In the Herald today, from Rosemary Goring (no relation 🙂 )
Last month, when protestors in saltire and tartan masks stood at the Scottish Border near Berwick bearing placards telling the English to turn back and keep Scotland Covid-free, a shudder ran up many spines.
Really, I think not. I’m guessing most of us just laughed.
‘Protestors?’ Four the first time, two the second and now, gone?
Goring seems to have little of substance to base her anxious headline on. Admitting that there is no evidence of such behaviour from the thousands of AUOB marchers, she relies on the two guys in face masks in a border lay-by waving placards about sending the covid-infected back to think again about their hygiene, that story is now dead isn’t it?
Evidence of Anglophobia as distinct from a justifiable hostility toward institutions and groups based in England, such as Westminster, the Treasury or the Conservative and Unionist Party, is thin on the ground these days.
Wikipedia struggles to find much:
A 2005 study by Hussain and Millar of the Department of Politics at the University of Glasgow examined the prevalence of Anglophobia in relation to Islamophobia in Scotland.
The study goes on to say (of the English living in Scotland): “Few of the English (only 16 percent) see conflict between Scots and English as even ‘fairly serious’.” Hussain and Millar’s study found that Anglophobia was slightly less prevalent than Islamophobia, but that unlike Islamophobia, Anglophobia correlated with a strong sense of Scottish identity.
In 1999 an inspector and race relations officer with Lothian and Borders Police said that a correlation had been noticed between the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and anti-English incidents.[4] However, Hussain and Millar’s research suggested that Anglophobia had fallen slightly since the introduction of devolution.
In 2009, a woman originally from England was assaulted in an allegedly anti-English racially motivated attack.[5] Similar cases have been connected with major football matches and tournaments, particularly international tournaments where the English and Scottish football teams often compete with each other.[6][7][8] A spate of anti-English attacks occurred in 2006 during the football World Cup.[9] In one incident a 7-year-old boy wearing an England shirt was punched in the head in an Edinburgh park.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglophobia#Scotland
In 2019/20, I can find nothing. Words containing Eng or Ang do not appear at all in HATE CRIME IN SCOTLAND 2019-20:
Finally, going anecdotal but with more substance than Goring after 36 years in education, teaching thousands of students, I can remember lots of hostility expressed toward political leaders in London and Washington but not one case of ‘racism’ toward the people of any ethnic group.
I don’t like English governments who decide what happens here in Scotland whether we like it or not.
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The protesters did not single out the English crossing the border into Scotland. Their request would apply equally to Welsh, Irish, French, Americans or for that matter Aliens from Mars if they were coming from an area with high Covid19 infections.
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Drip, drip, drip….. So goes on the relentless programme of distortion and attempted ‘mind-poisoning’.
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I read that Sean Clerkin was involved. He has form.
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Quite simply no matter where what or whom
There is always a bigoted bampot who eventually has to let fly, probably inebriated with wreck the hoose juice
Or letting their Johnny Walker wisdom spew forth
However all of us in the Indy movement
Must at all times and our activities show
Respect and Compassion to and for any of our fellow Humans
Never ever argue walk away when the other side seeks such
Let all know we shall debate and engage with any on the matters that are of importance
And how does one receive Respect and Compassion in return
Well never ask for it
As the only way to receive is Give
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Goring doing her bit for the cause. It’s in the Herag, so predictable.
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