Readers Letters: Farage scaremongering highlights important issue

Farage also maintained that people coming here illegally were a scourge on taxpayers. His derogatory comments were scaremongering and related to children, but did highlight, however, Glasgow’s place as the UK’s asylum seeker capital and the strains that has put on public services even if asylum seekers make up less than 1 per cent of the population.

More significantly, migration from overseas to Scotland was 76,100 in the year to mid-2024, with just 46,400 people being born here. While Mr Swinney embraces multiculturalism and the clear benefits that brings for filling job vacancies, immigration is suddenly the third biggest issue among Scots voters. Yet Swinney is in denial that there is a problem, in fact he wants many more migrants.

Scotland is a very different country than last century and is enriched as a result of immigration, but if the population continues to increase at the current rate of 0.7 per cent per year from 5.55 million, it will be over 6m by 2037. About half a million in 12 years, with most from overseas. Instead of accelerating immigration the Scottish Government should control it to fill the skills gap while investing in training home students and apprentices in key skills.

Scotland should not have to import welders or engineers, with its industrial heritage, or healthcare workers and teachers when so many trained in these services are struggling to get jobs.

The party that will succeed at next May’s election is the one with the sensible policies on immigration, public services and the cost of living. It surely can’t be scaremongering Reform or the soft touch SNP.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

No challenge?

The Starmer vs Farage show has rolled into Scotland. (“Starmer brands Farage ‘toxic’ in Glasgow school pupils row”, 5 December). What was interesting about Keir Starmer's noticeably personal attack on Nigel Farage was that he did not actually challenge the core statistic quoted that one in three Glasgow school pupils does not have English as their first language. In a learning environment this really matters, as we know the nuances of the English language can be lost on some.

Mr Farage's basic point was not addressed, and Mr Farage appears to have won over far more voters than Mr Starmer. It is only six months until this subject, among others, is voted upon by Scots. Not only Starmer, but John Swinney too, might be getting a little uneasy.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Refugees, really?

I was very interested to read Cameron Wyllie's comments and his assertions about the way in which people have expressed their concerns about immigrants at schools in the west, for example (Perspective, 4 December). I must admit to an inability to think of anywhere which has one-third of its schoolchildren coming in from non English-speaking countries without a degree of concern.

Clearly, Mr Wyllie thinks there is nothing very odd about such numbers. But, “this protest is simple ignorance”, so that's all right, then. Let 'em all in. Our culture, language and values must take second place, after all. Legislation will soon prevent us from expressing any such view. That's progress for you.

Perhaps his thinking is affected by his understanding of both the past and the present. St Paul, it should be remembered, persecuted Christians until his “Damascene moment” when Jesus appeared to him and he changed his ways. Likewise the new Syrian leader, former Islamist, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has had his Damascene moment (and probably in Damascus). He has instituted freedom of religion and expression, so Syrians can now go home to their own land, culture and religion. They can help to return their nation to normality.

Mr Wyllie says “we should remember that Mary and Joseph were refugees”. I am surprised that a former head teacher like him is so ill-informed about the Holy Bible. He should know that “A decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed” went out “and all went to be taxed, every one into his own city” and Joseph went to Bethlehem, “to be taxed with Mary” (Luke, Ch 2 v 1-4).

It is not only Mr Wyllie's teeth that were clenched.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Too much bile

I agree with Ni Holmes (Letters, 4 December), except Reform is not “far right”. His comments show how far to the left the political establishment and a number of letter writers to The Scotsman have moved in both the UK and Scotland.

His comment that Nigel Farage should “awa an bile yer heid!” proves my belief (experienced on a daily basis) that although one-third of Glasgow schoolchildren don't speak English as their first language, neither do the remaining two-thirds!

John Fraser, Glasgow

Limit donations

A whopping donation of £100,000 has been made to Reform UK, only to be “trumped” by the obscene gift of £9 million by a crypto currency investor (your report, 5 December). All in all, the party has received over £10m in the past year, vastly outstripping Labour and the Tories.

These donations are far from being given without strings attached. Nigel Farage himself is involved in the world of crypto-currencies, and Reform UK, while posing as the party of the disillusioned working people, is fast become the representative of the uber rich.

Quite simply, political parties can be bought. We're seeing the murky Americanisation of the financing of British politics, via Reform UK, the arena up to now inhabited by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and co.

It's surely beyond time for a cap to be imposed upon political donations, say of £25,000. Otherwise, the receptors are open to corruption and become remote from the Electorate. We're witnessing that already in America, where its very democracy is threatened. May our eyes be opened by the direction Nigel Farage and Reform are taking, and our votes, if not our notes, go very much elsewhere.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Sustained silence

Kirsty McNeill, a Labour MP, and a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, says Scotland has the opportunity to become a European launch gateway and a “truly global centre” for sustainable space (“Scotland has ‘crucial’ role to play in UK’s space ambitions”, 4 December).

“Sustainable” is now the most overused word in the dictionary. Of course the space industry is needed for science and providing jobs and taxes, but why talk about “sustainable” all the time?

Are music festivals and sporting events sustainable? No, the Greens avoid talking about the massive greenhouse gases created by these events for fear of retribution.

Are wind turbines, solar panels and battery farms sustainable? No, greenhouse gases are created in their manufacture and by the steel and concrete used.

What about the toxic waste causing health problems and deaths in Southern China by the mining of rare metals essential to turbines, solar panels and battery farms?

The destruction of wildlife and landscapes is ignored in the pursuit of profit and the normally vocal politicians and Greens are strangely silent.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Papal picture

I cannot argue with Joyce McMillan when she points out that the MAGA movement has a very selective view of Christianity (Perspective, 5 December). However, she herself commits the same mistake, with her very selective view of Pope Leo's views, for example, she omits Leo's strong view on abortion.

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Pursed lips

What does it take to embarrass John Swinney? He called on the Chancellor to resign for a misleading pre-Budget statement. Yet, some of Mr Swinney's own recent statements, one for example where he denied breaking his own manifesto pledge not to raise income tax and then doing it twice, were certainly no worse than that of the Chancellor.

Mr Swinney, in fact, could have wallpapered Bute House with the number of allegations that have circulated over the years about him and his own SNP ministers and their apparent total disregard for the public purse.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

No more giants

I recall when titanic figures like Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur, Richard Nixon, Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel, Yitzhak Rabin and Anwar al Sadat all made the world a safer place, when Sir John Major and others made Northern Ireland less violent and Europe mightier.

A few of those people got the Nobel Peace Prize. Persecuting Hispanics in the streets of US cities is not in the same league. Rewarding the fascist war criminal Putin with the gains of aggression for outright atrocities and theft is not like the giants of freedom post-1945.

Tim Cox, Bern 6, Switzerland

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