George Galloway’s immigration comments reveal just how far he’s fallen

It was certainly a day for celebration for everyone in the Scottish anti-racist and labour movements who have long fought to put into action Robert Burns’s dream of international equality and solidarity.

There was, however, one notable Scot who was not for rejoicing. “Immigration and Asylum are UK government matters”, the outraged politician opined via Twitter.

“A devolved assembly has openly and unlawfully defied the implementation of a UK government decision,” he continued, aghast that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon should have dared show human compassion for two of her constituents. “This”, he exploded, “is an act of rebellion.”

Who was the author of this odious, vein-bulging, right-wing dispatch? It was none other than George Galloway, the erstwhile socialist firebrand whose dedication to the Union has sent him hurtling into the political cesspit with a speed that would alarm Lewis Hamilton.

Some people, those who haven’t been paying attention to Galloway’s recent political descent, perhaps, might be shocked by this expression of bilious refugee-baiting. However, given that it came so soon after the one-time hammer of the Tories appeared on TV (in an election broadcast for his desperately flailing All for Unity party) proudly seated in front of a photograph of Winston Churchill, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Indeed, the nasty electronic missive came less than two months after Galloway, a former stalwart of the anti-racist movement, had all but trashed his reputation with a vile, racist Tweet against Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf. In an extraordinary outburst of vile, ethno-centric bigotry, the former Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead averred that the Scots-Asian cabinet minister is “not a Celt like me.”

It is truly sad to see the depths to which Galloway, whose principles have always been engaged in a titanic battle with his ego, has been driven by his obsessive Unionism.

Compared to his recent, xenophobic garbage, Galloway’s red leotard-wearing, imaginary milk-lapping exploits on Celebrity Big Brother look positively dignified.

It is hard to believe that this right-wing, racial chauvinist Twitter twit is the same George Galloway who so brilliantly excoriated the warmongering senators in Washington DC, when, in 2005, they falsely accused him of benefitting from the Iraqi oil-for-food programme. It is equally difficult to associate him with the man who stood beside me back in 2001, when I was secretary of the Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees, and held out the hand of welcome to displaced people who were facing racially-inspired lies and defamation.

In his famous 2005 debate in New York with the formerly left-wing, English author Christopher Hitchens (who had thrown in his lot with George W Bush and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq), Galloway memorably told his adversary that he had transformed from “a butterfly” into “a slug”.

Now, some 16 years later, Galloway has changed his political colours so profoundly and so ominously that the only creature he resembles is a decrepit, deracinated chameleon.

I hope for George’s sake that his new friends on the weird, right-wing fringes of Scottish Unionism turn out to be reliable, because he has burned his last remaining bridges with his old friends in the labour and progressive movements.

Mark Brown
Glasgow

SINCE the election I’ve become more and more irked at the ganging up against the SNP in some of the marginal constituencies by many Labour voters.

I regularly voted Labour many, many moons ago and it had absolutely diddley squat to do with the Union of the United Kingdom.

In those days I liked the SNP and the thought of an independent Scotland but to be fair back in the 1980s and 90s it really did feel like a pipedream.

My priority was to try and kick the Tories out of Westminster, so the only realistic option then, was a cross in the ballot paper for Labour. Clearly that didn’t go well!

In 1997 a certain Mr Blair got in and had to appease the rich and powerful to stay in power for so long, and loads of principals went out the window.

It wasn’t too long into the noughties therefore before I saw the light and became one of the hundreds of thousands of disillusioned ex-Labour voters and supported Scottish independence.

What I feel the vast majority of us have in common is a fundamental antipathy to Tory values. To therefore vote for any Tory was anathema to me.

I seriously can’t get my head around any Labour voter loathing independence more than being lorded over by right wing Tories in Westminster, most of whom barely even try and hide their contempt for Scotland.

When we do finally become independent Labour politicians will try and woo us back to the fold. When the time comes my response will be a very emphatic, “This gentleman is not for turning!”.

Ivor Telfer
Dalgety Bay

ANDREW Tickell got it right when he described DRoss in three words: “touchy, charmless and abrasive” and he has just managed to prove it once again with his behaviour at a Committee in Westminster chaired by Pete Wishart.

His behaviour is outrageous – he obviously does not like someone from the SNP being in charge and is not a good loser because despite how many times, and however many Tories try to tell us there is no majority in Holyrood for the independence, there is and the SNP have a vote of nearly 50% for their mandate whereas Boris had 38% for his mandate and still went ahead with Brexit despite Scotland and Northern Ireland voting against.

DRoss does not have the intelligence to accept that he “guaranteed” a referendum if you voted SNP and you could only stop it by voting for the Tories. We did not vote to stop a referendum – so time to pay up on the guarantee – or will that turn out to be the same as all the Tory promises to the fishermen of the North East?

Any party that gets two MSP’s voted in on a constituency vote using first past the post does not have a leg to stand on when it comes to mandates.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley

THE Unionist strategy, that to combat the obvious desire of Scots to have the seat of our government in Edinburgh rather than at Westminster, seems to be based on the idea that a liberal sprinkling of Union Flags will demonstrate that some of our tax receipts are spent in Scotland. We Scots would then recognise and realise how beholden we are to the UK.

The same strategists appear to have overlooked the lack of success of this approach of similar recent campaigns. I lived in London when an earlier Conservative Government abolished the Greater London Council. (Do not forget the Conservatives’ record of contempt for the democratic process when it does not suit their ends.) The GLC’s Leader, Ken Livingstone, sought to resist this by a campaign of displaying GLC on buildings and so on in order to demonstrate the importance of the Council and its role in delivering services to Londoners. This was to no avail.

Nor did the widespread branding of infrastructure spending by the European Union with its logo persuade voters in England and Wales to vote to remain in the EU!

Gavin Brown
Linlithgow

THE BBC have sacrificed impartiality on the alter of Unionism. It has fallen back on its 2014 strategy of treating the constitutional debate as party political, outnumbering pro-Yes supporters as seen regularly on BBCQT.

This week it did not want viewers in England to see how ordinary people stood up to a hostile dawn raid by the Home Office deportation squad. But there is a more sinister, subliminal agenda at work. There is the continuity branding before the news of oneness pretending to be about BBC One, then the news itself is bedecked by the colours of St George, red and white.

There is the plethora of commissioned programming under the Great British brand. And so it seams as long as middle England is kept ignorant of the way Scotland is treated by the BBC anything goes. Let’s face it the BBC has morphed into an English nationalist broadcaster slavishly following English nationalists in government. Scotland will always be a region of the Great British broadcaster until we achieve independence. Then the lies, distortions, omissions and partisanship will become a memory best forgotten.

Mike Herd
Highland

AS the debate over Scottish independence intensifies after the election of a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament, we can expect further scaremongering and warnings of doom and gloom.

Even in the run up to the election the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), recently renamed NatWest Group at holding company level, stated yet again that it would move its registered headquarters from Edinburgh to London in the event of independence.

It should however be noted that RBS chief executive, Alison Rose, is already based in London, so the Edinburgh HQ — like the continuation of the RBS brand in Scotland — is largely symbolic.

The last time RBS threatened to move its HQ to London in the run-up to the 2014 referendum, its then chief executive emphasised that this would not affect jobs, a situation unlikely to have changed. However, it could change in a positive way if an independent Scotland regained access to the European single market.

Any move south by RBS would reverse a trend of finance firms quitting London. Last month a report from the New Financial think tank showed that the City of London has been worse affected than predicted by Brexit.

Over 440 financial services firms have relocated part of their business, staff or legal entities to the European Union, and more than £900 billion of bank assets — about 10 per cent of the entire UK banking system — are being moved.

This of course affects Scotland too and were it independent with access to the European single market, it could clearly benefit. Dublin, a city with less financial acumen than Edinburgh, is doing exactly this. New Financial identifies 135 firms that have chosen the Irish capital as their post-Brexit location. This puts Dublin ahead of all other European centres in attracting business from the UK.

Those supporting independence must counter the scaremongering and highlight how Scotland is losing out and that full control over our own affairs will bring considerable benefits.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh