The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily, finishing on 28 February, to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson
By Professor John Robertson OBA
In the Daily Record, late last night, and everywhere in the media in Scotland today:
Most Scottish voters are against John Swinney’s plans to boost immigration, a poll has suggested. More than three quarters – some 77 per cent – of voters in Scotland said they want immigration to go down or stay at the current rate, according to a Norstat poll for The Times.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/most-scottish-voters-against-john-34692506
The SNP is unambiguously in favour of greater, if controlled, immigration. The science is behind them. For the economy and public services, we do need more immigration but a large element in the population, here as much as in England, does not care about that and is opposed strongly.
I was a bit surprised by the figure of 77% but not not that it was a majority.
In May 2026, Labour and the Cons will suffer losses, as Reform UK strip them of support. I had been optimistic that this might enable the SNP to ‘come through the gap’, as Reform split the unionist vote, to take even the seats in the Borders and in the North-east, but this poll has me worried.
Might Reform UK actually take these constituency seats if both Labour and Con voters move en masse to them. If they push hard on that single issue, immigration, I begin to fear they might.
What can we do? A direct attack promoting the benefits of greater immigration might be counter-productive so, I propose we avoid battle there and go for them on…..corruption? I haven’t done the research yet but aren’t they connected to groups with an interest in privatising health, removing worker rights, deregulation to allow pollution, and so on. You tell me.
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There is an awful stench that comes from the “Britisher’s” entitlement and superiority.
Their empire died a while back and like a man with a small bucket they think if they can hold back the tide, things will “return to normal”.
Reform have recruiting sergeants across the spectrum of unionists.
THIS is the ugly face of nationalism that unionists delight in telling us the independence supporters show.
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I could write an awful lot about this John but I’ll try and keep it brief.
The first problem that comes to mind is the very word “immigrants” and what it conjures up. People paddling across the Channel in rubber boats in the vast majority of the “non-or casual political” due to the drip … drip …drip of Media and right-wing politicians. But as you’ve said in the past the vast majority of immigrants are perfectly legal and come to the UK to do key jobs in important sectors & industry – The NHS/SNHS immediately springs to mind, a sector that suffered greatly due to Brexit (and still does) when “foreigners” were made to feel unwelcome
The second is “The Times” and who subscribes to it. Their target readership…… Murdoch’s pseudo-intellectual comic. ………. Or maybe I over simplify.
I’d like to see a similar poll in The National for comparison.
Overall perhaps an educational / promotional campaign by the SNP would help to explain why we need controlled immigration.
Sorry I’ve not answered your question exactly regarding Reform Ltd., but I hope I’ve added food for thought.
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‘Overall perhaps an educational / promotional campaign by the SNP would help to explain why we need controlled immigration.’
I see the logic in that but might it merely further cast the SNP simply as the immigration party and help Reform UK?
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yes, good point
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We’ve got extinction level birthrates and an aging population; both issues are more acute here than in the rest of the UK.
How do we tackle a 50% increase, by 2050, in people of state pension age, combined with very low and still trending downwards birthrates?
Its either immigration, or we pile the entire burden onto fewer and fewer young people. The birthrate is down to 1.2, replacement rate is 2.1; people will be retiring far faster than the native births can replace them. On top of that, an aging population puts additional pressure on the available workforce, due age related care needs.
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Any educational/promotional campaign has to attack, change this perception of negativity that has been attached to immigrant. Show that it is a controlled invite to Foreign workers, not immigrants.
I applied for a visa to work in Sweden, this was years ago, I was told that initially I would be granted a two year visa. But they, the Swedish authorities, would find me work, unless I had a guaranteed employment contract.
The Swedish model would be hard to object to.
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CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
A very interesting article from International Socialism, that anybody in Scotland who was thinking of voting for this dangerous far right racist should read….and really should pass on to their friends……..https://isj.org.uk/farage-and-reform-uk-a-clear-and-present-danger/
Clearly it shows his support of National Front, British Movement and of Enoch Powell, who became his political hero.
As for Reform donors how’s about this for a list, again from International Socialism, same link as above, and from novaramedia, the link is in the list. Drum roll please….
Reform UK today
For all its claimed appeal to disenfranchised members of the working class, Reform is resolutely pro-business, a fact reflected in its leadership. Of the party’s five MPs, four are from finance and business backgrounds and two are multimillionaires.
Farage himself is a privately educated, former commodities trader in the City of London. His earnings from GB News run to more than £1 million a year on top of an MP’s salary and payment by the Telegraph. 76 He owns properties valued at more than £3 million.77 Deputy leader Richard Tice, also privately educated, is a multimillionaire businessman—a partner in property asset management company Quidnet Capital. The privately educated MP for Great Yarmouth, Rupert Lowe, is another multimillionaire businessman. A former chair of Southampton Football Club, Lowe worked for Morgen Grenfell, Deutsche Bank and Barings Bank, and was on the board of the London International Financial Futures Exchange. James McMurdock, MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, is another banker.78 Lee Anderson, MP for Ashfield, is the exception, a former miner and Labour councillor before joining the Tory party, for which he became an MP and party chair, before defecting to Reform in March 2024.
In May 2024, Tice was reported to have provided 80 percent of the party’s funding in donations and loans since 2021, including outstanding loans of £1.4 million.79 The same report noted the Brexit Party brought in £17 million in donations in 2019 and £3 million in 2020.80 Businessman Terence Mordaunt, former chair of the climate-sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation, was a major Reform donor in 2023.81 So was multimillionaire businessman Jeremy Hosking, a man wealthy enough to appear in the Sunday Times Rich List, who gave £2.2 million to the Brexit Party in 2019 and donated to Reform in 2023. Another multimillionaire donor was Thailand-based technology investor Christopher Harborne, a shareholder in military technology company QinetiQ, who reportedly gave £13.7 million to the Brexit Party/Reform as well as £1 million to the Office of Boris Johnson and £1 million to the Tory Party.82 The wealthy family of Farage aide George Cottrell also donated £500,000 in September 2024.83
Zia Yusuf, the recently appointed chair of the party, is yet another millionaire. He is a former executive director of Goldman Sachs in London, who jointly set up and sold for $300 million a luxury digital concierge service for the ultra-rich. Yusuf donated
£200,000 to Reform in the run-up to the 2024 election and was appointed party chair soon after. He is tasked with building the party’s infrastructure, including a branch network, and selecting candidates.
The party’s true attitude to the NHS was probably more honestly reflected by former UKIP secretary Matthew Richardson, calling the health service “the biggest waste of money in the UK”.
And more donors from……https://novaramedia.com/2024/06/26/nigel-farages-anti-establishment-party-is-being-funded-by-the-establishment/
Robin Birley.
Eton-educated Robin Birley is the son of Lady Annabel Goldsmith, a socialite and the descendant of the Marquess of Londonderry. Birley donated £25,000 to Reform on 6 June 2024.
Birley owns 5 Hertford Street in Mayfair, described as one of London’s
“most exclusive” private members’ clubs. The club – whose members wander around “in smoking jackets, velvet slippers and signet rings” – is frequented by a number of rightwing politicians, including Farage, Boris Johnson, and major Brexit donor Arron Banks.
According to Gentleman’s Journal, Farage, Banks and Johnson have been part of the club since “day one”
On one night in December 2022, David
Cameron, Prince William and Farage were all spotted there in “just a few short hours”.
Richard Smith.
A short stroll from 5 Hertford Street through St James’s Park in prime central London will take you to Westminster, where another of Farage’s donors owns a notorious Georgian townhouse, 55 Tufton Street.
This building has served as a hub for an assortment of radical, opaque rightwing think tanks that basically wrote Liz Truss’s disastrous economic agenda. The address is currently home to the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the UK’s leading climate science denial group.
Richard Smith’s company, which supplies electronic systems to the aviation industry, donated £50,000 to Reform on 5 June – two days after Farage used his power as Reform’s majority shareholder to take over as party leader.
Holly Valance.
Once an actress and a singer, Holly Valance now spends her time fundraising for hard-right politicians.
Married to the billionaire luxury property developer Nick Candy, Valance donated £50,000 to Reform on 10 June and has been credited with helping convicted criminal Donald Trump to raise millions for his reelection bid.
Valance has said that her top political priority is helping Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Fitriani Hay.
The biggest donor to Liz Truss’s 2022 Tory leadership campaign, Fitriani Hay has switched her colours in this election, giving £50,000 to Farage’s operation.
Hay is apparently “well-known … in top-class [horse] racing circles”, described as “one of the world’s leading owners and breeders”.
Her husband, James Hay, was worth £325m according to the 2019
Sunday Times rich list. He worked for the oil and gas giant BP for 27 years from 1975 to 2002, eventually serving as a senior executive at the major polluter.
Reform is standing on an overtly anti-climate platform, calling for the UK’s 2050 net zero target to be “scrapped” and for the UK to issue a new wave of oil and gas licences.
David Lilley.
An experienced mining and metals trader, David Lilley is the CEO of the investment fund Drakewood Capital. His senior team is drawn from the likes of the notorious private equity firm Carlyle, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and the “vampire kangaroo” asset manager Macquarie.
Lilley was previously a founding partner of Red Kite Capital Management alongside major Tory donor and peer Lord Michael Farmer.
JB
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I want to see a reduction in immigration by retirees and an increase in immigration by young people with much needed skills and families.
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How to achieve that is the problem. As has been shown retirees from England are more likely to come to Scotland boosted by the sale of their highly priced properties and able to buy more attractive homes here, witness the cash purchases of second homes on islands and buying castles with the proceeds of the sale of a modest family home down south.
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I think most people when asked about immigration would immediately think of illegal immigrants being a burden on the finances of the country rather than associate the immigration problem with those who come here to work in service industries and are already highly skilled individuals, paying tax etc. There are far more of the latter rather than the former. I wonder just how many of our southern incomers who voted against immigration realise they are themselves immigrants who have, certainly from those I’ve met, have never ever contributed to Scotland’s finances though they probably belong to the deluded ‘ England subsidies Scotland ‘ brigade.
Golfnut
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totally agree that Reform pose a threat to the SNP in the next election, not just because of their populist immigration rhetoric but also because the party would have no qualms about teaming up with any other party to get rid of the SNP. I also agree that the SNP waxing positive about immigration in a campaign could backfire, it is so easy for our press to distort or ignore anything the SNP says.
That leaves it up to us to a) share the positives re immigration everywhere we can and try to bring back the spirit that gave us Kenmure St. Yesterday I posted this http://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/18/how-spains-radically-different-approach-to-migration-helped-its-economy-soar in reply to any post mentioning immigration on Bluesky and was glad to see it shared several times including by Byline times. Social media engagement can feel like shouting into a void but there are folk out there listening. If we can’t get opps for face to face conversation this is the next best thing, but it helps if we reply to comments and show appreciation for the efforts others make
b) yes to pointing out the corruption, lies and hypocrisy of all opposition parties including Reform. There have been a lot of articles lately discussing how to counter their message and as well as calling them out one suggestion is to keep sharing what a party is doing well, because Reform supporters tend to believe the everything is broken and life is shit message. At the very least we can make sure we share the TuS posts, better still if more of us get actively involved in campaigning for whichever party we think represents our views
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I just don’t get the mindset of the ‘British’
If people’s from foreign lands want to move to Britain they are dubbed ‘Immigrants’ which as you say carries with it the stigma of boat people conjured up and amplified by our right wing press and media. However if ‘Brits’ emigrate to foreign soils for work or retirement they are called the much softer end fluffier term ‘Ex- Pats’. They have always had this attitude that it is fine for us to go wherever we want but not for ‘Foreigners’ to come here.
Drew is spot on with the dilemma of diminishing birth rates. A lot of working people now only have 1 or 2 children. If it’s 1 the birth rate falls, 2 and the birth rate stays stagnant but that seems to be the norm for working family’s now as both parents are working to maintain the lifestyle they have become accustomed to. They have a mortgage to pay, cars to run, holidays abroad, etc. They are far more ‘Upwardly Mobile’ now. Gone are the days where the father was the breadwinner and the wife at home with 5 kids, as was my own experience growing up in the 50’s. Further back it was even more enhanced, my own mother had 10 siblings with my grandfather the only one working.
The falling birth rate is undoubtedly a ticking time bomb. Immigration is crucial to fixing that problem. Perhaps if the Brit media referred to them as ex-pats instead of immigrants attitudes might change.
Life is very dull without the variety that people from far flung lands bring to our glorious country of Scotland.
Jim S.
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It’s time Scotland dropped the ‘ Britishness’ of Isolationism.
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Jim S , I agree with a lot that you , and also Drew, have written.
Perhaps if certain politicians and much of the media stopped dehumanising many of the immigrants coming here, or those trying to come here, then some people’s perception would be far less negative and so they hopefully would be more compassionate and empathetic towards their fellow human beings.
However apparently that is too simplistic and naïve of me to think of this matter in such terms, better to let rogue politicians and rogue media to construct a supposed enemy of the people.
Who then, as immigrants , are only always to be seen as major threat to this country that they seek refuge in.
Though the rogue politicians and rogue media do not refer to them as seeking refuge here but instead they accuse all immigrants, who they refer to as illegal immigrants and who they also say are all only young men, who come here in order to kill us all, take our jobs, take our houses, clog up the NHS, take advantage of the benefits system while of course no one within their Britain, as in those born in any nation within their Britain, would ever do that.
Oh wait , when they , rogue politicians and rogue media , are not accusing immigrants of doing all of this then they say “Lazy Brits” do it, as in those they say are ‘Too lazy to work” , “have too many children so that they can try and get bigger houses and also more welfare money” oh and their “unhealthy lifestyles clog up the NHS” oh and we have also seen some radicalised right wing British nationalist kill a Labour MP, Jo Cox in June 2016, just before the Brexit vote, then another radicalised individual drove a van into a crowd of Muslims in London in 2018, killing one and injuring nine others.
Seems to be only the wealthy that most of these rogue politicians and rogue media see as being those who cause no problems for their UK or within the UK.
Meanwhile we who prefer to be more human in our outlook tend to take and have a distinctly different view on all of the above, including the part where much of the wealthy cause no problems. The 2008 banking financial crisis, caused by greedy selfish wealthy bankers, springs to mind.
Liz S
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Irrespective of whatever the SNP or the FM are accused of then , for those who seek to avoid or stop it, the answer would never surely be voting for the Reform UK party.
In January of this year the Scottish Conservative group leader on Glasgow City Council , Thomas Kerr, defected to Reform UK.
As the Tories are predicted to suffer losses to Reform UK then some within the Tory party are weighing up what is their best future prospects as a politician.
Kerr was a Tory candidate for the Rutherglen & Hamilton West by-election in 2023 where he came third, I guess we have to be grateful that he did not succeed, as chances are he may have, as an MP, then decided to defect to Reform UK, thus giving Reform UK their only Scottish MP.
To assess the calibre of those who join Reform UK as politicians here is a skewed logic that Kerr applied for his reasons for leaving the Tory party and joining the Reform UK party.
It was reported that “Kerr said he had been “annoyed and angry” with the Conservatives for several months, accusing the party of failing to champion working-class communities like those in Shettleston” but then it was also reported that “He said the Tories focused too much on criticism of the SNP and “lacked a positive vision of centre-right conservatism”.
Now I’m no political expert but I do know that the Tories are no champions of the working class, so if you stand as a Tory politician at any level you are not doing it because you think your party, the Tories, will put working class people first , as in before the wealthy , and also the Tories will support more those wealthy people who own the large companies where the working class people are employees . I think the clue is one that Kerr himself identified with the Tory party in that some politicians in the Tory party are centre-right , while other Tories, like the Reform UK party, are extreme right wing supporters.
Plus all of those in the Reform UK party were all formerly Tories, like Farage, Tice, Habib, Rupert Lowe etc and also now Thomas Kerr, ironic or what ?
As to Kerr stating that the Tories were “focusing too much on criticism of the SNP’ well Thomas Kerr was known to also “focus too much criticism on the SNP’ as well when he was a Tory and he is still doing it now.
Here is a non classy but very apt tweet he tweeted on Valentine’s day.
“Labour is s***
The SNP is too
It’s time for real change, And, Reform’s coming for you …
Happy Valentine’s Day, folks”!
That’s an infantile ditty from a new Reform UK party councillor , which is an example of the poor standard he intends to adhere to , as in maintain, as a Reform UK politician, it does seem appropriate though that he is referred to as a “Defect” based on that tweeted output does it not.
Also on the 13 February he tweeted “The only “rocky path” Scotland is on is due to Sturgeon’s divisive and hate-filled rhetoric. I think we’ll leave your advice where your legacy is, Nicola, in the gutter”
Then another tweet by him on Valentines day “SNP vote collapses in latest by-election humiliation for John Swinney as Reform surge continue”.
So will the now exposed hypocrite , who alleges that one reason that he left the tory party was because they “focused too much on criticising the SNP’ now stand in the 2026 Scottish elections for the Reform UK party ?
Well all he said on that is ” I have not spoken to Reform about standing for Holyrood”.
So he will stand then Ha Ha
Reform UK party will take anybody as a candidate (Kerr being an example) who is willing to stand for them in 2026 , in order to try and gain any seats in Holyrood on the list vote, where if they succeed they will be a negative force from within , which the short sighted and partisan media will seek to exploit to try and destroy the SNP.
“Most voters against John Swinney’s plans to boost immigration” says the pro UK and Labour fanzine that is the Daily Record , who hope to see, or rather make, Anas Sarwar the next FM in Scotland, same Anas Sarwar who claimed to have had talks with Theresa Cooper and the Home office on a “bespoke migration solution for Scotland” but where it was then revealed that he lied as there was no record of any such talks.
But……….Way to go DR in reinforcing and promoting a xenophobic political message on behalf of the Reform UK party via headlining this poll.
“Most voters in Scotland against Labour’s lies and Reform UK’s plans to destroy devolution and replace it with WM rule”
That is a far better headline and poll to produce and conduct in Scotland but that would then be the headlines in only one newspaper, The National, and not in the DR as they would instead find another SNP bad story to put on their front page to counter it, of that I am sure.
From now until to 2026 the media are in ‘Operation destroy the SNP’ mode, in other words business as usual with them.
Like Labour, the media here will never ever “Change”.
So if we , in Scotland, want to make a real difference and see a real difference in Scotland then more people here will have to “Change” their viewing, listening and reading habits to stop the propaganda and the anti SNP electioneering that the media insist on producing as political news in Scotland.
More people in Scotland also need to stop voting for Pro UK parties too , as their raison d’etre in Scotland is only to act on behalf of WM and so only support the sustaining of the state that is the UK, which they laughingly refer to as one country.
Labour , Tories and the Reform UK party all supported Brexit which has impacted jobs in Scotland, where our care sector and Hospitality sector lost a large amount of employees from other countries , also known as Immigrants, who formerly worked in these sectors prior to Brexit.
So this was the positive aspect connected to immigration that the media , the Labour party, the Tories and very much Reform UK failed to highlight as a huge economic issue, for obvious reasons of course.
Vote SNP in 2026 or reap the disastrous consequences for Scotland.
Liz S
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“So if we , in Scotland, want to make a real difference and see a real difference in Scotland then more people here will have to “Change” their viewing, listening and reading habits to stop the propaganda and the anti SNP electioneering that the media insist on producing as political news in Scotland”.
Spot on Liz. Here’s an article I stumbled on today http://www.jandehn.com/post/taking-the-fight-to-the-right. It’s not so much about reading stuff that has you agreeing with every word, but more about hearing ideas that challenge mainstream reporting and that make you think. An electorate able and willing to debate ideas is much less vulnerable to populism I think, and the constitutional debate here in Scotland has certainly promoted engagement in politics
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Hi Brenda , I will read that article later , as in the one that you linked onto your comment, as it looks like it is quite a long read.
I agree with you in that “An electorate able and willing to debate ideas is much less vulnerable to populism” but also having a more balanced (less biased) and more honest media willing to inform the electorate on truth as opposed to political propaganda might then give the electorate even more ideas on what to debate and also who to believe politically and who not to believe.
That then would surely kill off parties like the Reform UK party, but for Scotland it would also finally do the same for Labour.
If the media here spent less time in always demonising and targeting the SNP and instead they gave far more focus and scrutiny to Labour and their many broken manifesto pledges and empty promises , then perhaps politics in Scotland , as a part of the UK , would be less broken and distorted.
Then again will any of the media here really dare to challenge Farage’s English Nationalist party, Reform UK, who are intending to stand candidates in Scotland’s devolved parliament in 2026.
The same parliament that one of their English MP’s, Rupert Lowe, said he does not support , as in he is against devolution as he sees it as a scam, so one assumes that his party, Reform UK, also does not support devolution, which then surely also makes it a scam that they will allow their Reform UK candidates to stand in the 2026 election for the devolved parliament in Scotland.
Alas currently too many of the electorate in Scotland either cannot see, or worse still, refuse to see what is true and what is false in respect to certain pro UK and English Nationalist political parties, and also the same goes for their pro UK ,and too for some of the more English Nationalist client media as well.
It seems we , Scotland, have many battles to be won on many fronts, which has always been the case which then made it even more incredible that we got so high a percentage, as in 45%, who voted YES to Indy in the 2014 referendum , all things considered.
Though there are some who say that they thought this was , as a vote, compromised in the sense that all was not right on the night of the count.
Also it was reported in September 2014 that:
“Police have been asked to examine claims that pro-UK campaigners breached electoral law by counting some postal votes ahead of referendum polling day. Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Better Together agents had been “taking tallies” of postal votes at sample openings held in the weeks before the count”
To quote Theresa May “Now is the time” that Scotland definitely deserves the right to hold another Independence referendum before the proverbial you know what hits the UK fan , which then , as per, will also likely hit Scotland too.
With all of that proverbial you know what being supplied by all of the pro UK and English Nationalist parties and too their media as well.
Liz S
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You say “having a more balanced (less biased) and more honest media willing to inform the electorate on truth as opposed to political propaganda might then give the electorate even more ideas on what to debate and also who to believe politically and who not to believe” which is of course true but not something we can easily change. At least we in Scotland have built up alternative sources over the years, disjointed possibly and struggling to gain traction & financial backing but there to be found which is more than other parts of the UK have
We need to choose our battles, our targets and our weapons carefully to maximise our chances of winning seats across Scotland. Railing against what we can’t change will use up precious time and energy, working together on strategy, sharing info and ideas might be more fruitful?
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Indeed.
🙂
Liz S
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The danger here is misinterpretation over what “immigration” means to Scots, and it’s context.
When did a Scot ever report sight of a ‘small boat’ of immigrants land on our shores apart from some hooray henry with a plummy accent arriving with guests on his luxury yacht at Leith ?
Indeed the vast majority of England’s electorate have never seen a “small boat’ but take the Mail’s cue that thousands of these rubber dinghies are “invading” England’s green and pleasant land land daily…
Would Scots recognise an immigrant as someone brownish carrying a dinghy on his back, or any who struggle with the language irrespective of colour, or Farage’s arriving in his chauffer driver Range Rover for an enforced pint (fags out the back) in an Edinburgh pub before escorting him out in a police van for his own protection, or the couple who sold their 2-bed flat in Clapham gazumping locals for the first home they’d saved years for.
My hunch would be 3 and 4 are regarded as immigrants…
When I think back to the hundreds of europeans I met in the late 1990s before leaving the UK destitute, they were grafting like mad to support family back home and save for their dream house, with not a snowball’s chance anyone from Clapham was going to gazump the site from under them. Yet it brought to mind ‘Au Wiedersehn, pet”, just folks trying to get by when work had dried up, often referred to as ‘expats’ rather than immigrants….
Immigration is in the eye of the beholder for Scots, they are neither blinded by a dinghy nor colour, ‘honesty poverty’ has never been a problem…
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