August 6, 2024 - 10:00am
There is an air of muted self-congratulation in “civic” Scotland that the rioting in English city centres has not spread north of the border. At least not yet. For example, Mike Small, editor of the Left-wing website Bella Caledonia, described last week’s rioting as “a particularly English phenomenon of ethnonationalism […] a specifically English psychosis”.
Others in the Scottish political class would tend to agree, suggesting that Scots are somehow culturally immune to racism and the politics of the nationalist Right. “We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s Bairns,” they like to say — champions of the common man. That’s why politicians such as Alex Salmond claim that Scotland just has “a different society” or, in a typical expression of Scottish racial exceptionalism, the former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini has claimed that “immigrants don’t have the warmth and the friendship that happens in Scotland.”
This is not the first time various politicians have claimed the mantle of Scottish exceptionalism. When 300 anti-racism protesters prevented UK Immigration Enforcement from apprehending two failed asylum seekers in Glasgow’s Southside in 2021, Nicola Sturgeon blamed the Home Office for the disturbances, not the protesters.
Dig a little deeper, though, and it is not quite so clear that Scots are really relaxed about mass immigration. Recent opinion polls suggest nearly half think UK immigration is too high. Fully 7% of the population also backed Reform in last month’s general election — twice as many as backed the Scottish Green Party, which was in government until April.
However, there is one very obvious reason why immigration may be a less explosive issue on the Scottish street: the lack of it. In recent years, few migrants have actually made it to Scotland to bask in the warm glow of political approval. A record 750,000 net migrants arrived in the UK in 2022, but only around 20,000 reached Scotland. Maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s the lack of suitable jobs. But it’s certainly not for want of trying. The Scottish Government says it desperately needs more migration to meet skill shortages. First Minister John Swinney wants Labour to honour a pledge to allow Scotland to effectively have its own immigration policy, but Keir Starmer doesn’t seem very keen on this idea now he’s in government.
So, for all the welcoming talk, Scotland is — and is likely to remain — essentially a monoculture, unlike England. Around 95% of Scots are white compared with 82% south of the border. Indeed, the first thing any visitor would notice when getting off the train at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station is how white the country is.
For reasons that have never been entirely clear, multiculturalism largely halted at the border. No one planned this North-South racial divide. There was never any “white Scotland” policy. Yet to anyone familiar with the variegated social complexion of London and many English cities, the sheer whiteness of Scotland is arresting.
Bien pensant Scots don’t like to talk about this much, for obvious reasons. But it could be that one reason the riots in England didn’t spread is because immigration is just not as visible in Scotland as it is in many English cities. When Scots say they “want their country back”, it’s usually nationalists wanting an end to English rule, not repatriation of foreigners. SNP politicians may want mass immigration, but are they prepared for what could come with it?
Iain Macwhirter was political commentator for The Herald between 1999 and 2022. He is the author of Disunited Kingdom: How Westminster Won a Referendum But Lost Scotland.
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SubscribeProbably a bigger surprise is the riots in Northern Ireland, because I always assumed they were far too busy attacking each other to bother with migrants, and it doesn’t seem like an attractive place for immigrants anyway.
Does put the ranting of both Yousless and Sarwar about how horribly white Scotland is into perspective a bit, doesn’t it? This is not to say that you don’t see a lot of non-white faces when you alight at Waverley. All of Scotland’s universities have taken in huge numbers of non-EU students, mostly taught masters, in order to plug the funding gap from SFC. Also, go to thePollockshields or Govanhill districts of Glasgow and you won’t find many white people. What has not happened in Scotland is a grooming gang scandal in a predominantly Muslim area. If such a thing comes to light, the situation may well change.
Allegedly such gangs have been operating , but their actions have been covered up . There are also persistent rumours around Govanhill’s Roma community .
Visiting Scotland during Covid, saw the sign ‘English Go Home’. A version of racism, perhaps?
How do you explain similar signs in Hastings “DFLs go home”? For years there have been complaints about second home buyers, AirBNB and locals complaining about how their children can no longer afford to live in Hastings. Very remeniscent of Spain.
Very much so . Nationalism IS racism .
Are you consistent in this view? Irish nationalists? Of course the two words have different emphasis and meaning. If you mean for example by “nationalist” any notion that the interests of a state’s population should be held on higher importance than those of foreigners, 95% of the world’s population is “racist”.
The same reason there aren’t riots in the Cotswolds or Norfolk.
The rationale for why so few immigrants make it to Scotland: Maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s the lack of suitable jobs? Another explanation – maybe its the Scots? ‘
Indeed. And the “non white” (the autocorrect capitalised white) are in very specific parts of Edinburgh and Glasgow where there is a high concentration of black and Asians. The rest is lily white. You are hard pushed to see anyone who is not white outside a takeaway.
Goodness only knows why the downvotes
the scots truly are deluded. way beyond just mentally ill and bigoted against the English; utterly potty.
Not all of us Charlie. And we voted against Independence in 2014, or whenever it was, so don’t tar the majority with the same brush. Most of us are not mentally ill or bigoted.
Aye, Lockerbie and Glasgow airport are long forgotten as transitory glitches.
As a white American attending St Andrews, I was surprised by the lack of diversity in the university, especially compared to American universities. I noticed the golfers and tourists are also white. In fact, when I arrived in NYC this summer, I almost burst into tears of happiness and pride when my subway was packed with diverse peoples.
Good for virtue signallin’, l’il ol’ you.
You forgot, according to the left, it’s not a virtue to love America. And according to the right, it’s not a virtue to love diverse peoples. So I’m actually lacking in virtue.
Then whatever you do, do not go to a place like Japan, or Pakistan, or South Korea, or much of Africa, or the bulk of South America. I’d hate to think of the paroxysms that will strike upon realizing that very few people look like you.
Yeah I’m bawling all the time except when I’m in the UK
Sorry, you’re a college educated American and you’re surprised by how white the UK is?
Yeah like most Americans I don’t pay much attention to the rest of the world.
I assume this was tongue-in-cheek, Tami 0?
It’s either a parody or delusion or ignorance? You’re comparing NYC, a huge world-centre city drawing people from all over the world and an immigration hub of north America for centuries with a small and known as exclusive/”posh” university & golf town in rural Scotland, where most students from normal families wouldn’t be able to afford to live after the 1st year because of the cost of accomodation?
Btw it costs £320 to play the Old Course — that’s close to what a minimum wage earner makes in a WEEK.
You’re so blinded by the skin colour obsession (especially common for Americans) that you’re not seeing what really matters in the lack of diversity in the people you see in St Andrew’s , ie class/wealth.
Oh, and also, regarding the university itself: just under 80% of St Andrew’s student population is white. This obviously includes a high proportion of international students, but even looking at UK domiciled students, just under 90% of St Andrew’s student body are white. For comparison, Scotland is *95% white*. St Andrew’s is significantly more “diverse” than Scotland and overall its ethnic makeup contains a higher proportion of non-white people than the population of the United Kingdom as a whole, and massively higher than the population of Scotland. Most of those people are, of course, likely to be Asian students from wealthier families.
Mr. Macwhirter ought to come to Paisley, just outside Glasgow, whose racial makeup has dramatically changed over the past couple of years, such is the scale of state-sponsored African settlement here. These, I stress, are not relocating black fellow Britons of Caribbean descent or highly skilled legal African immigrants who’ve settled here because of a booming local economy (there hasn’t been one here since at least 1960). These are, largely, refugees or illegal aliens moved en masse to an already economically disadvantaged area. I know this because the former hotel/old people’s home near me which lay empty and boarded up for years has suddenly been reopened to house many of them. I’d like to stress that these new arrivals don’t appear to be socially disruptive in a direct sense and, indeed, there have been some benefits such as the opening of shops carrying African foodstuffs and hair stylists catering to black people in hitherto long-unoccupied retail spaces as well as African Christian denominations taking over at least one disused local church. However, the scale of this demographic change and the speed with which it has taken place are truly startling and Scots and other British people living here weren’t consulted or the reasons for this change explained to them. This is where community tensions take root.
Very similar down here in North Edinburgh – the racial composition of the people on the bus to Granton has changed dramatically in the past few years. And we have a fair number of local neds – the other ingredient needed for it to kick off (see the Hogmanay riot at Niddrie to see the fertile grounds our schemes are).
Where does this McWhirter chap live? A couple of years ago I would have said it very unusual to get on a bus from Princes Street to North Edinburgh and see an Asian or Black face. Now, at least 10-15%, often more, are black African. I feel a bit sorry for them, as they are presumably being housed in housing schemes at the end of the bus line, which are notorious for drug problems and as mentioned, “local neds”, who I doubt make these new people feel very welcome.
Mike Small, editor of the Left-wing website Bella Caledonia, described last week’s rioting as “a particularly English phenomenon of ethnonationalism […] a specifically English psychosis”.
Well, of course, he did. This is the same Scotland that recently had a First Minister whining about how a historically white nation had mostly white people in positions of authority as if that’s unusual. Remind me what the majority in power looks like in Iran, India, Nigeria, Egypt, or Japan and Germany, for that matter. When one group is the vast majority of the population and always has been, only an idiot would think that people in certain positions would be from different groups.
There is nothing psychotic about nationalism or about wanting to preserve one’s unique culture. What’s psychotic is this exclusively Western leftist phenomenon of denigrating our own cultures while elevating everyone else’s. If those other cultures were so superior, one would think that migration patterns would be reversed.
Could one of the differences be that the Scots have always been, & are still allowed to be nationalist, patriotic & proud, eg via the Scottish National Party… while the English have, for quite a few decades, been repeatedly told that, unless they think their nation, flag & sense of self are all a piece of ****, they must be racist?
Scottish nationalism is an Irish Republican movement in many parts of Scotland . It despises Scots and their traditions .
doe islamophobia qualify for sickness pay?
The contrast is actually somewhat larger than that stated of 82% for white in England. Only 75% are White British, whilst say 4% are White Irish and 2% white other. However I suspect the line between the different white categories are very blurred.
A lot of those white British have white Irish ancestry.
If you focus on ethnicity not race then Scotland has, for example, slightly over 1% Polish population overall. But if my (obviously not a proper sample) experience of outside-Central-Belt courts (let’s say 10 visits in the last year largely in Sheriff Courts) is anything to go by, they seem to make up significantly more than that a proportion of the population of the accused. Yet there don’t seem to be outbreaks of anti Polish rioting even in the most hopeless bits of Inverness or Peterborough. But then, they are white and usually in court in association with or because of alcohol abuse, aren’t they? Blending well colouristically and culturally with the indigenous underclass, and in the next generation their (common, barely or not at all disguised especially if you know the language) racism will make the next generation a perfect fodder for far right.
Ireland used to congratulate itself on being ‘exceptional’ too.
96.8% white in Northern Ireland, but still capable of having a wee bit of an anti-immigration riot! That’s the Protestant work ethic in Belfast at work, clearly.
This reminds me of the US – Canada racial divide. The US serves as a giant sponge, soaking up enormous amounts of immigration; Canada is a mere afterthought in migrants’ minds, and few go there; there is nothing you can get in Canada that you cannot get in the US of A. Ditto for England – Scotland, I should think ….
The Scots, hardly in a melting pot, nor as largely welcoming and successfully integrated as England, are quite happy to just loathe the english (presumably of all backgrouds?) – when not voting for separatists and nationalist parties. Surely that’s enough for a day?
The Nats have never been a majority . They’ve now fallen to 30%.
We are paying the price of colonization! the cost is always due just when?