I VISITED the Irish Republic in May, staying in Dublin for a week. There were many recent migrants on the streets. Tent cities appear and within a few days are cleared away by the authorities only to re-appear a few days later.
In many rural villages the local hotel has become a hostel for migrants. This has led to a great deal of resentment from local people, who have clashed with police and so-called security guards. It has become a major election issue.
I recently returned from a three-week tour of France. I literally made it out of Paris on the last train before elements of the French far left began to riot and loot shops and businesses in response to National Rally’s win in the first round of parliamentary elections.
READ MORE: There’s no getting away from the racist dimension of the far-right vote
From speaking to a number of French voters is it clear that immigration has become the number one issue for many of them, in some cases well ahead of employment and the economy. The French press gives frequent and substantial coverage to migrant attacks on French citizens, some resulting in death.
Madam Le Pen has successfully re-branded her father’s National Front Party and is now a major electoral force to be reckoned with. In the UK our very own Nigel Farage has done the same. He recently managed to get an audience of more than 5000 at his Reform election rally.
On the way home I listened to an interview with John Swinney. He said he would “engage strongly” with a Labour Westminster government on a separate immigration plan for Scotland. Surveys suggest immigration is less of an issue for Scotland and concerns have been voiced about a skills and labour shortage in areas like care, agriculture and hospitality. Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie has said it might be possible to “incentivise” those who come to the UK to then settle in Scotland.
READ MORE: Scottish Tory campaigner slammed for supporting far-right French party
More than 15,000 Scottish households are currently in temporary accommodation. This includes around 10,000 children. Several councils have recently declared a “housing emergency” without also declaring how they plan to solve it. Build-to-rent housing schemes have come to a virtual standstill. Cuts to capital spending budgets and threats of further rent freezes means enough new affordable homes are simply not being built.
The use of hotel accommodation to house migrants, even here in Scotland, has met with some resistance. The UK Government’s solution to that problem seems to be simply granting leave to remain and transferring the accommodation problem to local councils.
There are very basic questions which both the UK and Scottish Government seem to be unwilling to address. Where will the incentivised migrants to be employed in care, agriculture and hospitality actually live, and where will Scotland’s share of the undocumented migrants risking their lives crossing the English Channel eventually be housed?
These questions need careful answers if we are to avoid some very real social problems, go some way to reducing our own homelessness numbers and prevent a further electoral lurch towards Mr Farage and his Reform party.
Sandra West
Dundee
WHAT accountability exists in the face of the abhorrent, persistent contraventions of international statutes by the state of Israel?
None, unless Israeli citizens, UN peacekeeping forces or other external neighbouring actors intervene.
What accountability exists to take the UK state to task within the allegedly democratic Westminster parliament for its persistent complicity in aiding and abetting Israeli state ultra-revengeful atrocities? None at all, whether parliament is sitting (as evidenced when an SNP motion on Gaza was kicked out by the Speaker, Tories and Labour) or not sitting, as during this election hiatus.
READ MORE: Israel orders mass evacuation of eastern half of Khan Younis
How convenient was the sudden calling of an early election? It was indeed a masterstroke by Sunak, an excellent means of avoiding the long-standing, continuing calls for his right-wing, colonialist-supporting government to abandon arms sales to the state of Israel and to immediately join the rapidly increasing number of countries worldwide that recognise a Palestinian state. Unable to be scrutinised in a non-sitting legislature!
The sudden release of more than 50 Palestinian prisoners on Monday, their dire post-torture condition reported by RTE and Al Jazeera, elicits nil comment from Sunak or Starmer.
The government of Scotland has the power to not only further excoriate Netanyahu’s murderous cabal but to immediately announce that it recognises the state of Palestine.
READ MORE: BBC issues apology after 'incorrect' reporting on Palestine
The right-thinking people of Scotland have the power this Independence Day, July 4, to stand up loudly against the London complicity in encouraging and endorsing the Israeli state’s actions in both Gaza and the West Bank.
I am not, in any way whatsoever, anti-Semitic; my total sympathies remain with both Israelis and Palestinians. My most earnest wish is to live to see a settled, peaceful two-state arrangement effected, and the nation of Scotland independently governing its own affairs internationally.
Séamas Ó Dálaigh
Cala Nan Clach
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