Discussing the UK government backed campaign for children to sing a patriotic British song in school, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said she thought it was a joke. I must admit when I heard this, I thought it was a joke that she thought it was a joke.
Sturgeon after all, is not exactly shy to take every opportunity to promote her preferred nationalism. Discussing the One Britain song, Sturgeon said, “When I saw it on social media yesterday, I just assumed it was a spoof, I didn’t think it was real”. Promoting nationalism and getting children to sing state sanctioned songs is clearly not the First Minister’s thing.
Interestingly, sociologist Carlton Brick has usefully noted when discussing, “Why the SNP hates the Tartan Army”, Nicola Sturgeon only likes Scottishness when it is “diversity-trained, politically correct Scottishness”.
Down south, while even liberal and left leaning commentators were celebrating the rowdy and spirited passion of the Tartan Army the priggish First Minister felt the need to get all offended on my and other fragile Englishmen and women’s behalf, explaining that, “I would abhor and condemn unreservedly any anti-English chants”.
Showing the usual West-end dinner party-like inability to take football fans singing with a bucket of salt, Nicola hammered home her message that “Racism, xenophobia, anything like that, whether it’s in a football context or in life generally, is not to be tolerated”.
Where normal punters see a vibrant national pride, a healthy rivalry, dark humour and of course a bit of good old-fashioned foul-mouthed anti-Englishness, Sturgeon sees racism and xenophobia, a dangerous mob that cannot be tolerated. Irony of ironies, for the leader of a nationalist party, genuine old fashioned, populist pride in your nation, even when done with a tongue in your cheek, is something she fears and loathes in equal measure.
To add to the irony, the One Britain song could have been written by Sturgeon herself, filled as it is with multi-cultural messages about how we have “opened our doors” and “celebrate our differences with love in our hearts”. Simply add the word “Scottish” to this little ditty and it could have been written in the corridors of Holyrood, drained as it is of anything that could engage a genuine sense of commonality, national pride or passion.
When discussing the One Britain song, the distaste on the First Minister’s face was palpable. The idea of getting children to sing a government enforced song, to force little ones to mouth the platitudes of the state, that is clearly “ludicrous”. Perhaps then, we should remind Nicola about the SHANARRI song that Scottish children were made to sing as part of the celebration of the failed Named Person initiative.
As part of the enforcement of the SNP’s state guardian system, Scottish children were taught to sing their own little ditty about this brave new world. It started off with a joyous, “Hello sunshine, hello blue sky, S-H-A-N-A-R-R-I”, before the verses kicked in about the state’s “wellbeing indicators”, about being safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included. Not exactly number one material.
You may like the SHANARRI indicators, but there is something more than a little bit weird about teaching children about what are essentially social work indicators used to assess a child’s wellbeing. Sturgeon finished her rant about the One Britain song by noting that this was being pumped out at a time when EU citizens are having to “jump through hoops” to stay in the country.
What she means is you have to fill out a form via the EU settlement scheme and having done this you can stay in the UK. It’s hardly Kristallnacht. In her imagination, “Britain”, a bit like the Tartan Army, is a dangerous place filled with racism and xenophobia.
Even in the politically correct One Britain song, she sees a dangerous populism, something she abhors. Perhaps what she really hates is the idea of an independent people who have values of their own that have not been fed to them by our hand holding experts.
This article first appeared in the Herald on 30th June 2021.
Stuart Waiton 