From the Cranmer article UKIP are not infrequently derided as closet racists, petty little Englanders and xenophobes for seeking the secession of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Their backward-looking insularity is self-evident to the progressive, enlightened, globally-minded establishment. The BNP are undoubtedly racist for seeking to exclude non-white people from their ranks and for advocating the primacy of the ‘indigenous Caucasian’ (or ethnic groups emanating from that race’). Understandably, the non-racist, non-sectarian UKIP often get a little irate when their brand of ‘extreme Right’ is mentioned in the same breath as the BNP’s more robust brand. Peas in a pod, some say: the one leads to the other. But why is Alex Salmond not cast by the media as a little Scotlander, a petty anti-English xenophobe or a racist? Certainly, if one were to spout the bile he does against any minority ethnic group, one might just find oneself accused of inciting racial hatred. But Anglophobia is apparently not as illegal as Islamophobia, or as abhorrent as Europhobia. Indeed, it appears to be quite a respectable and legal pursuit, even by politicians. We all know what the media and the entire establishment make of a white politician renowned for his ‘persistent contempt for Pakistanis’. Such irrational scorn based on nothing but skin colour is rightly to be reviled. Yet Alex Salmond is noted for his ‘persistent contempt for the English’, and is simultaneously lauded as ‘the best politician in Britain’. The eminent Scottish composer James MacMillan accuses Alex Salmond of inciting racial tensions, and the entire SNP leadership has a history of ‘anti-English bigotry’. Which is curious when you consider the lengths to which Mr Salmond is going to eradicate sectarianism in Scottish football. Why is bigotry to be outlawed from the Ibrox Stadium or Celtic Park but tolerated, encouraged and positively embraced at Holyrood? Sectarianism is as vibrant across political movements as it is across religious denominations. It is bigotry, discrimination or hatred which arises from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions within a group. Together we are a United Kingdom, with a shared history, philosophy, industry, religion and literature. Agitate and exaggerate the differences, and the rhetoric leads to enmity, hostility and disunity. The spirit that hates the Protestant or the Roman Catholic for their religion is the same as that which hates the English for their polity. Sectarianism is sectarianism; nationalism is nationalism; evil is evil.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 23:00:18 +0000
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