HAVING seen the reports, pictures and video footage of the Rangers supporters’ atrocious behaviour at the weekend I feel compelled to suggest a solution to the sectarian divide in Scotland.
“When many Northern Irish Unionists identity as British, what will happen when Britain and Britishness no longer exists?” That’s the question Gavin Esler poses in his new publication, How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations.
In his book Gavin makes the case that English nationalism and the resultant Brexit vote has ensured that the mythical creation of Britain or the “United Kingdom” will soon cease to exist, and the Northern Irish will have a distinct Northern Irish identity. However, existing as a viable single nation may well become unviable and reunification with the Republic of Ireland inevitable. Northern Ireland did not vote for Brexit and the political momentum in the province is moving towards reunification of Ireland.
READ MORE: Kirsty Strickland: There was nothing normal about Rangers fans' siege of Glasgow
Loyalty to the Rangers Football Club is synonymous with the Loyalist tradition in the six counties of Ulster with all the Union Jack-waving, red, white and blue-flaring trappings of the Unionist British-affiliated brigade.
The final chapter of the last vestiges of British colonialism in Ireland was born in the partition of the six counties of the province of Ulster in May 1921. It is not insignificant that 2021 is the centenary of the state’s creation. It was a poorly planned attempt by the Westminster government to retain control of a small part of its Empire by favouring the Protestant ascendency and thus subjugating the Catholic minority. This is the root of the sectarian divide in Ulster, which is covertly mirrored in Scotland as a whole but specifically manifest overtly in the outrageous riotous behaviour of many Rangers fans in Glasgow at the weekend.
The British biased media are quick to blame the authorities, including the Scottish Government and particularly the Scottish police, for either failing to prevent these incidents in the first place through legislation, or inadequate control of the crowds through under-resourcing of the police. Vilification of the mob has always been a commonly used tactic of the British media, diverting people’s attention from the root cause of this sectarian division in Scottish society.
READ MORE: Rangers players probed by police over video 'showing use of sectarian language'
Commenting on the behaviour of the Rangers fans, one newspaper back in 1920 reported: “On the Rangers terracing on Saturday there was congregated a gang, thousands strong, including the dregs and scourings of filthy slum Dom, unwashed yahoos, jailbirds, nighhawks, won’t works, burro-barnacles and pavement pirates, all, or nearly all, in the scarecrow stage of verminous trampdom. This ragged army of insanitary pests was lavishly provided with orange and blue remnants ... practically without cessation, the vagabond scum kept up a strident howl of the ‘Boyne Water’ chorus. Nothing so bestially ignorant has ever been witnessed, even in the wildest exhibitions of Glasgow Orange bigotry.”
Vitriolic language designed to maximise the diversion from the true cause of this sectarianism and division: the British Establishment!
So my question is, what will happen to these Rangers fans when their beloved British nation is no longer there for them, and their team’s flag, the Union Jack, their colours, the red white and blue, are no longer valid? Surely this is the solution to the sectarian divide once and for all: when Britain indeed ends and the four nations of the dis-united kingdom are finally reborn; a strong argument indeed for Scottish independence (and Irish reunification).
Dave Finlay
via email
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