You might recall the slogan 'bairns not bombs' from the Yes campaign, but now a new mantra has emerged. Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan deployed it during a weekend TV discussion about migrants, stating 'no person is illegal'. This sounds fine in theory, though in reality it is meaningless unless one believes there is no such thing as illegal immigration.
It is an easy formulation designed to demonise opponents, chiefly Reform UK, as racists for daring to raise the subject. It also gives SNP politicians the chance to flaunt their supposedly progressive credentials and portray rivals and their voters as bigots.
Back in the real world, Scots living in areas most affected by high migrant levels are wondering what planet Ms McAllan inhabits. It must be light years away from Glasgow, where the SNP council has repeatedly warned of a housing crisis caused by the immigrant influx.
Take a stroll around the city centre and speak to a few migrants, and you will quickly learn that large numbers came to the UK in small boats. They then made their way to Scotland, where the Nationalists' lax homelessness laws mean local authorities are legally obliged to house them. Many are living at vast expense in hotels, draining the city's coffers, at a time when a large proportion of its own residents are struggling with poverty and rampant drug addiction.
Nearly two-thirds of the 9,337 homeless people in temporary accommodation in Glasgow came to the UK as asylum seekers. Ms McAllan, who is, after all, the Housing Secretary, has her head buried firmly in the sand as this catastrophe unfolds on her government's watch. If she left the sanctuary of her government offices now and again and ventured into Glasgow, would she have the courage to repeat her call for more, rather than less, immigration?
Bosses of Glasgow City Council are likely to have been scrambling for something to lob at the television set when Ms McAllan said concerns about immigration had been needlessly stoked by Reform. Mind you, Reform is on course to be the main opposition at Holyrood after May 7 according to some pollsters, and immigration is the fourth most pressing concern for the electorate after the cost of living, the NHS, and the economy.
Ms McAllan's hectoring, clueless sanctimony is doing Nigel Farage and Lord Offord, Reform's Scottish leader, a favour by treating their voters like racists. Last year, official figures showed around one in three children in Glasgow have English as an 'additional language' (EAL), which Mr Farage described as a 'cultural smashing' of the city.
Ms McAllan said Reform had traduced 'beautiful, bilingual' kids, but that skirts around wider issues which are much more uncomfortable for her party. The EIS teaching union has previously warned that 'dwindling specialist provision has led to reduced levels of support in our classrooms where there are rising numbers of children and young people with a widening range of additional needs, including those who require EAL support'. Teachers confronted with pupils who cannot speak fluent English may have to use flashcards with pictures of objects to determine the pupil's level of ability.
So, Ms McAllan's government is content to lobby for more migrants and condemn those who raise fears about immigration, while also failing to provide teachers with the support they need to cope with the consequences. That is the most cynical dereliction of duty imaginable – one that lets down the children trying to learn English, and indeed their classmates, who also want a decent education.
We have heard a lot of pious cant about immigration being a 'reserved' issue during this seemingly interminable Holyrood election campaign. But the fallout does not stop at the Border – just ask residents of Inverness, which is about to become the site of accommodation for hundreds of asylum seekers in Cameron Barracks, a military base in the city centre. Cash-strapped NHS Highland now faces a bill of more than £1.3 million to facilitate the base, including the provision of sexual health clinics, vaccinations and mental health support.
Yet John Swinney has accused some of those who protested outside the barracks of 'expressing racist views'. Weekly demonstrations have also been held in Falkirk between opposing groups outside the Cladhan Hotel, which houses asylum seekers. In one notorious case, a 29-year-old Afghan, Sadeq Nikzad, stayed at the hotel – and raped a 15-year-old girl after claiming asylum in the UK. He had lived as a tourist in three countries before arriving in Britain.
In March, Police Scotland said there had been an increase of around 50 per cent in protests across the country in the past 12 months – with one in five relating to immigration. Would Ms McAllan, for example, repeat her claim that 'no person is illegal' to neighbours of migrant hotels? It is easier to spout hypocritical platitudes than to grapple with the repercussions of allowing immigration to spiral out of control.
The SNP wholeheartedly backed more migration for many years – but now wants to distance itself from the calamitous impact. Its stance is echoed by the madcap Greens, who might prop up an SNP government at Holyrood after May 7. Last year Green MSP Ariane Burgess said Scotland needs 'at least one million more' immigrants to 'work the land' and tackle climate change. She admitted it would create a challenge for the Highlands – which may not be ready for the 'multicultural' impact of a mass influx.
Ms Burgess said migrants may be better suited to farming than indigenous Scots and the country must 'be welcoming'. She is now the Greens' lead candidate for the Highlands and Islands – and her party could be in government soon, helping the SNP cling to power. But Ms Burgess also said the Cameron Barracks plan was a 'stunt' and 'deeply disrespectful to both asylum seekers and Highland communities'. It is almost as if she wants to have her cake and eat it – call for more immigrants, and then try to placate furious local voters with a show of indignation when the UK Government effectively heeded her call.
Asylum and immigration policy have been run for years by politicians of this shamefully low calibre, on both sides of the Border. Most of them are people you would not trust to run a raffle, and yet they are presiding over porous borders – and then denouncing anyone who objects as racists. They should be made to pay a high price for their complacency – and for the denigration of thousands of Scots who are sick and tired of being fobbed off with the SNP's specious claptrap.
