View from an immigrant
Posted on
March 21, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We’ve been taking the mickey out of Labour a lot in the last couple of days, which has been thoroughly merited and done with serious intent, but we thought it’d be nice to finish the week with something a bit more positive. Those of you who follow our Twitter account may have seen it already, but if not it’s well worth taking some time out for.
It’s a speech made at a Yes Scotland meeting in Lockerbie by Mark Frankland, who alert readers will recall from his appearance on this site last year, and it pretty much speaks for itself. Get this man on more stages.
I seen this already so please keep taking the Michael out of Brit Labour Party.
That was just brilliant! 🙂
Just watched it,agreed with all he said,a few good points there from a different viewpoint.
Very good.
Shame about the disparaging remarks about Russia ‘invading’
another country.
Well said Mark and must say a big heads up to Clan Destiny for recording these events for us all..well done
Well said, Mark. Re the capacity to do things better here: I remember, many years ago, reading an academic assessment which reckoned that the ideal size of population for a self-governing community was 5 million.
This seems an honest take on how many many people are thinking regards the whole issue of Independence, which is really actually being undermined and ridiculed by the gov in westminster.
Watched it all and enjoyed it immensely He is an impressive public speaker and made a convincing case for YES from an everyday perspective. Many converts in that hall I would bet.
Great speech Mr Frankland, spoken from experience and the heart without looking like a drone reading from a prepared script.
Came on to tell you about the finale song on Adam Hills “The Last Leg” on Channel 4,no point now,Frank wins.
This guy blows him away in his condemnation of capitalism.
Cheers Rev,if Frank and Pat[Kane]stand for election in my constituency in 2016,I’ll have to toss a coin.
Geoff Huijer says
Very good.
Shame about the disparaging remarks about Russia ‘invading’
another country.
I don’t think they were disparaging.
As someone who, quite rightly, does not have the right to vote I beg your leave to join this debate. I was born and grew up in Glasgow. Moved to Liverpool,, fought my hardest against thatcher then had my daughter. I left for New Zealand in thatchers last year.
Ashamed to admit that she had already won. People who had jobs were terrified of losing their job and had come to despise those who didn’t have jobs. When you are up to your waist in sh.. it’s easy to look down on someone who is up to their neck in it.
I didn’t want my daughter to grow up in a place that accepted an ideology that celebrated the rich getting richer at the expense of everyone else.
We now live in NZ. Now I’m not claiming nirvana but I think NZ offers a reasonable comparison. It has a similar though smaller population than Scotland. It was once heavily reliant on trade with England.
The common market decimated that core export market overnight. NZ survived and then grew. It has very limited oil and gas deposits and is seriously far from any export destination. Scotland would start again from a much stronger stance.
I Iiked the speakers point about the popularity of Scotland. I wonder how many of us have been in some other country when the person who could not speak any English miraculously gained fluency right after we said we were Scottish. I know that this view can only be anecdotal but it has always amazed my London born wife.
I believe that more should be made of that potential for emotional investment in a Scotland reborn.
Elsewhere in the world a yes vote may be seen as the victory for Scotland I think it will be, but more so as a defeat of the arrogant greed of England’s Tories. A defeat of rampant poverty creation.
But mostly it would be seen as a welcome addition to the club of countries that used to be controlled from London that are now managing quite well to look after themselves.
Will more people like Mark move to an independent Scotland? Will young families see Scotland as a place to move to ? Will companies invest and thrive here?
I am convinced that the exodus from Scotland will end. People will move/return to Scotland.
Hope and ambition will replace the cringe factor created by 300 years of being told we are too wee, poor and stupid.
Unfortunately all of the above is why the London elite do not want such a progressive beacon on their doorstep. The are worried that the idea of people first may catch on.
Change our children’s future with a simple cross against a simple word – YES.
Let’s hope his comments about Putin not allowing an independent Scotland to fail aren’t too prophetic.
Cheers Rev,
Caught this on your twitter account the other day. I’ve been to a lot of meetings and I’ve enjoyed them all very much, but as we’ve been discussing for a while, we tend to see the same old faces, so it was a breath of fresh air to hear a different voice.
Good speech Mark, and thanks to the people responsible for filming this for us all to enjoy.
That was excellent. I love the fact he used to tell people he was from Scotland even when he wasn’t. And I love the idea of Salmond getting phoned up by Berlin, Paris and Buenos Aires. I wonder what they’ll be saying…?
Gray says:
Let’s hope his comments about Putin not allowing an independent Scotland to fail aren’t too prophetic
Eh?
Did I miss that or did you watch a different vid?Time of statement please.
Stuart, thank you for sharing this. This is a beautiful, beautifil speech. Wonderful.
Thank you for finding and sharing this here. It’s amazing.
Ooops.his names Mark…face palm.
Read his last name as his full name.
Indeed, the human race is in uncharted territory and the interests of capital must not be allowed to triumph.
Vote Yes and remove the shackles from Scotland.
Great speaker, get him on TV.
@goldenayr
16:00
An honest English man stating his case. Good stuff.
Here’s another one (with an interesting interjection from Ian Davidson at approx. 5 mins)
I do have one reservation in his speech however,the congratulatory phone call from Washington.
It will probably happen but not for the right reasons.A Scotland outwith capitalist control of London is not desirable to the homogenised business model of America.It creates another cultural hurdle they have to overcome in order to ensure their world domination of the service economy.Walmart,Starbucks,Coka Cola,et al will see this as a hindrance to their Americanisation of Europe after they’d spent so long getting London under their control.
Well done to the Venetians in wanting a say on their lifestyle and culture.
Gray says:
@goldenayr
16:00
How is that disparaging?
I thought I saw this on the Wings twitter feed yesterday, but when I went back to find it again I couldn’t locate the tweet. Stu, do you delete tweets or am I hallucinating?
Once upon time we Geordies, when spending time on hols in bonny Scotland, were greeted with a recognition, a kind of kin which confirmed a distinct and real difference between North and South of the so called UK.
It was a strong cultural identity that was sadly lacking in any strong sense in Newcastle and thereabouts. The Scottish people seemed to have that sense of identity, that is why I came here to live, not giving that up now and the bully boys in westminster have had their day, I hope.
Brilliant Rev, would be great if Mark was up for writing a few articles for you/us. I’ll be sending this on to a few ‘maybes’ who I reckon will definitely appreciate it.
hetty
That bond is as strong as was before the battle of Preston 850AD.When the Northumbrian Barons took the Saxon gold and went back on their oath to the King of Scots and created the present border.
You have nothing to fear or be ashamed of in wanting a better society.
@Ian B
jesus christ that tit from 5 mins has killed my faith in humanity, F*ck everything its all about the monarchy and britishnesssssssss, and if people die to protect it then so be it, he is completely convinced of his own words.
Run Scotland Run like hell vote Yes
Monarchs are transient, the Crown is immutable.
Wonder where he tied is horse up?
Roy Chubby Brown’s nicer forgotten brother.
P.S. It is possible to be immutable whilst also in a state of constant flux. Consider the Lily, sorry, consider what constitutes a person. The spiritually inclined may believe individuality is a product of the soul, which is surely immutable(?). Yet does an individual not change throughout their life?
Apart from their D.N.A. that is, though that does degenerate. 🙂
The former colonies that must not be mentioned, certainly appear to be waking up to us.
link to live.wsj.com
That’s a fantastic speech, Q&A’s at the end really good too. I knew the sanctions on folks payments were brutal and for petty reasons but I didn’t know it was as bad as he laid out.
I also didn’t know there was this whole ‘open secret’ about jobcentre staff having to make 3 sanctions a week, that’s unbelievable! How can they live with themselves? I know you’ve got to feed you’re own family but they must know exactly what they’re doing to folk when they sanction their payments. What a disgraceful state of affairs.
Hope I get a chance to hear Mark speak sometime. Totally agree with others that it would be great to get another article from him on here.
Ian Brotherhood, I watched that clip of Jacob Ress Mogg, have to admit I had no idea who he was. Looked up wiki and saw this:
“In 1997 he was Tory candidate for the historically Labour seat of Central Fife. He canvassed a largely working class neighbourhood with his nanny; coming third, with 9% of votes cast -and slightly less than half the votes of the previous Conservative candidate. However he describes rumours that he took the Bentley as “scurrilous” -he insists it was just the Mercedes.”
What a rediculous caricature of a man, hard to believe people like him actually exist in the real world but they do!
Ok OT but important.
I saw a comment on a Telegraph article that mentions Dundee’s own Labour MSP, Jenny Marr.
It claims she has said that labour should abolish the British Army and instead become part of a European Army!
Now with the In/Out European Referendum promise, the Tory’s/Ukip will be able to say, with some justification, that Jenny has ‘let the cat out of the bag’ as far as Labours future plans and that a vote to leave Europe is a vote to save the British Army.
Labour would suffer in Middle England, signalling the end of Labours slim chances for the next General Election.
Is it true that she said this? I haven’t saw anything.
Patrick, I saw that too, here: link to bbc.co.uk
They seem to be quoting her directly, so unbelievably it does look like she actually said this.
In the article it says: ‘Jenny Marra said the current crisis in the Crimea revealed “the folly of nation states”.’
Is it just me or is she actually calling for one world government? I thought that was meant to be a crazy conspiracy theory! Crazy times.
Sorry to be off topic,but are contributions to WOS counted as contributions to the YES campaign after the campaign proper starts. I just need to know where to contribute my scarce resources. Cheers
“Shame about the disparaging remarks about Russia ‘invading’
another country.”
Eh, not getting that one at all Geoff, are you saying Russia didn’t invade the Ukraine and didn’t stir up the local population and they didn’t kill a Ukrainian soldier who was in his own barracks in his own country doing his duty?
“As someone who, quite rightly, does not have the right to vote I beg your leave to join this debate. ”
You need beg no ones leave Steve,I’m sure I speak for all here when I say we are proud to share this forum with you.
If we are not getting an accurate picture of the Scottish political scene from the MSM, how can we expect to get a clear picture of the Ukraine.
I can’t remember where I read it, but apparently Nazis, fascists and neo-fascists now hold some of the key governmental posts, which I think included justice, security and the army.
Not that I think Putin’s actions were acceptable (I don’t know enough re. circumstances), but it is instructive how this article avoids discussing the m$s the US has invested in yet another regime change.
The documents are in the public domain.
link to foreignpolicy.com
@Stevemc
I emigrated from Ayrshire to NZ aged 6 and have come back with my New Forest born wife. We were once in the Pas de Callais and not fancying the hotel breakfast went in search of. We found an open bar/cafe in a small village, went inside and in my best French tried to order an orange juice and a coffee. The barmaid pretended not to understand and a large customer got in our faces and asked if we were English. ‘Non’ I replied ‘nous sommes Nuveau Zelandais’ and the attitude changed in a hearbeat. ‘Ah, le rugby!’ they replied and in mixed Franglais we all had a discussion of French and AB players. We had drinks bought and could easily have become too sozzled to drive. There were invitations to their homes we sadly had to decline as we had a ferry to catch. It told us all we needed to know how the English are perceived overseas.
I have the option of claiming Scottish nationality though I don’t have the accent any more. My wife on the other hand is a New Zealander overseas. As soon as it is possible I intend to get a Scottish passport and then I will let my UK passport expire and not renew it. Then I will be able to prove easily I’m a Scottish New Zealander.
When I was working in Paris I took a canal trip one Sunday and found I was the only English speaker on board. The guide told me he had to give the commentary in French and English but since I was from Scotland he suggested he dispense with the English. I understood his French well enough but he came over to repeat in English to me personally. I was given much more information than the other passengers.
Amusingly the lady at the Maritime Museum thought my French had a Dutch sound to it.
The World knows of us and is watching with interest.
Let’s not disappoint them all come September!
Lots of New Scots agree! link to facebook.com
It is clear in many ways this man knows a bit about the world – I have often thought that if I’d fallen in love with someone of obviously another race, this would challenge so many perceptions and his comments are revealing in what we take for granted, that, apart from a few small ghettos, this country is welcoming.
Mark underlines something that to many is obvious, namely that a YES will open a can of worms in England ( and Wales and N Ireland ) since the northern English I know feel just as distanced from Westminster as the Scots do.
Equally a NO to me is unthinkable since by the 19th September expectations up here will have been so elevated nothing London offers will suffice.
@Patrick Roden and KMcKay
We are already well on the way, though I do not know how widely this is known
link to eurogendfor.org
@ CameronB.
I think you are right to be cautious about what we are told
It seems to me that the Ukrainian government was elected and then it was overthrown. It may be that it was a true kleptocracy maintained by military force, but that is true of a lot of governments and it does not legitimise a coup of any description when the ballot is still available.
I might be slightly less suspicious except I seem to see a pattern: We and the Americans have made no fuss about the overthrow of the first elected Egyptian government by a military coup. The attempt to overthrow the Thai government, also elected, has not been unequivocally condemned either
You don’t have to look back very far to find other examples of support for dictators to undermine democratically elected governments in south america, for example
Our sources of information are tainted and since we are not well able to use them to understand our own country we should be very careful in reaching conclusions about what is going on elsewhere.
There has been a consistent attack on the principles of the Westphalian accord and you may or may not agree with that development: I think it is dangerous because it is very largely justified on the high principles embodied in one Tony Blair. And those don’t convince me.
Fiona
I’m afraid I’ve missed out any reading on that period and the Peace of Westphalia is a bit broad scoped to comprehend in a quick wiki trawl. 🙂
Thanks for the support though.
Fair enough CameronB.
I do think that a knowledge of some history is important because we are rapidly abandoning the foundations of peace and prosperity, and we are doing so because those wider considerations have been forgotten.
To quote the Schiller institutes paper on Westphalia
The 1648 Westphalia Peace only succeeded because of an economic policy of protection and directed public credit—dirigism—aimed to create sovereign nation-states, and designed by France’s Cardinal Jules Mazarin and his great protégé Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Colbert’s dirigist policy of fair trade was the most effective weapon against the liberal free trade policy of central banking maritime powers of the British and Dutch oligarchies.
Sound familiar?
Westphalian principles are far from perfect: but they did survive for about 300 years and they did put an end to the perpetual internecine war in Europe: far more so than the much vaunted Mutually Assured Destruction, so beloved of cold war apologists.
What Russia has done is arguably a breach of Westphalia: but it follows from the justifications for invasion of Iraq and arose from the genuine humanitarion dilemmas posed by eg Bosnia.
It is easy to see why one might prefer to abandon Westphalia in face of such horrors: but before you do that it is incumbent on you to show that whatever different principles you espouse will lead to better outcomes. I do not think that Blair and his pals have any principles because I think that he in particular, and many of his allies, are “bullshitters” in a very particular sense originally elaborated by a philosopher called Harry Frankfurt
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.
Bullshitters are the most dangerous people on the planet IMO
Mark’s latest blog about the speech and much more
link to marksimonfrankland.blogspot.co.uk
I love the way this “Englishman” says “we” when he refers to Scotland – brilliant, beautiful and just how it should be!
Re Ukraine, Kievan Rus WAS the original 9th – 13th Century Russian state and has been part of the Russian Empire most of the time since then. Ukraine was not a separate country until 1992 after the dissolution of the USSR. In WW2 Ukraine supported the Nazis. The people now in power, who overthrew an elected President, are former members of extreme right wing groups such as Svoboda (see Wikipedia). The Russians have always had a naval base in Crimea and 35,000 troops stationed there so an “invasion” would not be necessary for Russian troops to be in Ukraine. They were there by agreement. Reports coming from the “West” about this issue can be taken with a large pinch of salt. Looks like the ancient power struggle between empires, presumably over resources such as grain in the case of Ukraine.
Fiona
Thank you, that makes perfect sense. You have just helped me bridge the gap between the Age of Mercantilism and the Age of Imperialism, and pointed me to the origins of the ongoing war of attrition between the European/American model of economic development and the Anglo-British tendency towards buccaneering adventurers and monopoly capitalists. Not that there haven’t been European/American monopoly capitalists.
Yes, Blair and the likes are very dangerous individuals, unable to assume responsibility for their actions. Perhaps because they do not live in the real world, a symptom of psychosis?
Is his message not slightly contradictory? He suggests that Scotland could(and should) attract the rich men with a love of whisky and guns but also goes on to denounce Westminster for attracting similar types to London. Of course I agree with him regarding London but not so sure on the first point.
Capella etc.
I simply Googled “crimea football” and got a detailed and informative article re history of the Crimea from Al Jazeers. It was written by the son of Kruschev I believe.
Anglo-American tendency
Thank you Mark, and thank you all who got this video out.
He says what many of us know: Scotland can do better than what Westminster has turned England into.
@cmk says:
Scotland could(and should) attract the rich men with a love of whisky and guns
It was a love of whisky and of golf that I picked up.
@Calgacus MacAndrews
Fair enough, could be wrong with the guns thing but the point still stands about the contradiction.
The tension between capitalism and socialism is full of contradictions. He was saying that Scotland is a really, really nice place, and if an overseas investor is looking for somewhere to inject some capital and create some jobs, then that person may be attracted to Scotland.
That’s a lot different from the square mile stuffed with obscenely rich yahoos who’ve never made anything in their lives but just siphon off their cash by shoving money around.
I thought this lecture was very perceptive.
Just grand on so many points.
Mark Frankland – a great Scot.
I think too many people judge on whats being said and whats being hoped for.
Scottish independence is more than just words . It’s also how we feel. And that’s important. This issue is about issues and emotions. Mark expressed his “feelings” and its struck a note with many as we “feel” Scots and it’s where we feel we belong.
He has lived on both sides of the border and tells of his love for our country . his country and if he makes the odd remark that some might take exception to then i feel they might be missing the point.
This is a man who feels so strongly in his beliefs he speaks out. And in an English accent too . I admire him for that on it’s own. He’ has suffered the usual abuse as a turncoat and ("Tractor" - Ed) to the English and Still stands along side us. Scotland is where Mark feels he belongs and i for one say , well done and welcome fellow Scot.
When i ask myself why i will be voting YES i cannot always give a reason without emotion. IT’s what drives me to say NO MORE foodbanks , no more sanctions, no more children going hungry an i don’t look at the mechanics of the arguments for and against. I just feel (know deep down ) that it wrong and change must happen.
Never underestimate the power of emotion. IT’s what is driving this referendum .