unionist activist (from the Highlands), who first said something like, “we’re screwed if we don’t get independence”. This sentiment was immediately echoed by the other English lady. It progressed to the two Scots comforting the English-born ladies not to be so despondent, we had a decent chance of a Yes vote if everyone talked to everyone else. Yorkshire-born was very depressed about the “so-called left-wing newspapers” and all the lies they were telling, but we cheered her up.
It ended up with the Labour lady vowing to redouble her efforts to persuade her husband of the error of his ways. And the “Yes Scotland” car purring home with everyone agreeing “they’re in the bag”.
I would like to point out that this happened in the Borders, that I was the youngest of the ladies in the conversation and I’ll be 60 this year, and that the village in question was used by Bitter Together as its showcase example of “a typical Scottish village where they’ll be voting for the union” last year. And I asked Yes Borders for extra help just last week because I thought we were a “difficult area”.
So you never know, chaps.
I lived in Japan for seven years, now been in England for over three. My brother is in South Africa and shows no intention of returning. Last time I checked we were both still Scottish.
Richard Seymour wrote a good piece about the fact it was New Labour who introduced ‘immigration’ and ‘nationality’ into mainstream politics and made them a major area of public policy debate when there was no reason to except the usual one of New Labour trying to out-tory the Tories or, as WOS put it recently,
“A bit like when there’s someone breathing right down your neck on a crowded train, that sent the Tories shuffling ever further along the political spectrum in an attempt to put some distance between them and their opponents, only to be confounded as Labour doggedly matched them step for step, constantly pressing their manifesto-groins into the Tories’ rear like some sort of hideous nerdy sex pest.”
References –
Patriotism – A Dead-End Solution to a Non-Problem
New Left Project
07 July 2011
link to newleftproject.org
Why Labour are to blame for UKIP
WOS
03 May 2013
http://wingsoverscotland.com/why-labour-are-to-blame-for-ukip/
I wuz a furriner myself once, living in America in the mid eighties. Spookily I worked in the World Showcase in Epcot centre in the British pavilion. Surrounded by ambassadors from twelve different nations.
As part of Disney’s ethos we were deliberately housed with people not of our own nations, the result being I was housed with a German flatmate. We also mixed with friends of various nationalities, French, Chinese, Mexican, American, Japanese, English and so on. Y’know not once did it occur to me that I was with furriners, just friends. Picked up a smattering of a few languages and whilst in practice could speak reasonably fluent German. Though I doubt I could string better than a sentence together today. However I’m not sure it was a fair exchange. There was nothing funnier than seeing my old flatmate parliamo Glasgow with a Hamburg accent.
I’d recommend the experience to anyone. Travel, learn about other cultures, talk and listen, ye cannae beat it.
Imagine How Margret Curran’s son must have felt if he heard this.
Does anyone know how many English people are now living in Scotland ?
I’ve heard rumours of English people being told that many English Companies in Scotland will “up sticks” and move out of Scotland if it’s a YES outcome.
Are English people living in Scotland more likely to vote NO because of this “foreigner” scaremongering.
Just wondered if their were any official figures of the numbers of English people living here. (although i don’t know why there should or would be)
This is a load of nonsense. The Unionists should be utterly ashamed of themselves to insinuate that the breakup of the UK would result in each of us becoming foreigners.
One very simple question then…
Do we consider the Irish foreigners …because I sure as f*** don’t!!!!
Do I consider Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians as foreigners. Not really. Our cultures are all very similar.
Even if Scotland goes its own way, we will still be British.
This is just nasty, evil propaganda.
@ JLT,
This is just nasty, evil propaganda.
Problem is, that is all the No Scotland side have.
OT – I see the Bain principle will not be applying to the revived Snooper’s Charter. Labour will support the Tories in order to get this profoundly illiberal legislation passed.
link to bbc.co.uk
I can’t really comment on exactly why Labour et al continue to perpetuate the implication that foreignness is inherently bad. However, I saw some interesting possible parallels in the pseudohistorical accounts of Scotland’s and Britain’s foundations.
According to several sources – Historia Brittonum, the Book of Leinster – Scotland and the Scots were named for Scota, an Egyptian princess, who married either an Iberian (ancient Spanish) called Mil Espaine, or a Greek (in some accounts, Scythian) called Goidel Glas roughly contemporaneous with Moses. Scota was exiled from Egypt, and after long wanderings found Ireland, where they settled. The children of Mil Espaine/Goidel Glas and Scota gave rise to the Gaels and Scots, who of course migrated to what would become Scotland. There have been many folkoric connections of the Irish to Iberia, Egypt and the Scythians, though there have also been some very intriguing archaeological discoveries which show at least some truth behind the myth.
Compare with the foundation myth of Britain: Brutus of Troy, a supposed descendent of Anaeas, the Trojan who allegedly settled in Italy after the fall of Troy – most famous as the founder of Rome in Virgil’s Aeneiad. After killing one or both of his parents (depending on the source), he goes off on adventures in North Africa, the Tyrrhenian Sea, Gaul and Greece, where he finds fellow Trojans and leads them in battles against them. Although they saw success in Gaul, even founding a city (Tours), they journeyed on to the island of Albion, and conquered the native Giants who dwelt there. Brutus renames the island after himself, and founds the city of Troia Nova (New Troy) on the banks of the Thames – which would become corrupted as Trinovantum, and over successive ages, renamed London. Brutus then bequeaths his island to his three sons: Locrinus ruled England, Albanactus ruled Scotland, and Kamber ruled Wales.
The Scottish foundation myth posits a man & woman from different ethnic backgrounds and countries traveling a far distance to settle; the British foundation myth shows one ethnic group fighting and conquering their way to their island home. Through Scota and Goidel Glas/Mil Espaine, the Scots and Gaels are associated with the nomadic Scythians, the fiercely independent Iberians, the knowledgeable and far-travelling Greeks, and the cultured Egyptians; through Brutus, the British are associated with Rome, the ultimate conquerors of the ancient world, and Troy, ancient doomed bastion of civilization.
Without getting too political, I can see some correlations here. Scotland is historically a nation of migrants: the original Caledonians and Picts, then the Britons and Gaels in antiquity, followed by Norwegians in the north and Danes in the southeast in the dark ages, after that the Normans – all before the true consolidation of Scotland as a nation. As such, Scotland was a nation forged from many peoples. Britain, on the other hand, historically and culturally favoured the English as the dominant people of the isles. Being a complete amateur historian, I’d say this is largely due to the Roman conquest, which introduced the idea of monolithic cultural assimilation to the Isles: even for centuries after Scotland was unified, the various Gaelic, Brythonic, Norse and Norman regions had their own laws, traditions and languages. In contrast, after the Dark Ages, England soon became dominated by one culture, language and history, especially in the east: all Brythonic influences east of the Welsh kingdoms was supplanted by the Anglo-Saxon, then the Norman, standard.
Again, I’m an amateur history enthusiast, so if my take is incorrect, I’d happily concede. But considering the history of Celtic suppression by the British government (Dress Act, Penal Laws, etc), this xenophobia from the current British establishment is not surprising in the slightest. In England, immigrants congregate in intense concentrated areas, where they speak their own language and abide by their own laws, separated from the “native” English. In Scotland, the communities still have a strong sense of their origins, but they tend to be far more integrated among the populace, be they the Italians which amassed here in the aftermath of World War II, or the Pakistanis after Pakistan gained independence. Almost every individual I’ve met who’s settled here from afar has either a full Scottish accent, or is as integrated into the local community as any of Jock Tamson’s bairns.
That’s the essential difference, I think. If you come to Scotland, you become Scottish yourself. If you come to England, you’re another conquest of the British Empire, a thrall to the Establishment.
Being foreign, in terms of the British establishment, doesn’t mean you’re bad, or evil: it just means your inferior to the Manifest Destiny, another load on the White Man’s Burden. The Scots who would view the English as “foreigners” in an independent Scotland, therefore, may not be fearing difference – it may just be that they’re subconsciously aware of British Imperialism, and how they tend to view anyone who is not British. A mixture of condescending appeasement to the Johnny Foreigners they like, and cold disdain to those they don’t.
Foreigners? Coming from insects, that’s the pot calling the kettle a sandwich.
If you come to Scotland, you become Scottish yourself. If you come to England…
From the Commission for Racial Equality.
link to ethnos.co.uk
Thus, across all Scottish and Welsh groups, regardless of participants’ ethnic backgrounds, national identification [with Scotland or Wales] was much stronger than identification with Britain, although those identities were not seen as incompatible or mutually exclusive.
The situation was different in England, where there was a sharp difference in the ways in which white English and ethnic minority participants thought of themselves. Most white English participants saw themselves as English, first and foremost, but also as British. By contrast, most ethnic minority participants (except for black Africans, as discussed below) saw themselves as British, to the exclusion of any identification with England, since they strongly associated England with white English people.
@Tamson. Bain Principle only applies to the SNP. Labour and Tories are bestest buddies most of the time!
I watched a show hosted by Darcus Howe (media commentator of West Indian extraction) a few years ago, on the subject of Englishness and the English. It reached pretty much the same conclusion as above (although it didn’t look beyond England). Immigrants to England, particularly non-white immigrants, are rarely regarded as English either by themselves or the indigenous English. Hence British-Asian, British Afro-Caribbean, etc. Darcus even interviewed Norman Tebbit (himself descended from immigrants one or two generations back) who said on camera words to the effect of if you’re not white you can’t be English but you can certainly be British.
Well I suppose I am a foreigner having not done too well on the Britishness Test – apart from “Who is the patron saint of Scotland” – do I await a knock on the door at 3am to revoke my Scotlandshire visa?
The real problem is those who wickedly spurn their own at every opportunity – at the very least so-called ‘foreigners’ actually want to be here and we are usually delighted to have them. Not so for those who constantly belittle their origins and potential – good grief they can’t even come up with reasons as to why the blessed union is an advantage but have no thought to heaping scorn and lies on a whole distinct population – treachery or what?
deewal says:
28 May, 2013 at 3:10 am
“Does anyone know how many English people are now living in Scotland ?
…..
Just wondered if their were any official figures of the numbers of English people living here. (although i don’t know why there should or would be)
”
link to gro-scotland.gov.uk
@Clarinda
I agree, the people who are here chose to be here. They are mostly enfranchised to vote in the Referendum. It is possible that a majority shall vote yes. There is a self contained logic in this.
Consequently we have this “foreigner” spat from the usual suspects.
To sow doubt? I don’t doubt it at all.
Is it a deliberate ploy to head off the logical conclusion that someone from other parts of the EU will come to? IE they aren’t going to be able to stay if there’s a no vote. By suggesting they will be less welcome if they vote yes.
I believe in this day and age the word ‘foreigner’ is actually quite derogatory (positively in the context of the above statements) and as stated verging on xenophobia.
What a load of drivelling clowns, what makes it worse is we the taxpayer are paying their wages.
I truly hope this comes back to bite them on the arse big time.
“My son, for example, who went to university in England, I think I’d be uncomfortable with the thought that he’s now a foreigner.”
So, not a foreigner just for the duration of his stay in England, but irretrievably a foreigner? If he comes back to Scotland would Margaret not relent a little, and consider him a recovering foreigner? But what if he relapses, and goes to England again? What if he goes to France, or America, or Mongolia, or all three, and becomes a serial foreigner? Would Margaret, for the sake of her reputation, have to disown him at some point? I mean, people might talk.
I’ve got a confession: I once went to France. With proper medication and the understanding and support of my family I think I’m managing to put my life back together again, although I still have panic attacks at the smell of fresh crepes. We have a little self-help group that meets once a week. We introduce ourselves in the usual way: ‘My name is Vronsky, and I am a foreigner’. But there are always worse off than yourself – one poor chap has been to Wales. We don’t think he’s going to make it.
“Not so for those who constantly belittle their origins and potential – good grief they can’t even come up with reasons as to why the blessed union is an advantage but have no thought to heaping scorn and lies on a whole distinct population – treachery or what?”
No it isn’t ‘treachery’ and its very unwise and damaging to make that claim. They simply believe that Scotland would be better off remaining part of the UK, and they are perfectly entitled to hold that view. You need to remember that roughly half the population are unionists, and the vast majority of them will still be here after independence – labelling them all as ‘("Tractor" - Ed)s’ is very damaging and divisive, regardless of the referendum result we will still all need to live together afterwards.
Vronsky
Brilliant.
Norsewarr – I did not label “all” as “("Tractor" - Ed)s” – just those well-known purveyors of bile. I suggest they “simply believe” that the rUK would be better off with Scotland continuing to pay into the Westminster coffers and that they sustain their MP status plus perks etc. What do you say to those who deliberately appear to tell lies, hide the truth or promote spin against Scotland?
@Vronsky: one poor chap has been to Wales. We don’t think he’s going to make it.
I genuinely did laugh out loud at this, superb!
Norsewarrior
Nobody here is suggesting what you just said. The ire is towards the likes of Curran and Foulkes (ie politicians shit stirring) and not the population at large (who I doubt share those misguided politicians’ obsession with ethnicity/foreignness)
Seems you have the wrong end of the stick?
I find the language used by Curran for the need for an “emotional debate” interesting but misleading. Her focus on the strange relationships within her family has surely limited the broader application of her thesis – people who live and/or work outside of their home country are “foreigners”.
Curran’s emotional argument seems to be stating, for example, that the UK armed forces stationed outside of the UK are “foreigners”.
I think it would have been more appropriate for Curran to put forward her racial philosophy as part of a perceived need for an “irrational debate” (which is more in keeping with the “No” campaign). I am very happy to support her in her democratic right to pursue her beliefs, but would suggest she first seeks the support of a family relationship counsellor.
Nothing wrong with your choice of words Clarinda. What else would you call someone who deliberately lies to their fellow countrymen/women, and acts against their interests?
Obviously i’m not including the average potential No voter that has been conned into believing these people.
When Cameron and his Deputy Farage take us out of EU does that mean we cease to be Europeans?
@scottish_skier: Well michty me, that just shows I might not’ve been talking a pile of mince after all – at least not a complete pile! Thanks very much for the link, most illuminating.
As an MP I imagine Magrit Curran has a residence in London and another one in Glasgow. Would she think of herself as a foreigner when we regain our independence?
“What else would you call someone who deliberately lies to their fellow countrymen/women, and acts against their interests?”
Salmond has been caught out lying to the people of Scotland before, and he is acting against the interests of roughly half the population by seeking independence, is he a ‘("Tractor" - Ed)’ too in your opinion?
As I said, it is very damaging and divisive to use words like ‘("Tractor" - Ed)’ and ‘treachery’ to describe any Scot who wants to remain in the union, we should avoid such language.
he is acting against the interests of roughly half the population by seeking independence,
You appear to have confused ‘wishes’ and ‘interests’.
Morning Hoarsey, treachery def.a violation of faith or trust; betrayal.
Not ("Tractor" - Ed), nor treason, stop it zealot.
“You appear to have confused ‘wishes’ and ‘interests’.”
Er……..why do you think roughly half the population want Scotland to remain part of the union?! Because they believe it will be to their (and Scotland’s) advantage and benefit, i.e. its in their interest.
@Norsewarrior,
Can you provide a source for 50% of the Scottish population being unionists? I think that figure might be closer to mid/high twenties.
“Can you provide a source for 50% of the Scottish population being unionists?”
Certainly. Every poll ever commissioned on the subject of independence, which all show that somewhere between 45-60% want to remain within the union.
I can believe the Moon is made of green cheese but it is in my interest that it isnt.
Er……..why do you think roughly half the population want Scotland to remain part of the union?! Because they believe it will be to their (and Scotland’s) advantage and benefit, i.e. its in their interest.
And everything anyone believes is automatically true? Again, you’ve confused ‘wishes’ and ‘interests’. They wish to remain in the UK, because they believe it is in their interests. It isn’t.
Well, this thread was slowing down a bit but now Noggin the Nog has turned up here we go!
“They wish to remain in the UK, because they believe it is in their interests. It isn’t.”
Er…….but the fact is that they believe it is in their interests, so that means Salmond is acting against their interests by trying to get independence!
Whether it is actually in their interests or not is irrelevant, its what they believe to be in their interests that matters (the clue is the fact that its ‘their’ interests, not yours or what you think is in their interests).
Norsewarrior
I agree that it would be wildly inaccurate and divisive to label as ("Tractor" - Ed)s those who are likely to vote No either because they are committed Unionists or are troubled by the never-ending scare stories. However, it is right to call out those politicians that generate foolish (and often contradictory) scare stories as less than honest and, at worst, duplicitous. Labour’s sudden love of the “foreigner” word is particularly troubling especially as the whole issue of immigration is fast becoming a tinder box….an extremely dangerous tinder box.
That’s another thread derailed…
Er…….but the fact is that they believe it is in their interests, so that means Salmond is acting against their interests by trying to get independence!
He’s acting against what they believe are their interests, not against their interests. As are you, of course, as a supporter of independence.
Whether it is actually in their interests or not is irrelevant,
Whether it is in their interests is irrelevant to whether he is acting against their interests? It’s central, FFS. The clue is that fact that it’s ‘their interests’, not ‘what they believe to be their interests’.
Every poll ever commissioned on the subject of independence, which all show that somewhere between 45-60% want to remain within the union.
Since May 2011, only MORI and TNS have shown ‘No’ greater than 50% at times. All the others (panelbase, ICM, Angus Reid/VC, Comres) have shown support for ‘No’ at less than 50% (one AR/VC at 50%, rest lower). So in that sense, MORI and TNS are the ‘outliers’.
Historically, i.e. pre 2011 going back to 1998, No average is 43% vs the same for Yes.
I have all of them (58, I believe that’s all) in front of me.
The discrepancy between MORI/TNS and all the others, including the big guns (AR and ICM) could be explained by their use of landline telephone (MORI to poll, TNS to arrange F2F); something which is considered out of date by pollsters as it tends to get the wrong demographic (older, more conservative, younger people still living with older parents etc). None of the main pollsters (bar TNS and MORI) use landline alone now; as far back as 2007 various academic studies showed this to be increasingly inaccurate due to the rise of mobiles and social media. Many people don’t have a landline or if they do, it’s only for broadband. Landline and F2F also introduce the ‘shy independence’ factor due to lack of anonymity; something you can see in the data and not evident in internet polls.
Also, while a ‘Yes’ can be taken as support for independence, a ‘No’ should not be treated as ‘support’ for the status quo. You’ve only around 3/10 support for that. The other ~7/10 wish all but independence (Devo Max / FFA) or something approaching that.
There is little ‘love’ for the union in Scotland. However, independence is a big leap. The ‘No’ vote is very soft; you can see that in data too.
“it is right to call out those politicians that generate foolish (and often contradictory) scare stories as less than honest and, at worst, duplicitous”
I fully agree with you, any politician who lies or makes up scare stories, or uses ‘foreigners’ and immigration in order to incite things should be condemned.
That’s it. I’m giving up.
I’m no longer interested in Scottish Independence because it is against what some people in Scotland have been (mis)led to believe is ‘their’ best interests.
I mean, smoking, eating too much red meat, lining your home or place of work with asbestos, having lead water piping for drinking water, nuclear radiation, Mercury treatment, leaded fuel, Thalidomide and wearing spandex were all at one point believed to be in our best interests but we had a debate and they’re now not.
So it stands to reason we should stop the debate now lest something change for the better, I mean worse, or whatever… Because as we all know, the evidence is definitely vague and ambiguous at this point…
Turns out Maggrit Curran isn’t the only moron involved in this thread.
Hand and shrimp
No one labelled anyone ("Tractor" - Ed)s, that’s just Hoarsey up to his/her old tricks, psychologically ‘shackled’.
“The clue is that fact that it’s ‘their interests’, not ‘what they believe to be their interests’.”
People are entitled to come to their own conclusions about what they think is in their interests or not, that’s democracy.
You appear to hold a paternalistic Victorian right-wing attitude that you think you know better than people themselves what is in their interests, and that you think you can impose on people what is in their interests!
“No one labelled anyone ("Tractor" - Ed)s, that’s just Hoarsey up to his/her old tricks”
Clarinda, 9.04am: “they can’t even come up with reasons as to why the blessed union is an advantage but have no thought to heaping scorn and lies on a whole distinct population – treachery or what?”
I’ll await your apology.
Hoarsey says;
I fully agree with you, any politician who lies or makes up scare stories, or uses ‘foreigners’ and immigration in order to incite things should be condemned.
So, condemned for say a violation of the faith or trust of the public that she should be serving? Kinda’ like treachery.
People are entitled to come to their own conclusions about what they think is in their interests or not.
No one has suggested that they aren’t. That doesn’t, however, mean that they will come to the right conclusion.
You appear to hold a paternalistic Victorian right-wing attitude that you think you know better than people themselves what is in their interests,
If someone tells me that they do not need to eat because they believe that they can get all the nutrition they need from fresh air, I don’t need to be paternalistic or Victorian (let alone ‘right wing’) to take a different view of what is actually in their interests. The facts tell me what is in their interests, not their personal beliefs.
But you’re an independence supporter too. You presumably think independence is in your interests. How do you square that with your belief that it is against the interests of half the country?
@ Norsewarrior,
“Can you provide a source for 50% of the Scottish population being unionists?”
Certainly. Every poll ever commissioned on the subject of independence, which all show that somewhere between 45-60% want to remain within the union.
Norsewarrior – the problem with using these figures as a basis for the number of unionists within Scotland is that these polls do not divulge voting intentions/reasoning, therefor you cannot conclude that all are natural unionists purely on that basis.
A unionist is not made by giving a preference to a poll. A unionist will have a deep felt belief that the UK is an amalgumation of countries that work together as a whole when together under one roof.
You don’t need to believe that to vote for it, it would be sufficient to be unconvinced for any single or collective of reason(s).
You might believe that following Independence and the election in 2016 that if Johann Lamont was voted into power, then Scotland could be in a very precarious place – much uncertainty, little faith in her or her parties ability to run a reasonable government. Who knows, what is certain is that those whop call themselves unionist tend to be the politicians in the main.
“Since May 2011, only MORI and TNS have shown ‘No’ greater than 50% at times”
UK Polling Report appears to disagree with you. It has ‘no’ at 50% or greater in 56% of polls since the start of 2012, including Ashcroft, Angus Reid and YouGov, as well as Ipsos-Mori and TNS.
link to ukpollingreport.co.uk
Who is Hoarsey? I lose track of the sock puppets.
Anyhoo, notwithstanding the finer poinrts regarding who called who a wee bit treasony, the fact remains that Curran went out on a wing with her foreigner nonsense. A flakey dangerous wing that feeds the gaping maw of the UKIP monster. She was foolish and what is worst of all I seriously doubt she can see the folly of her words.
I see Norsewarrior is now arguing that Alex Salmond is behaving badly by wanting Scottish independence, yet Norsewarrior has tried to maintain the position that Norsewarrior is in support of independence. Rumsfeld could teach Norsewarrior nothing.
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
“Don’t divide the world into ‘them’ and ‘us.’ Avoid infatuation with or resentment of the press, the Congress, rivals, or opponents. Accept them as facts. They have their jobs and you have yours.”
“Don’t speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn’t walk in their shoes.”
“I can’t tell you if the use of force in Iraq today will last five days, five weeks or five months, but it won’t last any longer than that.”
@Holebender
It was coming towards the buffer stops anyway but as a foreigner living here it has been fascinating. I have also lived in England as a foreigner and that was a very different experience. Apparently much more friendly on first appearance but once labelled and boxed – disdain. Here, easy coast, much more difficult to make acquaintances but once made much more regular and profound.
My view of the Nos is that they think of themselves as the elite, which they have been. Their use of foreigner is due to an elites fear of being displaced by the non-elite and can be contrasted with their happy acceptance of the Westminster musical chairs between the members of the elite and their visceral hatred of being usurped bt the very much non-elite sweaties of the SNP.
The use of FUD, Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt, is also an elite ploy, witness its successful use for years by Big Blue in the computer wars. But encouragingly Big Blue was overwhelmed by the PC which it originated; any analogy to be drawn with Westminsters origination of devolution?
Please, please ignore Norse Worrier. I have stopped reading his comments. I don’t believe for one minute that he wants independence even though he has said in the past that he does. He merely comes on to criticise the SNP. Never anything positive about either Independence OR the Union.
I would like him a lot more if he would just be honest for once.
Again Hoarsey, treachery is not treason, nor is a treacherous person necessarily a ("Tractor" - Ed).
Radicalising someone with misinterpretation is a treacherous hobby.
I agree with holebender.
This thread is now beyond the pale.
Time to grow up guys.
Norsewarrior – please apologise for suggesting that Alex Salmond is a liar. Otherwise we will set Margaret Curran on you for being Norse, and therefore a dangerous foreigner.
NW UK Polling Report appears to disagree with you
Can you point me to where they disagree with me? e.g. where they say MORI and TNS are the most accurate and landlines are the future maybe?
On this page, only 8/18 show >50% no.
link to ukpollingreport.co.uk
NW Every poll ever commissioned on the subject of independence, which all show that somewhere between 45-60% want to remain within the union.
I see a large number of polls showing less than 50% support for the union. Some 42’s and 44’s there too, and that’s with the No running quite high after being behind in late 2011. None at 60% – only 1/18 close.
And that’s a bit biased due to the large number of TNS and MORI which typically show the highest no. If we had more e.g. AR’s, some ICMs and Comres etc what would it look like?
Note you should completely ignore yougov due to this:
link to yougov.co.uk
I imagine you can see the obvious flaws which explain why Yougov are one of the most inaccurate pollsters for Scotland.
e.g.
which party they would support, or had supported, in the 2010 General Election
readership of individual newspapers.
<Facepalm>
This isn’t England Yougov…
So obvious from day one: If it walks like a duck…..
Very good read on Bella C, who was where and how close the ties between M Curran, Johann Lamont and John Boothman (of BBC Scotland) at Uni. It brings a new meaning to ‘Better Together ‘
@Molly –
Thanks for heads-up re BellaC piece – the words ‘smoking’ and ‘gun’ spring to mind.
Foreign? I am in fairly regular contact with Jim McQuiston, the man behind The Celtic Guide. That is the free online monthly magazine that is packed full of all sorts of information about the Scots, Welsh, Bretons, Cornish, Irish etc.
Jim informs us that his family moved to America approximately 400 years ago.
He tells me that on his first trip to Scotland he and his son took a flight to London where they hired a car and drove north.
When they crossed the border they stopped their car at the earliest opportunity, got out, knelt down, and kissed the ground.
And of course, by family I mean his ancestors.
at 10.39 AM Norsewarrior states that “Salmond had been caught out lying to the people of Scotland before”. Can he give a couple of examples?
There’s no such thing as a ‘foreigner’. The world can be divided into two halves.
People you like – and people you don’t like.
I don’t care where you come from . I’ll treat you as I would anyone else – unless you teach me not to. Then you are in the ‘don’t like’ half. Whether your Scots, English or from Timbuktoo.
Simple – but it works nicely.
but surely Scots already feel that the English are foreigners i.e no common politics, no common culture (in fact a disdain for anything culturally English) no common future goals, no real common history apart from the whigish anglocentric fantasies imposed on the nation. Isn’t this what is driving the Independence campaign? Before I came to Scotland I had no great love or affiliation with the Authoritarian thread to English history, but I saw it as a battle between classes and elites and ‘normal’ working class people and that drawing distinctions along geographical grounds was missing the point (in fact playing into the nationalistic myths that ruling elites use to get populations to die for them in stupid pointless wars). However, when you move to Scotland you are constantly reminded that you are English and you are forced to carry the responsibility of everything that England has ever done. Regardless of personal thoughts, ideas, politics or personal background, you are English and you have to carry with that everything that people want or feel that that represents. So in my experience many Scots already see England as foreign, so whats the big deal?
Most of the UK doesn’t see Ireland or the Irish as foreigners. There’s a long list of Irish actors, musicians and personalities that the UK population doesn’t ID as ‘foreign’.
Hell, one of them even took on the role of James Bond.
Now there’s a thought. If Scotland went Indy, Bond would be a 100% foreigner (half Scots, half Swiss). Can’t have that.