Douglas Murray on intolerant politics

I do think it is often an aggressive act of cultural expression, knowing full well it offends many.

I don't wish to comment on the motivations of muslim women themselves, but I do think the failure on the part of western 'progressives' to even acknowledge that in our culture face covering is seen as nefarious and understand that it makes many people uncomfortable is supremely unhelpful.

Quite a lot of teens wore the full niqab where I was, apparently at least partly because they liked how much shock and consternation it causes. So I think the reasons are varied and complex

I've actually confronted and spoken to women wearing the niqab. Many of them seem to be middle class and educated, and see it as them making some sort of gesture of cultural and/or religious pride.

Still does not make it acceptable in my eyes. I do think it is often an aggressive act of cultural expression, knowing full well it offends many.

I have no real problem with the hijab. Head coverings are normal practice in many religions. For many young women the hijab is a fashion accessory.

They wore brightly coloured Salwar Kameez and scarves, as well as western dress

This. The muslim women and girls I grew up around (also 80s) wore loose, bright scarves. It was notable that they always wore trousers but that was something we non-muslim girls were jealous of at the time as we were not permitted to wear trousers at school. It didn't occur to me growing up that the muslim girls were being restricted in their trouser wearing, it felt quite the opposite, that their religion allowed them a freedom the rest of us were denied.

Obviously adult perspectives are different but in my memory the muslim girls in my school were happy, flamboyant, carefree.

Also as far as I can tell the NHS is faring better in Scotland than it is elsewhere in the UK.

Quite a lot of teens wore the full niqab where I was, apparently at least partly because they liked how much shock and consternation it causes. So I think the reasons are varied and complex.

Ex-Muslim campaign groups have always highlighted how they have been consistently betrayed by the so-called progressive left, who end up supporting extreme Islamist ideology such as the niqab like it's a good thing while refusing to care about the issues faced by more secular Muslims or those who abandon Islam.
Yes. When I was a kid growing up in South London in the 80's, there was a large muslim community. No one ever wore the Burqua or Niqab outside the Saudi community in Kensington. They wore brightly coloured Salwar Kameez and scarves, as well as western dress. The infiltration of the hardline Saudi Wahabi Islam into mosques imposed on British Muslims has caused this and has been embraced by the left as a 'freedom' when it only applies to women. I suspect the burqua wearing has also led to the 'non burqua wearing women are not pious so are therefore sluts attitude amongst some Muslim men and their families that led to the issues in Rochdale etc. An attitude that the white middle class faraway left also embraced to the detriment of the communities they purported to want to protect.

My recollection of the last Indyref (as a member of the diaspora) is that I would have had the choice of dual nationality had the vote gone for independence.

In my own family opinions split along age lines - younger niece was pro independence, older one anti (but both perfectly capable of sitting in the same room and discussing it in a civilised way).

This is the model that Ireland followed upon independence, and no, the Scottish government couldn't 'force' it on Westminster but there is no reason beyond spite for the Westminster government to have done otherwise.

On short, any stripping of citizenship would have been entirely on Westminster, it was not the SNP's vision at all.

I really don't see how it would have been fair to hold a referendum on any basis other than who lives here. To do otherwise would have opened up a can of worms.

the 700 page document which was freely available for all to consider
Highlights included:
Tch! Of course we can keep the pound. Tch! Of course we don't need a border. Tch! Of course we can get into the EU as a separate member state.

I'll lay off now, but I don't think that referendum was any better then Brexit in terms of untruths. It certainly was massively divisive, I know families that are still suffering because of it. To think of even suggesting another one is madness.

They were not having their nationality taken away, they were free to be Scottish or UK
How would the Scottish government impose that on Westminster? Giving British nationality to someone born "abroad"?
I mean, it's unlikely it would have been refused but it's the principle.
And getting indoctrinated children to vote was a poor show.

They were not having their nationality taken away, they were free to be Scottish or UK, or both assuming Westminster didn't block it out of petty spite, citizens in the event of independence. This was clearly stated in the 700 page document which was freely available for all to consider.

A document sadly lacking in the farcical EU referendum where to this day no one has the first idea what they were voting for or against.

It's a pragmatic question, not blood-and-soil ethnic nationalism.
If one million people in the rest of the UK wake up one morning and find out they are suddenly foreign-born immigrants by virtue of having been born in Scotland, they have had their nationality taken from them. Without having a say in the matter.

That the majority (not all!) would vote to retain the Union is not the point.

I presume you think the half a million English people in Scotland should not have been allowed to vote in 2014.
Presume all you like, that's not what I said.

I presume you think the half a million English people in Scotland should not have been allowed to vote in 2014.

If they hadn't been the UK would no longer exist.

Missing link - www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50823112

Also I showed this to DH and he was all "even in the third world hospitals aren't that bad". I know the SNP aren't directly responsible but it happened on their watch, and also wasn't it Glasgow NHS that published that ridiculous guidance about protecting the right of HCPs to self ID over the rights of female patients?

I fucking love Glasgow. It deserves better than this shit.

Surely treating people as equals would involve applying the same amount of critical analysis as you would to anyone else?
Exactly. Anything else is patronising at best.
A level playing field means some need a head start, but this current system of different sets of rules for different groups is nonsensical.
On a related note, I saw something recently on social media along the lines of: "what is trashy if you're poor but classy if you're rich?"
The answers were things like: working in the family business, not paying taxes, having someone else raise your kids, etc. It was very funny.

I certainly won't be returning to Scotland any time soon if the SNP implement self ID.
I'm hoping someone steps up to Gina Miller them all through the courts.
How can it be legal to vote to change someone's nationality? And they can't vote against it? It's not like the Scots in England are low profile, they are massively successful.

I certainly won't be returning to Scotland any time soon if the SNP implement self ID. I like having a choice over who sticks their hands up my fanjo when I need a smear test.

The point of the burqa is to dehumanise. To erase the person inside from the public realm. How feminists can stand for this I do not know

Maybe because this'libera'l brand of feminism has arisen in a post modern world, where everything is about free choice and individualism; about people picking and choosing the 'identity' they want - purely as a means of personal self expression. It has little to do with any core values - other than imagined 'liberal choice'.

That's the problem with Liberalism for me.....it has neither means, nor method, for any structural analysis. that's why the Lib-Dems have become a 'never again' for me.

One of N Sturgeons policies is to increase immigration to Scotland due to falls in population.
There are a million Scots who live in the rest of the UK. Who don't get to vote against dissolving the Union. Why doesn't Sturgeon want them back?
She probably has businesses clamouring for cheap labour who are willing to work for bedsit wages instead of 2-bed terraced wages.
Otherwise the falling population could be quickly resolved by selling Scotland to returning Scots.

It's a hierarchy of needs thing - when all your focus is on keeping a roof over your head it limits your ability to focus on other things. Which is not an unintended consequence, imo.

What I want to know is where ppl lost hope that their lives could improve? Growing up I don’t remember a sense of ‘this is how it is and you’re powerless’ . Is there any possibility of bringing back a belief that it is possible for things to change if you get given a chance? And of course to give people those chances?

Stability. If you can't afford to buy a house for stability, and you don't qualify for social housing for stability, and your job isn't stable, and there's no way you can save enough money to see out any hard times, and your entire existence is just "can I get to the end of this month ok?", then you're going to be too mentally exhausted to even contemplate power, change, life improving. Even those who have contracts and mortgages live month to month, each new boss could mean losing everything, a mistake at work, a rise in interest rates. Boom. Gone. Your partner may or may not be around next year. They've got options too, and a smartphone, and you barely see them. It's an insecure existence for most people I know.

For example, I'm still viscerally shocked by niqabs and dislike them because I simply do not believe covering women's faces up in public

Me too! For me the niqab is not just about 'freedom of choice' but about a sentiment which I feel to be in profound opposition to the values of free speech, democracy and equality for which people have struggled and campaigned. For the right for women to have a public voice and a public face. I always feel that the conditions of women everywhere, is also my condition. I take it personally.

But as you say it is 'verboten' to criticise anything to do with Islamic practice on the left - even as many of those practices run against left-liberal values.

Agree kittens. Any choice I make as a white atheist middle aged woman who grew up in the UK is entirely influenced by me being those things. No choice I make is made in a vacuum - I’m influenced by my upbringing, peer group, cultural & societal expectations. I don’t see how it can be any different for a woman choosing to wear a niqab or a burka

I think you only have look at photos of Afghanistan from the 60s/70s to see that the burka was not in fact a “choice” certainly not there anyway

www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/asia/gallery/afghan-women-past-present/index.html