We must be missing something
Posted on
May 25, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Can anyone explain to us the fundamental difference between “I wouldn’t want my son to be a foreigner” and “I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a black man”? Because we’re not at all sure that we can locate it.
I hear the EDL are considering inviting her to be a keynote speaker at their rally in Newcastle today.
This ‘foreigners are inferior by definition’ line is used all the time by Britnats, yet they are never challenged on it in the traditional media. I’ve hear Darling and Miliband use it regularly. Time for someone to call them on it by asking the simple question: ‘What’s so bad about being a foreigner?’
Listening to her makes one realise that was a waste of a good free Scottish education.
It reminds me of a relative who got uppity at someone who came into her house a good few years ago. ‘He is a foreigner – he comes from Forfar’, she said through pursed lips.
A sorry sorry person and representative who claimed to live with her constituents in East Glasgow!!!
Aren’t we all foreigners? Maybe even aliens?
Ye’re still welcome in Scotland, though.
She had no knowledge or opinion of the Dennis Healey confirmation that the Labour Party lied to the electorate? She “wasn’t around at that time”?
It’s a story thats well known. Been floating around for years. Healey only confirmed what we already knew.
Margaret ‘I-Know-Nothing’ Curran …….. Correct in more ways than one.
Margaret, your idea of what constitutes morality is foreign to me.
Is it because I’s foreign?
Wow! ‘A Nigger for a Neighbour’ campaign.
Thankfully we have moved on from this but there are
many, it seems, who want to drag us back there.
And here was me thinking that the core precept of the Commonwealth Nations was that they were not to be considered “Foreign” to one-another.
I think most people will be surprised that there are only 730,000 Scots in England. The figure bandied about is usually much higher. Is this a sign that Better Together are scrapping the bottom of the scare barrel?
I thought Derek Bateman did a pretty good job in turning the spotlight on Curran and Labour. She seemed a bit confused over actually having to answer questions rather than trot out a prepared “they will all be evil foreigners” brief.
An Independent Scotland bidding for UK MOD RN ship building contracts is bad as they will be a “Foriegn Country” …Present MOD contracts for RN ship building awarded to South Korea…well that’s ok!!!
News Flash:
BBC Scotland to advertise for a Referendum Editor
Depends if the black guy is from dear old Blighty or not I think…
Sh just sounds out of her depth.
I met her her she was minister for Social Justice. She was quite good at that job and showed interest and understanding.
But this is beyond her. These are the arguments of the drunk bigot at the pub.
AmadeusMinkowski says: @ 11.28
25 May, 2013 at 11:28 am
I recommend the Rev Stuart Campbell for the position.
I wonder if she’d be saying that her son was a foreigner if he had gone to MIT or Harvard in the USA. She didn’t think it through. Did she?
So what happens if her son decides to go and live in Ireland, Australia, Canada, NZ or the USA, marry a local girl, take citizenship and have a family … will he be ‘foreign’ to you Margaret? Time for these fuckwit morons to grow up!
I don’t find people foreign. I find attitudes like Curran’s foreign.
Just listened to the Curran interview.
Pathetic.
‘You’d be foreign’ (repeat)
‘Don’t know about Healey’s comments/McCrone situation’ etc. (divert/deny)
Embarrassing.
Margaret Curran is an idiot. How dare she insinuate my Canadian family members mean less to me than the branch of my family living in England. She`s classic Labour and wears her badge of dishonour with pride.
People like Margaret Curran deserve only to be ridiculed, and often.
In 2015 she will be working in a tea shop selling doughnuts. No offense to tea shop working doughnut sellers.
Quick question – in an independent and oil rich Scotland with generous social benefits, a very small population and an open door to immigration policy – what do we think is going to happen??
Before I get shouted down by the usual crowd I want a serious answer….
We’ve just seen a man butchered in broad daylight on the streets of London, pedophile rape gangs have been arrested in multiple cities – nearly all members of which were immigrants. Warnings are being issued against travel to Sweden as for a 6th night the city of Stockholm burns as immigrants riot and in Norway the nation we most aspire to the police admit that 100% of all rapes in Oslo were commited by immigrant (90% Muslim) men…..
So whats the answer? Don’t give me that nonsense that they’re not all bad and tarring with the same brush – that’s no comfort to the victims is it.
In Scotland as an economic backwater we’ve avoided the bulk of the mass immigration to the UK over the past 10 years – 5 million plus at the last count – more than the entire population of Scotland…
Imagine even half that coming to Scotland post Independence – how would the NHS cope? How would the benefit system cope?
How would we as Scots – at risk of being a minority in our country within a decade of independence cope?
Is this the elephant in the room that no-one wants to discuss?
Became “active” in the Labour Party in the late 70’s ..Crone report 1974!.. “but I know nothing” claim. Obviously did not do much research or fact finding, to busy being indoctrinated methinks! and by christ it shows, just listening to the woman verifies that.
So the EDL are spreading the good word in Newcastle today. This is what Mrs Curran will miss is it ??? Believe me ,I work with a lot of English poeple from all different cities across england and they all have the same opinion of Scots, that we are scrounging, lazy, bastards. A common question from them about independence is “how would you survive without English money”. And the really sad sickening thing about it all is that they are serious when they are asking it. It is not a tongue n cheek question, they honestly believe we would disappear off the face of the earth. They are saying we should be grateful that scotland is attached to such a great nation. it is an opinion that they get fed into them from birth , from media, schooling, government, parents. It is that North Britons are and always will be SCUM!!!. This is the brotherhood Mrs Curran is frightened to let go off, she is a sad individual. And the main reason she wants me to vote NO is because her son went to an English university and he would end up becoming a foreigner, which she is totally against. Also heard Lamont and Curran were seen heading to Newcatle wrapped in St Geoges flags.
Government Minister, Shadow Cabinet….
errr…who is Denis Healey? She will be saying “What Iraq war?” next.
Heard Curran this morning, pathetic is the only word I can use to describe her effort. Can’t help but think that even BT supporters cringe when they hear the crap that the likes of Curran spew out before engaging their brain.
Tom Divine kind of shot her down in flames later in the interview.
Who the f**k is advising them ?
‘Is this the elephant in the room that no-one wants to discuss?’
Can’t see an elephant, bit of a reek of elephant shite tho’.
Iain – mature reply – inline with what I expected
… so you don’t think there’s a problem?
@Krackerman says:
‘… so you don’t think there’s a problem?’
No, not in the form or magnitude you’re implying.
Krackerman – I suggest you stop reading the Daily Mail.
Curran is in my opinion as daft as a brush when it suits her and as fly as a spiv when it suits….I know this for sure but don’t know anything about that…seems to lack an honest bone in her body. Her party is the centre of the so called peddling of mistruths
Iain – but the mass immigration into the UK over the past 10 years is a fact, it’s not invented. Again I ask what do you think will happen in an Independent Scotland – oil rich, good free health care for all and a generous benefit system with EU membership and an open door to all immigration policy?
Answer please – save the childish insults if you don’t mind.
Doug – don;t read it – never have – cheap shot – I’d hoped there were people on this forum who worked at a higher level of debate.
That mail shot is one I’d expect from the BT guys…
So do YOU have an answer?
Krackerman
I asked this very question on the Post ‘News from the UK’ (one of yesterday’s postings).
I, in no way, want an ‘open-door’ policy. What I have seen happen to England absolutely scares me. We are a tiny population. We would be swamped if left unchecked. I know folk are saying we have the space, and we should be at least 10 million in population, but this needs to be done gradual …and it needs to be severely controlled. Scotland is not going to become a Socialist Utopia. It will be a middle of the road country with modern and social policies. Anyone thinking it is going to some sort of socialist paradise is kidding themselves.
We will have enough on our plates at the start of the rebuilding of a new country. Adding an immigration boom is not one of them.
If we are going to have free prescriptions, education , etc, then it makes Scotland a very inviting place …very inviting. So, nope …I want an Austraian type of immigration policy; heavily controlled. What I have seen in England, is nothing short of a disaster.
@Krackersman
in Norway the nation we most aspire to the police admit that 100% of all rapes in Oslo were commited by immigrant (90% Muslim) men
“The claim that “all rapists in Oslo are immigrants” is based exclusively on the figures for “assault rape”, i.e. rape aggravated by physical violence, a category that included only 6 of the 152 cases and 5 of the 131 identified individuals. All of those 5 individuals were indeed of African, Middle Eastern or Asian origin. However, the police report adds that in other cases of assault rape, where the individual responsible was not identified and the police relied on the description provided by the victim, “8 of the perpetrators were African / dark-skinned appearance, 5 were Western / light / Nordic and 4 had an Asian appearance”. Which falls some way short of substantiating the claim that all perpetrators of aggravated rape in Oslo are of non-western origin, never mind the assertion that “Muslim immigrants” are responsible for all rapes in the city”
link to islamophobia-watch.com
Krackerman
So do YOU have an answer?
Aye, vote yes and we’ll sort it out to suit our needs, simples
What is wrong with the audio?
Krackerman
Firstly we are not a backwater. Scotland’s economic performance is as good if not better than many parts of the UK.
Secondly, who says we will have an open door?
If we are in the EU, which we keep being told we will not, then yes there will be EU migration. The Poles, Latvians etc., that have already arrived in Scotland have, as far as I can see adjusted well and settled in.
At the moment Scotland has no control over how immigration is handled, why would it be bad thing if it did?
Jiggsbro – thanks for the link – good info – I’d draw your attention to another part in that same report…
“The summary of total rape statistics dominated by 50% in total by Muslim immigrants coincides with similar figures from Sweden. It is important to pay attention that Muslims who only comprise of 1.5% of the total population in Norway, stand for 50% of the entire country’s rape statistics – highly and aggressively over represented”
Again – scant comfort to the victims.
@Krackerman
So what do you suggest ?
HandandShrimp – I think it would be only fair to say that in a UK context Scotland is very much a backwater in comparison to the economy of the south east of England and London where the bulk of immigrants have settled over the past 10 years…
You’re right though – there are lots of eastern europeans in Scotland – it’s the one reason that the largest employer in my area no longer takes on young apprentices and contributes to the very high youth unemployment locally.
HandandShrimp
I can see what Krackerman is saying. I don’t agree with everything he is sayin, but I can see it.
On the post ‘News from the UK’ (one of yesterday’s postings), there was condemnation about the way police down south handled some of the homeless, and in that I agree with them – those sort of tactics should not be allowed (unless there is more to the story than we are being told – who knows).
What got my radar up, is that I found a couple of the comments following it, seemed to say that Scotland would not do this, and everyone is welcome to enter Scotland. That is what worries me! ‘…everyone is welcome to enter Scotland’.
Ehhh…Naw!
I want a sensible immigration policy for us. We are a very small nation, but so far, we have been lucky with immigration in the sense, that the numbers here, are small, and so far, everything has been great. Everyone seems to get on fine.
I don’t want to have the problems that England has got. Even just adding 50,000 to the population is 1 in 100. That …is not on.
There are a lot of people in Scotland, who do fear what could happen if it was an open door policy. If we say it is an ‘open door’ policy, then you may be pushing them in to the ‘No’ camp. If you want independence …then we have to do it sensibly …and say it sensibly. There has to be common sense in this.
I noticed a couple of comments so far, that surprised me. I expected better from them, as I found these guys to be enlightened and I look up to them. Let’s not ruin it with daft comments.
I’d draw your attention to another part in that same report
Curiously, I don’t find that part in the report. Perhaps you’d link to your source, because you’re clearly using a different report ?
Thanks JLT for the sensible and measured answer – this worries me as well – I can understand the SNP and the YES campaign avoiding it like the plague – it’s an emotive subject at the best of times – never mind right now after what happened a few days ago.
I’ve always been an SNP supporter from the first time I could vote – but now older and with kids – this worries the hell out of me.. and trust me – I’ve spoken to many people in both the YES and NO camp – I’m not the only one by a long margin.
I can see what Krackerman is saying. I don’t agree with everything he is sayin, but I can see it.
I can see it as well. I can see it on bnp.org, islamversuseurope.com, muslimrapewave.com … hundreds of right-wing, racist and Islamophobic sites, in fact, but not even once on any remotely official, or even reputable, website. GIGO.
Jiggsbro – it’s here link to themuslimissue.wordpress.com
The full police report is here link to politi.no
“The police report referred to is Voldtekt i den globale byen (Rape in the global city – May 2011 report) which provides a detailed analysis of the rape statistics in Oslo during 2010. The report shows that, of 131 individuals charged with the 152 rapes in which the perpetrator could be identified, 45.8% were of African, Middle Eastern or Asian origin while 38.2 were Norweigan citizens (foreign and national), 2.3% American, and 13.7% other European (foreign and national Europeans).”
I think that qualifies the 50% comment.
I can understand the SNP and the YES campaign avoiding it like the plague
So can I. They avoid it for the same reason they avoid talking about the dangers of spider attacks on young girls eating curds and whey.
I have a son in Finland and a daughter in New Zealand, sorry but I do not consider either to be ‘foreigners’.
Jiggbro – you quoted a pro Islamic website that FAILED to note the 2% of the population comitting 50% of the rapes…
I wonder why eh? Pot and Kettle.
Nice attempt by the way to silence and suppress my view by attempting to link me to the dodgy websites you listed – thats a very BT move worthy of the BBC.. Nicely done.
Krackerman.
My view is, for as long as they are coming to a job, willing to pay taxes, and will integrate, I have no problem.
We do have unemployment, and I feel companies are taking advantage of certain EU rules to employ the cheapest labour they can find, even if it is detrimental to not only the unemployed within an area, but also to the local economy.
This is not a racist thought. This is common sense. For as long as the work is distributed evenly amongst local and foreign, that the wages are the same, then I have no problem with it.
But I do not advoacte an open door policy, where it could …could be a case of folk coming here, just to grab benefits and take advantage.
As I said …we do this, and say this sensibly. My personal view is that, the SNP would implement andecent immigration policy post-indy.
Krackerman,
your default avatar could easily be misconstrued as a brown face. Perhaps you could ask Rev Stu to change it to something paler for you? People might start thinking your a rapist or something.
Krackerman. Very apt.
Jiggsbro.
What’s GIGO ?
Krackerman
There are undoubtedly issues relating to immigration and in particular immigration that results in ghettoisation and failure to integrate.
Scotland does not have these issues at the moment and it would be up to all the people of Scotland to ensure it did not happen in an independent Scotland. We have little say in the matter at the moment though and are unlikely to get one if we vote No.
Handand shrimp
And on that, I agree with you.
Jiggsbro.
Found it. Got it!
As I said, I don’t agree with everything that Krackerman said. I am going nowhere near stats of who’s done what, or committed what crime, or what race they are. Ain’t going there!
All I advocate, is a sensible policy on immigration. That is it.
The report shows that, of 131 individuals charged with the 152 rapes in which the perpetrator could be identified, 45.8% were of African, Middle Eastern or Asian origin
No it doesn’t.
“Although the majority of the registered perpetrators have Norwegian citizenship, a high proportion are of another country than Norwegian. In 2007 there was an unusually high proportion of perpetrators from the African continent, which accounted for 30.5% of cases, so that the proportion of Norwegian origin was unusually low (27.2%). This could be attributed to gang rape where several persons of African descent were involved.
The picture in 2010 is more normal and in line with the trend from 2004. In 2010, the proportion of offenders with Norwegian descent was 34.9% and the proportion of ancestry from the European continent outside Norway was 13.8%. In total, nearly half (48.7%) of perpetrators had a European ethnic background.
The proportion of offenders with a background from Africa had dropped to 19.7%, Middle East 15.1%,Asia 14.1% and America 2%.”
Jiggsbro – the avoind it because of swivel-eyed loons on the left who start screaming racist at every opportunity.
It’s a powerful slur and most often used by those who have no real argument.
So you think that an Independent Scotland – oil rich, good free health care for all and a generous benefit system with EU membership and an open door to all immigration policy won’t be a problem?
If you are that flies in the face of reality a bit…
Jiggbro – you quoted a pro Islamic website that FAILED to note the 2% of the population comitting 50% of the rapes…
I wonder why eh?
Because. It. Is. Nonsense.
@JLT : “I don’t want to have the problems that England has got.”
I’m not sure why you think we would have those problems with independence, when we don’t have them now. Those problems have happened under UK governments, within the EU.
If we were going to have sudden mass immigration, wouldn’t it have happened already?
And I have no doubt that there will not be some sort of unrestricted immigration, SNP have never claimed such a thing. Immigration levels that suit us, of course there will be restrictions. But we won’t be scapegoating them like happens with Farage etc.
Krackerman, he appears to be something quite different, and I’ve seen misuse of those same rape statistics before, from those with a particular agenda. An agenda not shared by Scotland as a country.
@Krackerman
“So you think that an Independent Scotland – oil rich, good free health care for all and a generous benefit system with EU membership and an open door to all immigration policy won’t be a problem?”
We are oil rich, good free healthcare, (worsening) benefits system and EU membership today. Kind of undermines your point.
Braco – thats a pretty pathetic statement – though you should analyse it – it reveals more about you than perhaps you realise…
Jiggsbro – the avoind it because of swivel-eyed loons on the left who start screaming racist at every opportunity.
Ridiculous, isn’t it? You only have to copy one bullshit claim about teh asianz being responsible for all rapes in Oslo from the BNP and suddenly the swivel-eyed leftie loons decide you’re a ‘racist’, whatever that means. Is it racist to decide entire ethnic groups are rapey or is it just political correctness gone mad that the lefties never use these made-up statistics to condemn people who look foreign? I don’t know. I only know you wouldn’t find an ethnic Norwegian randomly killing people just because he disagreed with their politics. Well, you would if you engaged with the real world – link to en.wikipedia.org – but that’s not very likely, is it?
Well played, Jiggsbro 🙂
I know I have family and in-laws who are Canadian, German, Netherlands, New Zealanders and Australians. Members of my family live on 5 different continents. I’m not that unusual in this 21st century.
‘Foreigner’ is a prejudicial label used by xenophobes, nothing more. No-one is intrisically ‘foreign, but dodgy politicians like Margaret Curren use the term as a dog whistle. Labour – the party of right on racism.
Krackermam,
This is worrying. Should Mags Curren be worried about her son turning into a rapist post YES vote, when he becomes a foreigner/immigrant after 2014? What do your ‘statistics’ and ‘reports’ tell us?
….and apparently, some foreigners have them this long….
I’d just like to add re this:
“… pedophile rape gangs have been arrested in multiple cities – nearly all members of which were immigrants.”
Those cases were absolutely shocking. But the police themselves and others involved in such crimes have made clear that hideous abuse of young girls (and boys) happens in every community, some organised like these cases were, some not.
All absolutely shocking. As is scapegoating immigrants.
Ron – no – at the moment the UK is oil rich and the benefit of that goes to the South of England – to say otherwise is to blow a huge hole in the entire independence argument…
A proper debate about immigration, good research and future projections type of study would be a good idea. We do not want people voting against Independence and using immigration as their main reason for rejecting Independence. It could be a problem, but that is a an unknown at this time, really. It requires careful and considered debate and discussion, without the usual racist cards being spouted and the usual scare mongering. It is not something that we should ignore, and may well be a challenging issue should Scotland reject Independence anyway. People move around, people leave Scotland to live abroad and others come to live here from abroad. It makes sense to draw up some kind of immigration policy, what kind should be up for discussion, but only intelligent discussion, much of which could take place as part of the debate from the YES camp, and also the SNP.
Much work to do indeed.
It’s thems Geordies I am worried about, imagine, it’s only down the road eh…(just joking…I’m a Geordie, but have lived in bonny Scotland half my life!).
Amazing how the mob mind works – concentrate on one part of the discussion and use it to smear and totally ignore the original question asked…
Krackerman says:
25 May, 2013 at 11:56 am
Quick question – in an independent and oil rich Scotland with generous social benefits, a very small population and an open door to immigration policy – what do we think is going to happen??
Before I get shouted down by the usual crowd I want a serious answer…
At least I did get a serious answer from one person before the inevitable started 🙂
Krackerman, the report you quote states:
“the statistical difference in criminal behaviour between ethnic groups disappears when controlling for socio-economic conditions”.
But Krackerman, what do your reports say? A chart maybe? Maggs may still have time!
Before I get shouted down by the usual crowd I want a serious answer…
A serious answer? What will happen is exactly what happened in Oslo: nothing of any consequence.
Ron – no – at the moment the UK is oil rich and the benefit of that goes to the South of England – to say otherwise is to blow a huge hole in the entire independence argument…
The ‘entire independence argument’ does not depend on oil. I’d be voting Yes even if Westminster found a way to keep all the oil.
Perhaps the reason you don’t get a serious discussion is because you don’t appear to be overly attached to reality?
I don’t get it – Scotland is already a different country, why should we become foreigners just because we can make our own decisions? Unless Ms Curran thinks a YES vote will turn us into aliens overnight. Or does her argument stem from a belief that Scotlandshire is a region?
Is it me or are the better together parties +- UKIPPERS converging and mutating into a single hideous unified slavering monster?
@Krackerman
“Ron – no – at the moment the UK is oil rich and the benefit of that goes to the South of England – to say otherwise is to blow a huge hole in the entire independence argument…”
Deliberately missing my point. As PART of an oil rich country NOW, if your doom-laden predictions of massive immigration were true, we would have the same problems already. But it hasnt happened. And not because we have told immigrants they cant come, which it very much sounds like you really really want to do in an independent Scotland.
No.
Krackerman. I live in ROI at the moment, a country with generous benefits, a growing immigrant population and no beheadings on streets, no riots and no tensions. There is a similar sized number of Baltic and eastern Europeans as Scotland and a significantly larger number of Nigerians.
Maybe, the people in England should be asking themselves what they aren,t doing right with regard to immigration and be asking why the sons and grandsons of immigrants feel they should commit such acts as we have seen and read about in the press, a press which is too ready to play the race and immigrant card. Then you should ask yourself why you need to presume it is only non English who commit such crimes, conveniently missing out the shooting sprees, child murders, rapes etc carried out by those who are not of immigrant stock
Back to Curran please, her and lamont grew up in glasgow in the 70s and being a catholic in glasgow in the 70s you would have been well and truly wrapped in the Irish Tricolour , the sight of a Union Jack would have enraged our two staunch Celtic fans. So what I can’t get my head round is, how these two individuals have turned 180 degrees totally the other way. They now want to jump all over that stinking foreign flag of the Irish Republic and embrace and caress the Red White and Blue of the Union Jack.. Also all her labour supporters must ask themselves the same question, where has this love of the Union Jack stemmed from. Because this morning she disowned every one of you in favour of her Pro union English friends. Talk about sellin the jerseys for English gold.!!! I honestly don’t know how she can look her constituents in the eye.
@Krackerman
actually, I think you’re quite disappointed with responses you received, re-reading it I guess you hoped you’d be attacked. In retrospect, we should have just ignored your original post, what it deserved.
Krackerman says: @ 11.56:
In your initial paragragh you purport how an Independent Oil Rich Scotland with all the social trimmings and open door immigration would avoid the terrorism encountered recently in England. Then conclude and purport in your final paragraph you state that Scotland as a economic backwater is the reason why we have avoided mass immigration and hence the terrorism. You then go on to ask in which way an Independent Scotland would avoid such situations. The answer is a strong and accountable government responsible only to the democratic will of the people of Scotland. An independent Scotland will not wage illegal wars wether autonomously or under the direction of the USA. An Independent Scotland Government like other similar countries will scrutinise the inward immigration to the benefit of the country unlike the UK government’s criteria for cheap labour to benefit there capitalist greed.
First time poster – check
A demand for answers – check
Selective stats – check
Phoney desire for reasoned debate of the ‘issue’ – check
Faux disappointment at ‘childish insults’ – check
Yep, there’s a shoveller of elephant shite in the room.
I guess the answer lies partly with the people.
There are six flats in my building; if three asian
families move in to three of them and two African families
move into the other two I will befriend them as the neighbours
they would be (just as I do now).
What I won’t do is put the shutters up and decide to leave.
When I lived in Walsall and Birmingham I met many
people of different creed and colour and yet, as a Scot,
I was deemed the ‘foreigner’ by white English people;
I was deemed the ‘sweaty sock’ by locals who would never
dare call a black guy a ‘nigger’ to his face.
I believe there is good and bad everywhere.
When I had my pub in Shropshire I was appalled at the casual
racism so wrote the following quote from a book called ‘Good Life’
(not understood by most customers):
‘It is one of the commenest devices for bolstering weak self-esteem:
find someone to feel superior to, exaggerate their defects, and then get others
to join you. Then your superiority becomes a ‘fact’ – for, after all, the whole
(of your limited) world affirms it!’
Oh no Krackerman !…. I have just realised, I am an immigrant/foreigner to Portugal (where I scrounge at present).
Your Charts! Your reports! Your statistics! I must see them….I must know!
What precautions would you advise I take in order not to fall foul and simply add to your horrifying foreign rapist reports. My mother would never forgive me should I succumb to your 50% immigrant rapists statistic.
Do you have a column on your Immigrant Rapist Religion Predictor Chart (IRRPC) for Church of Scotland (lapsed)?
Any info has got to help, don’t you think Krackerman? I am desperate, summer is almost here.
So to call someone a “foreigner” is to be a racist? That’s what I’ve picked up from the article and by the comments. Why? I have family who live in foreign lands. They may be family, but they’re still foreigners. They live in a foreign country, they raise their children to be citizens of a foreign country, they serve in the armies of foreign countries. THEY’RE FOREIGNERS! It doesn’t make them good, or bad, just foreigners.
If for some bizarre reason there was to be a war between an independent Scotland and Canada (My foreign family lives in Canada), AND if an auld bugger like me was “called up” and I happened to come across one of my Canadian family on the battlefield I would do my damnest to kill them. I would sincerely hope they would do the same to me.
If we do not fight for the land we live on, that which we say we love, then we live a life that is a lie.
Let those who live in Scotland live FOR Scotland, not some other land. If you hold a land higher in your heart, then go there. Make your heart joyful by being on that bit of the planet that makes it so.
There’s only two kinds of humans on this planet for me, Scots and non-Scots. What’s so wrong with that?
KOF,
(snigger)
@KOF
“So to call someone a “foreigner” is to be a racist? That’s what I’ve picked up from the article and by the comments.”
I don’t know where you picked that up from. Maybe you should watch the video in the link at the top, to find out what it is people are talking about. It’s Mags Curran who is trying to tell us we must think less of people because they live outside Scotland, in an attempt to scare people into staying as part of UK.
So to call someone a “foreigner” is to be a racist? That’s what I’ve picked up from the article and by the comments.
Really? How odd.
@Krackerman I take it by your argument that you don’t think Scotland can handle a few more immigrants. We have a vast country that’s underpopulated.
In 1707, the population of Scotland was about 1.5 million; the population of England was 4.5 million. England’s population was thus larger by a factor of 3. We had the Scottish Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and the population increased. Now after 300 odd years of Union, the population of Scotland is about 5 million; England’s population is 53 million. England’s population is now larger by around a factor of 11. That is a clear indication that Westminster’s policies for 300 years have favoured English economic growth to the expense of Scotland.
You ask how the benefits system would cope with immigrants? Immigrants are net contributors to the UK economy to the tune of 30% when compared to UK natives. In other words what we give out in benefits to immigrants, we more than get back. link to guardian.co.uk
And from the same article re Immigrants and the Health Service: migrants imposed less than proportionate costs on the health and education system. This is mostly a natural consequence of the fact that migrants are more likely to be young and healthy, and health spending goes overwhelmingly on the old and sick. Of course migrants will, over time, age too (although many EU migrants are likely to return to their countries of origin) but the net balance over time is still likely to be positive.
The key with independence is that the Scottish Government can set immigration policy to suit the Scottish economy – not the Westminster Government trying to suit London without regard to Scotland – and help ensure we have enough skilled workers to drive this country forward.
I find it more than a little bizarre that someone should hope that their “foreign” relatives would do their damnest to kill them in some imagined war! In fact, it stretches my credulity well beyond breaking point. This is to sort of jingoistic nonsense I had hoped we had left behind in 1945, if not 1918. Fretting about “foreigness” is UKIP territory and should be left to them. We are all human beings.
KOF
But why does it matter that they are foreigners? It is Labour that is raising it as an issue. You rightly point out it isn’t an issue. It is a lot of fuss about nothing and veers dangerously close to calling foreigners something less than “us”. It is a foolish road for Labour to go down especially with UKIP now taking Labour council seats in England. UKIP will use this against Labour.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should probably state that I am a foreigner who came here and took (one of) your jobs and married your women (two of them, but consecutively not concurrently). I’m responsible for 0% of all rapes in Scotland and Oslo, probably because I’m a reassuring shade of pink. Or possibly because I’m not a rapist.
There is a big difference between being a welcoming country to foreigners wishing to come to Scotland (which we all want Scotland to be, and are proud of its current reputation for being so) AND having an open-door immigration policy. There will need to be control and monitoring, which all independent countries have to do, and we all should acknowledge the need to do so. What I would say is at least being independent, we can avoid the non-existent/dysfunctional system down south, and design a humane system to suit our needs.
We still have an ageing population and will need an extent of new blood into the country to rebalance it, either from returning ex-pats, remaining students or new arrivals. But if Scotland is going to be the great country I hear everyone saying it will be, it will become an attractive destination for migrants and we need to prepare for that. This will be in huge contrast to the present where we haemorrhage population out of Scotland, and it’s only by dint of the EU migrants which England’s complaining about that our population is slowly growing.
Does any country in the world truly have an open door policy?
In answer to Curran’s question of not wanting her son to become a foreigner, if the UK wasn’t so unbalanced both socially and economically, there ought to have been plenty of options for him to live and work in the land of his birth. That’s at the heart of why I want independence.
@KOF: “If for some bizarre reason there was to be a war between an independent Scotland and Canada (My foreign family lives in Canada), AND if an auld bugger like me was “called up” and I happened to come across one of my Canadian family on the battlefield I would do my damnest to kill them. I would sincerely hope they would do the same to me. “
Thank God I’m not in your family. I have an English father and Scottish mother, families in both countries. I am married to a Macedonian and we have a son. He is my father’s grandson. He [dad] does not consider him foreign. This is a pathetic straw-man kind of bollox by Curran.
Oh, and if by some weird circumstance I was at war on Scotland’s behalf and a family member fighting for the ‘other side’, I would hope our mutual compassion would come to the fore and we would sit down together in peace and discuss the absurdity of war.
If not – then I have failed as a father
I don’t understand how family can be foreign. Has any of those who support such a notion looked up the definition of foreign. I have English, Welsh, Lithuanian , Polish and HK Chinese relatives. They may annoy me sometimes but they aren’t foreign.
I just knew that as soon as JLT started to voice his fear that we would become swamped with illegal immigrants (on “The news from the U K ” thread), that some UKIP type would grab the opportunity to bombard us with squalid examples.
Of course an independent Scotland would have to have a sensible immigration policy in place, and no sensible person would think otherwise. No elephant in the room!
Sorry I missed the earlier debate around immigration.
Looking at the figures quoted am a correct to say that Jimmy Savile committed more attacks than what appear in whole Norway in a year?
Did he bleach his hair and wear make-up?
I have family who are both Scots and Tories; they are not foreign to me now nor will they be after independence.
Looking at the figures quoted am a correct to say that Jimmy Savile committed more attacks than what appear in whole Norway in a year?
Yes. And curiously, no matter how many aging white men get caught up in Operation Yewtree, no one is asking what is wrong with attitudes to women in the white community. In fact, no one seems to think their ethnicity is even remotely interesting.
Jiggsbro – you’re coming over here, trying to separate Scotland from dear old Blighty, using facts to pour pish on crappy arguments from folk like Krackerman…
Maybe Labour are right about you foreigners after all 😛
The simple answer is that there is nothing wrong with being foreign. My late mother and half my relatives are foreign, being southern Irish.
Margaret Curran (and Alistair Darling, who seems to have started all this off, so it is a determined unionist BT line) is being inadvertently racist as things stand, in my opinion.
She and BT will have to come round to saying that they are not racist and that there is nothing wrong with being a foreigner which totally destroys the point of their ill judged argument 😉
Maybe Labour are right about you foreigners after all
Of course Labour are right. Okay, I don’t actually know what their policy is on immigration or asylum, but I’m sure it’s right, just like the rest of their policies. And with the rise of UKIP, you can bet they’ll become even more right.
I’ve got a foreigner wife and a half-breed foreigner kid (under Mag’s definition).
I don’t mind my foreigner mother in law slipping into the UK couple of times a year to stay with us either; her (French) cooking is to die for.
😉
I reckon the best people to run a country are the people who live there.The best people to run Scotland are the people who live in Scotland.Ms Curran takes a different view.All this rubbish about her son becoming a foreigner is just a smokescreen to hide her opinion that we aren’t as capable of organising our own affairs as other people are.She needs to tell us why she thinks we’re so useless.
She needs to tell us why she thinks we’re so useless.
But she doesn’t think that. She thinks we could run our own affairs, she just thinks we shouldn’t. But you’re right in that it’s nothing to with foreigners in the family. It’s to do with Scots on gravy trains.
Looking at the Westminster waste of tax payer funds through poorly managed capital projects at link to bbc.co.uk. The most expensive projects seem to be the ones that are failing.
As many projects in total (worth £350 billion) are likely to fail (32 – red or red/amber) as succeed (32 – green).
I wonder where the oil fund went?
Firstly something a pal from Stockholm posted
“News services outside Sweden have described an exaggerated picture the unrest in Stockholm this week. It is happening in a few suburbs of the city. There has been some trouble with torching of cars and throwing stones by a few thugs, but most of the people here, including myself haven’t seen anything”
Secondly, the press here highlight the stories that suit themselves, as do the politicians. The attack on an elderly Muslim man leaving a most last week did not attract the attention, ire or COBRA meeting that this one’s did.
Curran also sees that £20 000 a year pay rise getting ever so close. You don’t think all this pish is for her own personal gain do you???. Surely not!!!. While she tells everybody else to settle for 1% pay rises.
To those of you who go on about why employers no longer take on local apprentices, in favour of say, Eastern Europeans…consider a couple of things;
1. It isn’t actually true. In a recession, very few firms take on apprentices anyway. If it was true, WHY would that be the case, given that there is legislation regarding minimum rates of pay?
2. As my Mum keeps saying, “WHY do folk come here looking for jobs, if, as you and others say, there are NONE?”.
Magrit Curn has an interesting way of dealing with interviews; she just doesn’t answer questions at all. When asked if she feels differently towards her Irish relatives because they are foreigners, she ignores the question. She doesn’t even bluster her way out of it. This occurs with a number of questions. Nobody has actually told us WHY it is so bad if our relatives are foreigners. Most of mine are, regardless of where in the world I go, so I don’t have a problem with that, as long as they get their round in come the appropriate time.
If you meet your relatives on the battlefield, you SHOULD attempt to kill them, or you shouldn’t be in the military. Remember, wars are fought (in part) over ideologies, or territories, etc. This means that the other guy is an enemy, and the bad guy, and you should be looking out for your brothers in arms and civilians first and foremost. Nothing wrong with being a conscientious objector, but this means that ALL killing is wrong, and not just that of people you like, or who look like you.
As we are discussing foreigners here, with the game at Wembley tonight featuring 2 German teams, would anyone like to start a sweepstake as to when we first hear a mention of 1966/ Bobby Moore / Sir Alf Ramsey etc?
Four minutes in. Obviously. 🙂
<Malcolm Cholmondelay Warner voice> It has come to my attention, that there are people, on this thread, who are FOREIGNISTS!!
Yes, Johnny Foreigner, has come here, taken our jobs, and married all of our women, even the ugly ones. This is most unfair, as our young men, who all look like a cross between Brad Pitt, and Gerard Butler, you know, when he was in “300”. That film, with all of the men half naked, with oily muscles, and….hurrumf.
Anyway, it should be noted, that from now on, we have decided, that we will no longer agree to be served by these foreignists, or be treated by them when we have recurrences of Raging Trenchknob, or even accept their taxes from them when they run businesses and sell stuff.
Once this has been enacted, we will petition our wonderful Queen, that paragon of Englishness…sorry, Britishness..<background whispers>…(what do you mean, “Saxe Coburg Gotha” and “Battenberg” aren’t English names?)
Keep Calm and Carry On, and remember, they don’t like it up them, Mr Mainwairing…
As we are discussing foreigners here, with the game at Wembley tonight featuring 2 German teams, would anyone like to start a sweepstake as to when we first hear a mention of 1966/ Bobby Moore / Sir Alf Ramsey etc?
Yep. Or that the German teams got lucky this season, so let`s just talk about what Manchester United will do in the Champion`s League next season with a new manager etc etc.
I`m hoping the commentators will be a tad more respectful to the actual finalists.
Regards the game itself.
My head says Munich, my heart says Dortmund.
Where did everyone go …. to having started, I can now see.
Yesitis, my head says Celtic, my heart says Hibs also.
Do Jambo hearts and heads think so too?
When will people learn not to engage with the trolls?
We seem to have got distracted from the original question “Can anyone explain to us the fundamental difference between “I wouldn’t want my son to be a foreigner” and “I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a black man”?”
The answer, it seems to me, is that the latter is a normal, expected event (a daughter’s marriage) that happens to involve someone of whom you disapprove because you’re a bigot. The former is an unexpected change applied to your son by external forces, a transformation – however meaningless in real terms – that neither you nor he had any control over and which requires you to mentally readjust before you realise you can carry on as normal. They’re both fear reactions, but the first comes from fear of change while the second comes from fear of the different. Fear of change is more common and more socially acceptable because, unlike fear of difference, it’s not usually based on prejudice or stereotyping: It’s still not entirely rational, but it’s significantly less irrational than bigotry.
Indion
My niece`s fiance is a Hibs supporter, I`m a Dundee United supporter; I was so looking forward to some family aggro. Celtic ended all that, at least for me.
I guess I`ll be supporting Hibs tomorrow. It`s an east coast thang 🙂
Derick Tulloch
Yeah, you`re right regards trolls, but I thought Jiggsbro (in particular) dealt with him (?) in quite a deadly efficient manner.
When will people learn not to engage with the trolls?
Assuming you mean Kracker, I’m not sure he was a troll. He has some offensive views and some very dodgy sources for them, but that’s not trolling in itself. Personally, I thought his ‘facts’ were worth engaging with because they deserved to be shot down. I doubt that he’ll accept the real facts, but anyone reading his version, here, can at least get easy access to the truth.
Maybe we are afraid of ourselves.
My brother turned foreign a few years back. It tore the family apart. Can’t even communicate with him anymore since he speaks Australian now.
Well, at least he didn’t marry a black man.
@Dee
“Back to Curran please, her and lamont grew up in glasgow in the 70s and being a catholic in glasgow in the 70s you would have been well and truly wrapped in the Irish Tricolour”. I am no fan of either lady, however that statement is as untrue as it is offensive. I was baptised a Catholic and grew up in Glasgow in the fifties and sixties. At no time did any Catholics in my family, or any of my Catholic friends ever express an allegiance to the Republic of Ireland never mind wrap themselves in the Irish Tricolour. They were Scots and proud of it. My grandfather came from South Armagh (Bandit Country hence my Catholic background), he considered himself an adopted son of Scotland and was fiercely proud of his Celtic roots, Irish and Scottish. I suppose Ms Curran would regard him as a foreigner.
My point is that being a Catholic does not necessarily equate with being Irish. I suspect that most Catholics of Irish descent in Scotland regard themselves as Scottish and I also suspect that very few would regard themselves as British.
For the record I am no longer a Catholic, I find all forms of religion to be more trouble than they are worth.
I don’t think its going to be a question of ‘what will happen?’ as if we have no say in the matter. An independent Scotland will formulate its own immigration policy in accordance with the wishes of the electorate.(I hope) That is the answer to what will we DO? Right now Scotland has no say in its immigration policy or levels. Personally I would like us to use ‘residents first’ policy for jobs, much as they do in Canada and USA. Based on relevant qualifications and skills but also weighted in favour of existing citizens. We don’t turn people away, we just control what we need as a society and an economy. It protects employment for those here and also serves as a brake for economic migrants wandering from one country to the other in search of work. I think Scotland should be able to offer immigrants a decent job and standard of living instead of low-paid, mundane jobs. Then we might attract the best and hopefully they will stay and join us in building Scotland.
Indion says ATB 6.43
My nephew is a Hearts supporter and trying to oppose the minority Labour Unionist influence via George Foulkes and Ian Murray plus the BNP / Ulster / Union Jack element that has attached itself to only one of three Scottish clubs ( East Fife and Ayr United being the others ) to incorporate the Saltire in their club badge.
To combat the divisive Rangers / Celtic cancer we need one football club to come out to emulate Barcelona to be the club which expresses our national identity.
To my mind only Hearts or Aberdeen has the potential to do this but we do need a club to nurturer and build on this latent support.
@ Jiggsbro,
Aye, not yet! But since he went foreign I wouldn’t put anything past him….
@ frankieboy,
Exactly. We have no choice as things stand. We weren’t asked if Dungavel Detention Centre could be sited here – Westminster decided, and that was that. And they also decided to decant a number of immigrants into Glasgow’s most deprived, despairing, and violent neighbourhoods, then tutted at us disappointedly when racially-aggravated murders occurred. The Scottish press didn’t help, with their nonsense about immigrants and asylum seekers being given free furniture and decorated flats. The papers UK-wide don’t half enjoy stirring hatred and then reporting in shocked tones on the results.
So… do we stick with the proven failure that is Westminster immigration policy, a system that is both cruel and inadequate, and satisfies nobody (not the left, not the right, not the immigrants, not the racists – not even the UK government) or do we go our own way and create something better, tailored to our own countries’ needs?
If only a ‘foreign ‘surgeon could carry out your life saving surgery would she/he be foreign or a surgeon ?
I don’t trust foreigners either but that’s only based on Jackie Baillie and her tendency to embellish the ‘facts’.
I’m sure they’re not all like that 🙂
Surely we can have intelligent debate and not resort to the assumption that everyone who is concerned about immigration and wants tighter controls is racist, anti-Islam etc.
That’s like calling someone a bigot just because you don’t agree with their point of view, it’s just a bullying tactic using emotive words to shut someone up, instead of actually addressing their points intelligently.
Fact is that may countries have immigration policies, and sensible ones at that. It makes sense to consider how many people your country’s infrastructure can cope with, assess what sorts of skills are lacking among existing residents, and create a policy from there. Don’t just let anyone in, but give preference to people with certain skills that the country is seeing a dearth of. Check criminal records and don’t let in anyone who has one.
Such sensible policies are not racist or intolerant, they are not against anyone because of nationality, race or religion. They are just sensible policies saying “We welcome people, but we have a need to ensure balance within our country and not to worsen the quality of life for those already living here, so our priority regards immigration is filling certain skill-gaps.”
The SNP has spoied the fun of this thread by pointing out that, by Westminster law, Curran’s Irish relatives are not foreign:
link to snp.org
I’m Canadian Mags, what are you going to do about it? Keep me away from your kids? Moron!
Hail Alba!
The only thing ‘foreign’ around here is you Ms Curran,
How any ‘Scottish’ politician could say they know nothing of the McCrone report or Denis Healey’s recent interview proves that you: (a) are telling huge porkies (b) think the people of Scotland are ‘too stupid’ to know any better or (c) that you hold a position of office way above your intellect or (d) perhaps all three!
I wonder why the South Koreans are not viewed as foreigners, when it comes to building ships?
I thought I would give it 24 hours before committing my thoughts to print, since I was so angry at the hypothesis that Margaret Curran was putting forward on yesterday’s Good Morning Scotland. By way of reminder, she brought along to the studio an extract of figures from the 2011 census which showed that more than 700,000 people born in Scotland are currently living in England (just England, not England, Wales and Northern Ireland).
She says that we are now beginning to “talk about the emotional side of the debate”.
That begs the question, what is the “emotional” side of the debate? Lets be clear about this, she is saying that people living in Scotland will feel an emotional reaction if Scotland votes to become independent and friends and family are living in England when this happens. She said “I think that I’d be uncomfortable with the thought that [my son] is now a foreigner”. She went on to say “England will be a foreign country and I think we need to come to terms with that”.
I expect that it is fair to say that she does not have good emotions in mind here. The clear implication is that Scottish people living in England after independence is “a bad thing”.
This is despicable, nasty, hateful and unnecessarily divisive and the No campaign need to come clean on exactly what they mean here.
According to Wikipedia there are 760,000 Brits living in Spain (as of 2006), but I am perplexed by the apparent lack of overflowing emotion and wailing in the streets as a result of the appalling situation they find themselves in, surrounded as they must surely be by a sea of foreigners and with nothing to drink but sangria and Larios gin. It must be hell in there, as someone once said.
I’m late to this discussion but I feel I must say something, as a foreigner.
Margaret Curran implied that being ‘foreign’ is somehow inherently bad, she wouldn’t want his son to be one, after all. (She also seemed to have a very odd definition of ‘foreigness’.) Implied attitudes like this, by a …krhm… leading Scottish politician feed straight into the UKIP/BNP/EDL/SDL mindset, stoke dormant bigoted right-wing nutters and haters. Well done, Margit. [ironic smiley]
I’ve been a ‘foreigner’ for almost a quarter of my life, i.e. lived in a country other than that of my birth. I’ve encountered stupendous ignorance (USA – many people thought ‘Finland’ was a town on the East Coast…), and embarrassed, friendly semi-ignorance (England and Australia) and whoo-hoo, great! from Scots and Irish.
Is ‘foreign’ a ‘racist’ term?
It depends on the kind of ‘foreigner’, doesn’t it? I remember one time in Australia when I went to the seaside pub with mates and mate’s mates after a day on the beach. At some point somebody started blagging about immigrants and foreigners (and this was during the Keating years when Australia was pretty liberal!) I sort of froze and told this guy that actually, I’m a foreigner. He laughed and said I wasn’t “that kind of foreigner”. OK, so I speak fluent English, have white skin, blond hair, blue eyes, so I’m not “that” kind of foreigner. Wonderful.