Identities Journal Blog
  • Home
  • About
    • About Identities
    • Current Issue
    • Latest Articles
    • Special Issues >
      • Call for Special Issues
    • Open Access Articles
    • Most Read Articles
    • Most Cited Articles
    • Submit to Identities
  • Blog
    • Blog Collection
    • Blogs by Topic >
      • Anti-racism
      • Culture
      • Decoloniality
      • Ethnicity
      • Migration
      • Race
      • Commentaries
      • More Blog Topics
    • Blog Series >
      • Gaza and Solidarity Blog Series
      • COVID-19 Blog Series
    • Submit to the Blog
  • Podcast
    • The Identities Podcast >
      • Listen on Spotify
      • Listen on SoundCloud
  • Events
    • Next Events
    • Recorded Events
  • Contact
    • Contact Identities
    • Keep in touch >
      • The Identities Newsletter
  • Home
  • About
    • About Identities
    • Current Issue
    • Latest Articles
    • Special Issues >
      • Call for Special Issues
    • Open Access Articles
    • Most Read Articles
    • Most Cited Articles
    • Submit to Identities
  • Blog
    • Blog Collection
    • Blogs by Topic >
      • Anti-racism
      • Culture
      • Decoloniality
      • Ethnicity
      • Migration
      • Race
      • Commentaries
      • More Blog Topics
    • Blog Series >
      • Gaza and Solidarity Blog Series
      • COVID-19 Blog Series
    • Submit to the Blog
  • Podcast
    • The Identities Podcast >
      • Listen on Spotify
      • Listen on SoundCloud
  • Events
    • Next Events
    • Recorded Events
  • Contact
    • Contact Identities
    • Keep in touch >
      • The Identities Newsletter

Researching anti-Scottishness: ‘dangerous Trumpian hogwash’?

27/7/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
We recently published our research about a potential rise of anti-Scottishness in England, post-Brexit, in Identities. This wasn’t originally the article we intended to write. We actually started off by exploring Scotland’s population challenges – a negative rate of natural change, an ageing population and population growth reliant on inward migration – issues which other Western countries are wrestling with. For Scotland, there is the added complication that the country has no control over migration as this is reserved to Westminster, and the present Conservative government is, in any case, committed to reducing the numbers coming to the UK.
 
So how did we come to write ‘Indifference or hostility? Anti-Scottishness in a post-Brexit England’?  In the best academic traditions, we had begun by undertaking research with returning members of the Scottish diaspora – individuals who may have been born and educated in Scotland but who had been living and working elsewhere. Some had begun to move back to Scotland, suggesting that, for these individuals and families at any rate, their economic or personal circumstances were encouraging a homeward move. 
​What surprised us, however, was the number of returners from England who cited a growing antipathy there towards anyone who wasn’t actually English – a trend they believed had become more common since the Brexit referendum. There have, of course, always been some tensions between the nations that make up the British Isles, ranging from anti-Irish ‘jokes’ to those Scots who happily support any team which is playing against England. But it seemed that something had changed and a number of our interviewees felt that where there had previously been banter, it had more recently spilled over into hostility. There had been clear statements that they should simply get back to Scotland where they belonged. Many such Scots recognised that immigration had been a significant issue in the Brexit campaign and they too were being seen as ‘undesirable’ migrants in England.
 
We decided to follow up our research findings, therefore, with a second piece of work, comprising an additional online study targeted at Scots currently living in England to ask them about their current experiences. Given the difficulties of conducting research during the Covid pandemic, we had to make use of social media and Scottish organisations in England to advertise our study, but we are satisfied that our results raise issues of concern, and which we would argue are deserving of further study.
 
It certainly seems to be the case that there is a changed political atmosphere in England – a kind of growing English nationalism which has been noted by others – which is anti-immigrant, and which has led to some Scots deciding to move back to Scotland. Partly this may be due to anti-immigrant attitudes and partly to a sense of irritation in England, caused by continued calls from the Scottish Government for a second independence referendum. It may also be that problems with the Northern Ireland protocol, may be seen by people in England as a kind of ‘Celtic nuisance’.
 
Of course, we wouldn’t want to exaggerate our findings, and we do believe that further research is needed. Interestingly, we wrote an article for a Scottish Sunday newspaper in 2021 in which we highlighted our preliminary findings. Our research was immediately attacked by a senior politician in the Scottish Parliament as ‘dangerous Trumpian hogwash’. He is, of course, entitled to his view but his kneejerk reaction illustrates perhaps the difficulties of having a serious discussion about these issues and what a touchy subject this is. Perhaps it illustrates how any discussion regarding national identities, Brexit, migration and such always end up being seen through the prism of the wider constitutional debate.
 
We simply hope that, after reading our article, individuals will feel that this is an issue worth pursuing. We did. 

Image credit: Taras Young. British Railways sign at the Anglo-Scottish Border at Marshall Meadows Bay. Wikimedia. (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Blog post by Murray Stewart Leith and Duncan Sim, University of the West of Scotland, UK
 
Read the Identities article:
Leith, Murray Stewart & Sim, Duncan. Indifference or hostility? Anti-Scottishness in a post-Brexit England. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power. DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2022.2064082   OPEN ACCESS
Picture
Explore other relevant Identities articles:

Nationalism after Brexit: reflections on culture, ideology and provincial space

Whiteness, populism and the racialisation of the working class in the United Kingdom and the United States

Constructions of Europe in the run-up to the EU referendum in the UK
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.



    Explore the 
    Identities Blog

    All
    Activism
    Anti Racism
    Anti-racism
    Asylum Seekers
    Belonging
    Black Lives Matter
    Blackness
    Borders
    Boundary Work
    Cities
    Citizenship
    Colonialism
    Commentaries
    Conflict
    Cosmopolitanism
    Covid-19
    Cultural Memory
    Culture
    Decoloniality
    Diaspora
    Discrimination
    Displacement
    Diversity
    Ethnic Boundaries
    Ethnic Identity
    Ethnicity
    Exile
    Far Right
    Gaza And Solidarity
    Gender
    Global South
    Identity
    Immigration
    Indigenous
    Integration
    Intersectionality
    Islamophobia
    Justice
    Kinship
    Marginalisation
    Migration
    Multiculturalism
    National Identity
    Nationalism
    Nationhood
    Nativism
    Othering
    Palestine
    Policing
    Populism
    Postcolonial
    Race
    Racial Identity
    Racialisation
    Racism
    Radicalism
    Refugees
    Religion
    Resistance
    Special Issues
    Sport
    State Racism
    Stereotyping
    Stigmatisation
    Subjectivity
    Transnationalism
    Victimhood
    Whiteness


    Blog Collection

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019

Picture

Explore Identities at tandfonline.com/GIDE

Bluesky: @identitiesjournal.bsky.social
The views and opinions expressed on The Identities Blog are solely those of the original blog post authors, and not of the journal, Taylor & Francis Group or the University of Glasgow.