Juxtaposed with EU
Posted on
December 02, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Two stories from the Express today.
Digested version: “You can’t vote for independence, because England would end up full of immigrants! But actually we’re so scared of immigrants anyway that we’re going to leave the EU regardless, and take you with us against your will.”
Both articles on the same day and by the same author!
Wonderful 🙂
We’re not as obsessed by ‘foreigners’ as our southern cousins are. Perhaps it’s because we have a land border with another country whereas most of England has no inkling that it has a land border with anyone. Foreigners are to be pitied as inferior, or feared as a threat – depending on how many there are in the room at any one time. This is clearly being encouraged to direct social unrest away from the Government (a typical ploy).
The audience ‘immigration’ question posed and reaction to it on the Falkirk QT last week was interesting – it seemed like a sort of faux pas on the programme makers’ part to include it and it certainly wasn’t the issue it would be south of the border.
What evidence is there that suggests the Scottish people don’t want to leave the EU?
“What evidence is there that suggests the Scottish people don’t want to leave the EU?”
All the polls which consistently show a clear majority for staying in, which have been linked here many times. Click the “Europe” tag to find some.
British nationalists can’t see the inherent hypocrisy festering inside their “arguments”.
The English are always calling us racist against them.We know who the racists are and the ("Tractor" - Ed)s.
UK trade mission to China…..no MSM/BBC comment on DC raising the question on China’s human rights. Hope wee Wullie Rennie will push for some explanation from his London coalition bosses.
China to invest in the UK’s infrastructure….really!
link to bbc.co.uk
@ Undecided: in response to your question, this is empirical evidence only, but a useful place to start in your search for more concrete data. Quite simply, compare the electoral fortunes of UKIP in Scotland and England respectively.
Possibly been posted already but interesting all the same…
link to yesscotland.net
Watched a report on breakfast today from Bulgaria and the reporter was clearly fishing for some stats to make story but I the end we were able to establish that most migrants are driven by employment opportunities and not welfare. The projected numbers were minuscule by comparison to the stuff we get from right wing press. In fact because of climate, the UK projections were well down the list of first choice destinations. The report kind of fizzled out as there appeared to be no story, surprise, surprise.
According the the Express should we not all be buried under 12 foot snow drifts right now?
The purpose of the Express is to make the Mail look scholarly
@MajorBloodnok; Patrick Harvie’s response to that question really impressed me actually. He’s the first politician I’ve seen in a long time who didn’t fanny about equivocating and “respecting” the questioner’s “concerns”, he just out-and-out told him the truth; the whole immigration panic is a crock of shite spun up by opportunistic politicians and the xenophobic right-wing press.
Immigration is a great benefit to us, the problem isn’t foreigners, it’s the neo-liberal attitudes and policies of UK governments who use immigration as an excuse for falling wages and the erosion of labour law.
How will the UK cope without the benign rule and good guidance from Brussels?
Surely they must know they are better together, stronger together, safer and more secure in a larger Union? Is it not the case that a strong UK parliament within the EU gives them the best of both worlds? That now and in the future the UK is stronger as part of the EU, and the EU is stronger with the UK as a partner?
Is it not the case that times are really tough at home and really turbulent internationally? That in the future the Uk’s prosperity will be strengthened by keeping the EU connection? That we need more growth, more jobs, and more prosperity in the UK? That we don’t need uncertainty, instability, and barriers for our businesses?
Don’t the Brits believe there’s nowhere better, but understand there’s something bigger? Isn’t it the case that by contributing to and benefiting from the multi-national, multi-ethnic and multicultural EU of the years ahead, the UK’s society and culture will be enriched?
Because that’s the crap they want us to swallow. Why are they not applying the same reasons why Scotland should remain in the Union to the UK remaining in the EU? Is there any difference?
I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry at this.
Its hilarious. It’s like they *want* Scotland to vote Yes next year.I suspect that this wasn’t meant to be seen north of the border.
@Jimbo:
The differnece is that Scotland leaving the UK will reduce the area that they get to claim to rule, whereas leaving the EU will increase it.
Their logic never made sense, as soon as they claimed that they subsidise us. If we’re a net cost, why not let us go our own way and have more money for the south-east?
H & S ‘The purpose of the Express is to make the Mail look scholarly’ Cough , splutter! best laugh of the day and a fair assessment 🙂
Has something happened to Derek Bateman’s blog? I’m getting a message saying it’s been deleted by the author.
Has something happened to Derek Bateman’s blog? I’m getting a message saying it’s been deleted by the author.
I am getting this same message for Derek Bateman Broadcaster 2 (1 is OK though – the more satirical blog)
Oh wow! They truly are just,… oh wow.
Maybe Dereks got a new job?
“Has something happened to Derek Bateman’s blog? I’m getting a message saying it’s been deleted by the author.”
Yup, me too.
The site says:
drderekbateman.wordpress.com is no longer available.
Immigration is good, and we need more of it. As a Ph.D. student at St Andrews university I can attest to how much many of the highly talented young people who come here to complete masters degrees and so on would absolutely love to stay and work here if only they had the opportunity. They come to our country, they make friends, they benefit from our education system, and then often contrary to their wishes are forced to leave as their visas expire. This is a loss to our economy and our future. These high calibre university graduates are exactly the type of people that the Express etc. never mention, and we should have schemes that enable them to stay here and work if they wish to do so, in fact we should be actively encouraging it.
Border controls are anthema to me, redolent instead of the deep-rooted cultural paranoia and overt racism intrinsic in almost all discussion of immigration policy down south. However, maybe we should have border controls on reflection. Let’s position people on our frontier with England, and charge them with the solemn but necessary duty of keeping all readers of The Express and Daily Mail out of our country…..:p
He’s maybe got his job back.
What has happened to Derek Bateman? Why on earth would he delete all his content? Has he been got at?
Hopefully just a temporary disappearance.
The EU returns some of our money – £800 million (GERS 2011-12). If we remain in the UK and the UK leaves the EU. What will happen to that money? I suspect it would go the same way as the oil revenues, right down the drain in London.
Immigration will be higher in an independent Scotland as our economy will prosper. I believe that the uKOKers want to use this as a reason to vote no. But the fact is we can vote yes and prosper or we can vote no and decline, decline and die. Meanwhile those shits in London will continue to squander our huge resources.
We need some inward immigration, but let’s concentrate on the fact that an independent Scotland will be a family friendly country where Scots can prosper and produce children without the fear of living in an inhumane, family unfriendly and bankrupt country like the UK.
Mr Bateman’s not likely to disappear without giving his readers a reason.
Some posts from 26th Nov onwards have vanished since about mid morning. I was going to link to his latest then, wish I had. @:[
I don’t get the immigration thing. If Scotland has a more welcoming policy it will be to bring in specific skills, which we badly need, especially in rural areas where it’s hard to get people and in engineering, life sciences etc. The white paper says it would be on some points system, similar to other countries.
If someone skilled has a job and can work legally in Scotland, why on earth would the want to slip over the border to be an illegal immigrant, unable to work, in a hostile country? That would be nuts. If they’re saying we need a border because immigrants might slip in here then head over an open border, well they could do that right now.
re Bateman:
Perhaps the BBC has realised that Bateman’s opinions are their intellectual property, having been partly formed whilst on their premises, so they’ve confiscated them.
As our Governor General, Alistair Carmichael says repeatedly to us thick jocks. The majority of the UK (English) population will prevent us (thick jocks) from making an arse of ourselves by choosing the wrong answers, they will just over rule us. Can’t be fairer than that, thank you sir. As can be seen from the top left of the page this is our new patron saint to replace that nasty st Andrew, holding our new national flag. So instead of having separate flags we will allow you numpties to use our flag, There will be a small charge.
Which raises another benefit we have decided to bestow on you haggis bashers, we will no longer use the word Scotland as this is causing confusion and giving you jocks a belief that you are not English. This is erroneous and will not be tolerated, from now on you will become extensions to Northumberland and Cumberland.
To assist you further and release tensions in North Northumbria, we will arrange to have all that nasty oil taken away and disposed off, at a considerable cost. The 30% of your income which we steal at the moment will be increased to 40%, there may be a charge for this, but it will be very reasonable and fair.
Last but not least Holyrood is no more, and you will not be asked to participate in any more elections as England will take care of that. So you see we (me) really are BETTER TOGETHER.
GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!
Thank you Sir Alistair grovel, scrape, grovel, lick, lick.
“Mr Bateman’s not likely to disappear without giving his readers a reason.”
Maybe one of the British Nationalist ‘ proud Scottish patriots’ has done a ‘National Collective’ on him. You know how they like to close down debate and will brook no criticism.
Bateman Blog 1 has now also disappeared.
This is not looking good.
Re the Express article – subtext may be that after a YES vote Scots will be foreign too and so we’re the immigrants dumping all over England that they’re concerned about, as presumably all our cludgies’ll be repossessed when we ‘seperate’ (sic).
WND
Yes your right. Bateman no more? We’ll see.
“Something horrible” happened at Wings and Derek Bateman “disappeared” on the same day. I’m not liking the look of that.
““Something horrible” happened at Wings and Derek Bateman “disappeared” on the same day. I’m not liking the look of that.”
What’s happened here is nothing to do with the site.
Better Together have taken him hostage
Was anyone saving Derek Bateman’s stuff on link to archive.is?
Derek Bateman is back! link to derekbateman1.wordpress.com and now he’s angry 🙂 .. well ok I made that last bit up
majorBloodnok, whit nae cludgies,am ganna make a mint sellin chanty poes in Emburgh, Guardi Loo
Just to say, not all us english are racist, nationalist idiots (or Express readers as they’re also known). Some of us would like to stay in the the EU.
So if Scotland does become independent, could Bristol become part of Scotland please?
Completely misleading headlines, I’d say, today the BBC news channel, did an in depth report asking Romanians and Bulgarians their preferred destinations in 2014 within the EU set up, most replied, Spain, Italy and Germany.
Other preferred ports of call are Ireland, and France, so to say ALL Bulgarians and Romanians are heading to the UK is of course another scare mongering story, amongst a plethora of scaremongering stories, finally ALL the young immigrants questioned by the BBC, said that they want to work when they reach their destinations, and not live of benefits.
ronnie anderson says: am ganna make a mint sellin chanty poes in Emburgh, Guardi Loo.
Aha! And who said entrepeneurship in Scotland was dead?
@Tom
Aye, we know that, and you are welcome! 😀
I am very curious as to what has happened to the Bateman blogs.
WordPress.com has an export facility which makes it easy to back up the site then re-instate it on another server. Perhaps all is not lost.
Derek Bateman has been doing some renaming. No deletions here.
link to derekbateman1.wordpress.com
@Tom:
I don’t think we could get away with nabbing Bristol. (Westminster seems to like Bristol as the city outside The City anyway) We possibly could get Newcastle though.
I’d be up for moving the border to the Middlesbourgh-Lancaster line. Save the other bits of North England that Westminster doesn’t like to spend money on.Most peaceful land conquest in history to go along with the most peaceful independance movement? (I think Iceland still wins the most peaceful revolution)
I remember when he started the first blog there was some carry-on about the naming, and WordPress had given him some stupid name he didn’t want. I think he may have used that for the satire blog. He’s probably managed to sort out the conflict and has now been able to call them what he wanted them to be called in the first place.
A wee bit of warning would have saved mass panic though.
Derek’s blogs are up at
link to derekbateman1.wordpress.com
link to derekbateman2.wordpress.com
Didn’t that newspaper a while say that more migrants from these countries in excess of their population were due to arrive in the UK.
So why are they not moaning about the situation in the Ireland and Northern Ireland with its open border?
There will soon be tanks on the streets and gunboats on the river Clyde….”deja vu?”
@Tom: Just to say, not all us english are racist, nationalist idiots (or Express readers as they’re also known). Some of us would like to stay in the the EU.
The problem England faces is different from Scotland. Given that we already have a separate and independent education system, laws, health services, church, language and culture, it’s natural that Scottish politics would diverge from rUK politics.
The biggest problem facing England is the same thing Scots have the opportunity to reject: the profoundly undemocratic Westminster system, where the Parliament is sovereign, rather than the people. Thanks to the Act of Union and several other laws, the Scots can have a referendum and a chance of actually attaining it. This is because Scots are able to challenge and change their law and politics in a way that is simply not as easy as it is for England.
I don’t envy the English, for you guys need nothing short of a revolution. The Westminster system is rotten to the core, and the major parties are not going to entertain the notion of devolution given the trouble Scotland’s given them – certainly the Lib Dems have shown their crowing about Federalism as so much hot air. The House of Lords will never be willingly abolished, nor will hereditary peerages, or any of the feudal relics which let their cronies line their pockets. That’s why it’s been so difficult for English socialism to return after Thatcher’s devastation (well, that and rank incompetence by several individuals): the neoliberals have erected barriers and blockades to keep the socialists out, and started destroying the socialist works with abandon – meaning that if the socialists do break back in, they’ll find all their work in ruins. Unless they act now.
The fight’s going to be hard for the English, but the Scots WILL back them up. I have a feeling that if the Tories continue their depraved Cult of Austerity, England will soon be receiving aid from Scotland. I don’t mean that as some sort of smug “telt ye so” attitude – merely that the solidarity Scots feel with their English cousins does not, and never did, require overlordship from Westminster. Indeed, I even think an independent Scotland could do FAR more to help the poor of England than suffering with them.
Scotland and England are both hostages tied up in Westminster’s dungeon. Scotland could free itself (vote Yes), at the risk of leaving England at Westminster’s mercy – but equally, Scotland could leave, get help (rebuild its economy etc) and then come back to help England from the outside.
Or it could vote No, and languish with England as the Vampire of Westminster continues to suck their blood, keeping them barely alive and miserable – cutting off their arms and legs after a No vote just to remind them they cannot escape – until it’s become so bloated and obscene it bursts a la Mr Creosote. Because on top of everything else, Westminster is too stupid to realise that it’s digging its own grave as well as that of the rUK.
The right wing tax evading Media deception again. So the tax evading owners can keep on tax evading in the City of Lobdon.
Complete nonsense as usual. London S/E where most a higher % of the immigrants settle has 4% unemployment. Immigrant figures in Scotland and England are much the same 10%. 10% the population cannot cause 7% average unemployment, even if all immigrants were unemployed. It’s impossible numerically. Germany has 20% immigrants and a stronger economy,
The right wing bankers caused the recession and the higher unemployment. The Tory Bankers are now being rewarded with 35% bonuses, none went to jail, no regulation has been put in place. It is business as usual, while the rest of the UK pays for it. No bankers should get any bonus until the Banks are in profit and half of the £1.2trillion debt is paid off.
Scotland appreciates that immigrants keep the economy going. Even in the rest of the UK the perception is that immigration is a problem somewhere else. The right wing Press is muck racking. The reason the UK is in debt is because of the tax evading right wing Press, and their cronies, based in the City of London.