Here's my thank-you message to British nationalists

Blog fundraisers from pro-indy campaigners always attract a lot of anger and bile from British nationalists, and this time was no exception. This year the fundraiser attracted considerably more spite, snark, and splenetic hostility than usual from the British nationalist trolls, who were never exactly known for their milk of human kindness in the first place. Now that the fundraiser has reached, and surpassed, its target, I can reveal that I deliberately provoked their outrage and harrumphery. I was trolling the trolls, and they took the bait in spectacular fashion. This is a lesson in the meaning of irony, and in making the British nationalist zoomers of social media serve a useful purpose despite themselves.

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I mentioned when launching the fundraiser that this year it’s particularly important that I generate a sufficient income. I am due to marry my American partner in a few months, and the highly restrictive visa regulations for foreign spouses demand that UK citizens marrying foreigners from outside the European Economic Area have an income of £18,600 a year. These regulations were introduced by Theresa May in order to placate the frothing xenophobes of the Daily Mail, despite the fact that foreign spouses were already prohibited from having recourse to public funds. Blogging is my main occupation, and thanks to the fundraiser I can now be confident that I will fulfil the financial requirements to apply for my partner’s spouse visa after we wed.

Despite the protestations and howls of our snide wee British nationalist friends, crowdfunding is a perfectly legal and legitimate means for bloggers to generate an income. The money raised from the fundraiser counts as taxable income, and in fact declaring it for tax is the entire purpose of doing the fundraiser. It’s a tax return which must be submitted to the Home Office as evidence of income. The Home Office doesn’t care about the details of how a person generates their income. All that the Home Office cares about is that income has been legally gained and that it has been declared for tax.

Many of the fundraiser’s critics have been bilious in their attacks. Some even reported the fundraiser directly to the Home Office. Back in the real world, it makes no difference how a legal income is generated. I’m merely being considerably more open and upfront about my sources of income than the Scottish Conservative Party. All that the petty-minded vindictiveness of British nationalists on social media managed to achieve was to irritate a good many more people into making donations than otherwise might have. So as a direct result of British nationalist nastiness, the fundraiser received a lot more cash. Thanks for that.

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However, I could have done the fundraiser without mentioning my personal circumstances and what is going on in my personal life. Chances are it would still have reached its target. Writing and speaking about Scottish independence is my full-time job. Another facet of my day job is annoying British nationalist trolls, and although I hate to blow my own trumpet, I seem to have something of a talent in that department.

The reason for mentioning that I’m getting married to a foreigner is because of something else, this time something that the Home Office is interested in. As a British citizen marrying a non-EU foreigner, you don’t just need to demonstrate that you have a sufficient income. You need to demonstrate that your relationship is a genuine one and not a marriage of convenience for the purposes of getting a UK visa. My partner and I do have such evidence, but it doesn’t do anyone harm to get us some more.

I have taken screenshots of the outpouring of petty-minded bile and hatred, the contempt, the venom, and the pathetic attempts at snark directed against my partner and me by our British nationalist friends, all of which they have published online some months before we are due to get wed. There are tweets, Facebook posts, bitter little comments left in this newspaper’s comments section, a 2500-word blog article written by a tedious wannabe whose verbosity vastly exceeds his meagre talent. All of these help to prove that we are a real couple, before we get married.

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When my partner applies for his visa, the file we have amassed will be submitted to the Home Office as supplementary evidence that we are in fact in a genuine relationship. So instead of harming us, the small-mindedness from the red, white and blue devotees has only given us more evidence upon which to build an even stronger case. That was the entire purpose of provoking them. They were too blinded by their venom to realise that they were being played.

I knew when I launched the fundraiser that British nationalist trolls on social media would respond the way that they did, and they didn’t let me down. My partner and I will be laughing all the way down the aisle. The hatred has produced the exact opposite effect from what the haters hoped it would achieve. And that, my British nationalist troll children, is the meaning of irony. The trolls have been well and truly trolled.