WITH respect to the excellent letter in Monday’s National by Amina Abu-Araffeh, may I say that I agreed with almost everything she wrote; indeed her rejection of Islamophobia was quite brilliant.

Letters: Systems creating gender apartheid deserve disrespect

However, I feel she is misguided with her support, in the shape of empathy, for Boris the Spider and whilst I do not share her stomach churning reaction to “moving black tents”, I fully understand her reaction. What she apparently fails to appreciate is Johnson’s motives for his remarks, which are light years away from support for Muslim women and their situation, or indeed any women, and that he and his cohorts are as much a threat to Ms Abu-Araffeh’s long term interests as anyone else, because you see, for people like Johnson, Ms Abu-Araffeh is an ‘other’. She is not, in Tory parlance, ‘one of us’. Boris was not supporting a ban on the burqa or face covering in general, that would offend his Saudi paymasters, he simply saw an opportunity for a populist attack, masquerading as humour, on a minority, in order to ingratiate himself with a racist constituency.

Freedom of speech is like every other freedom – it is not absolute and is only permissible if it does no damage or pose a threat to others. Johnson is not an ordinary member of the public, nor even a journalist. He is a Member of Parliament, an ex-foreign secretary, the second highest post in British politics, and is therefore supposed to be, and to act like, a statesman. He is also a front, the poster boy for a particular political constituency that has been responsible for many of the hatreds and divisions we see within British society. He is an opinion former and is thus influential and, as a result, he has even less freedom of speech than the rest of us, as his utterances can have far-reaching and profound consequences. Indeed his remarks have been seized upon by white supremacist nationalists and are reported as having been responsible for what the police are calling “a spike” in anti-Islamic hate crimes. Thus, Johnson, instead of being deserving of empathy, deserves condemnation and public humiliation, because for Boris and his ilk, such rules and conventions are for other people. As Andrew Cooper, a Conservative peer and a former 10 Downing Street director of strategy, writes: “The rottenness of Boris Johnson goes deeper even than his casual racism and his equally casual courting of fascism.”

Johnson and his cronies are the logical end product of Thatcherism and her determination to destroy the normative and value systems of British life. Thatcher saw a society she hated and determined to destroy it, and she set in motion a systemic agenda to destroy the public and collective nature of British society, to atomise it and reduce all values to an economic price imperative. She promoted a policy of aggressive, ruthless, and selfish individualism, resulting in a ruling elite of Boris Johnsons, aggressive, ruthless, and selfish individuals who have been responsible for the systematic degradation of our economic, social and political life, but who, because they can never admit to the damage they are responsible for, constantly invent scapegoats – benefit scroungers, the unions, the EU, immigrants and foreigners in general, and, of course, Muslims.

Ms Abu-Araffeh’s letter was first-class and welcome, but she should never make the mistake of attributing altruistic motives to the Boris Johnsons of this world. He and his circle represent the dark underbelly of racism and authoritarianism in this sorry nation, supported by the gutter press. Such people must be continually called out and challenged.
Peter Kerr
Address supplied

THE citizens of Scotland were demeaned/insulted when the UK Government chose Mr Boris Pfeffel Johnson to be foreign secretary, and further insulted by the way he failed to demonstrate any diplomacy or care in what he said, where he said it, and to whom he said it.

Scotland is now further associated with the UK’s wanton approach to anything foreign, by Johnson’s latest casual abusive insults to women of a major global faith who choose a form of clothing he considers weird. It transpires that such “dog whistle” abuse is supported by many in his party.

The long and winding road to Scottish independence has therefore now encountered a quantum change after Johnson’s comments, in that Scotland’s approach changes from it seceding, to letting England go it alone as the UK, with its threatened Tory/Ukip riots and mass hysteria that Tory/Ukip England seek, in their attempt to retain/regain control of their style of UK parliamentary democracy.

The Tory/Ukip government Brexit fix to weird foreign ways is for England (UK) to be a global nation rather than a member of the EU, and it doesn’t want England cluttered up with “swarms” of migrants. To this end the UK is already progressing well beyond devaluing the Great British Pound to reduce levels of entry, forcing repatriation of British citizens of colour, retrospectively amending visa constraints, and changing the locks of properties occupied by those seeking asylum.

It is now up to the indyref1 No voters of Scotland to choose between being shackled to Johnson’s vision of a global and pure sunlit England (UK), with him at the helm, or the move to a fairer, more inclusive society possible within an independent Scotland. It is up to Yes voters to press the Scottish Government to further diverge from the UK approach to all things foreign being weird.

If Scotland can lead England (UK), as it so often does, then some Scottish crumbs of fairness and inclusiveness may in due course be adopted by the UK Parliament. England matters, and Scotland can’t just turn its back, but it must keep a safe distance from its self-estranging neighbour, as it finally bottoms out of the Great British Empire.
Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow