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Showing posts with label Magnis Garham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magnis Garham. Show all posts

Friday 17 May 2013

The Farage Affair at the Canons' Gait

If a politician from another country comes to Scotland and offers an alien political philosophy to Scots, especially one containing homophobic or racist elements or overtones, they may reasonable be asked to go home, i.e. back to their country of residence, where they vote and live.

I would not hesitate to offer that advice to one from America, England, Wales, Ireland or indeed any country across the globe. I would not hesitate to offer it to a Scot who was an MP for an English constituency and resident in England who chose to interfere in Scottish politics, e.g. Eleanor Laing MP.

(N.B. I do not suggest for a moment that Eleanor Laing is either racist or homophobic, or a sympathiser with UKIP – simply that she is a Scot who is a Tory MP for an English constituency who has made various anti-independence, pro-union comments in the Commons.)

This is not on the basis of race or nationality, but on the basis of politics and country of residence, i.e. where their home is.

But a nasty attempt was made across the media today to conflate this legitimate advice, in the Farage case - who would have been told exactly the same if he had been a Scot - with the undoubted racism of telling someone who lives, works, votes and is domiciled in a country to "Go back where you came from!" based on ethnic or geographical origin.

It was implied by Magnus Gardham in the Herald - “Anti-racists shouted, apparently without irony: ‘Leave Scotland, go back to England” - (approvingly(?) retweeted by Torcuil Crichton of The Record) and by Andrew Neil on The Daily Politics. (see video clip)