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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To move to Scotland because of Brexit?

243 replies

Fucksandflowers · 26/05/2019 17:28

DH is seriously talking about it.

We’ve always liked Scotland anyway...

DH is English, but looks foreign and gets an astounding amount of racism, at least weekly.

Genuinely fearful of the apparent growth of right wing politics in this country, DH in particular is worried if Farage gets in the racism is going to get even worse.

Anyone who lives in Scotland, what is it like?
Are people generally tolerant?
Any areas that are particularly nice and too expensive?

OP posts:
InTheHeatofLisbon · 27/05/2019 14:13

If you hate your own country and all it’s people just leave - not sure your attitude to your fellow humans would be welcomed in England either

I really really hate this. What right has anyone to tell someone to leave? Nobody.

I politically disagree with Lass on most things I find, but to tell her to leave Scotland is bang out of line.

TooManyPaws · 27/05/2019 14:15

I'm from Aberdeenshire; my mother was English and I have an RP accent. I've heard the talk of "white settlers" but that was always reserved for those who moved in and tried to change things to their requirements. I now live in the central belt and have never had a negative comment about my accent, just the incredulity when I say where I am actually from; the explanation of "school accent" is explanation enough. Even if people think I'm English, I've never had a negative comment.

The SNP government is a social democratic party and further to the left than the post-Blair Labour Party. Scottish Nationalism is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the xenophobic nationalism shown by UKIP etc; it's a civic nationalism where everyone who wishes to live in and contribute to the country is welcome. The government is regularly battling the Anti-Immigration Disservice as we need immigrants who are welcome; we even had a English Scots For Yes group at the Referendum!

The government has pledged to maintain the rights that we have been used to under the EU which is yet another reason why Westminster is trying to tighten the screws. The EU election results have shown 30 out of 32 council areas voting majority SNP; the others voted majority Lib Dem.

Girlofgold · 27/05/2019 14:16

There definitely isn't the same culture of Tory support and socialist thinking is really common. You'll probably get less of the same kind of shit that Scottish people tend to get in England for being Scottish. Piss taken out of accent etc. I've never heard someone speak of white settlers. There are noticeably less black people.

If you have a stable job, you can live in a lovely well paid bubble of rainy bliss in a less busy, less commute times and great access to the outdoors.

Or you could live at the coal face of poverty and lack of social mobility. There is a lot of that here.

Fundays12 · 27/05/2019 14:33

I am not convinced the SNP result in Scotland is a sign of people’s love of the SNP (though I am sure some do) but the other parties were not exactly appealing. I am saying that as someone who does not have anytime for Sturgeon but voted SNP because they were certainly a better option than other parties on my view.

Ivegotthree · 27/05/2019 14:37

I lived in Scotland for a bit and got so much shit for being a Sassenach. I have Scottish grandparents so went up thinking I was going back to my roots. More fool me - I couldn't wait to get out.

And it rained the whole time.

So depressing!

SilverySurfer · 27/05/2019 14:44

pinkstripeycat
I have experienced racism in Australia of all places and it’s pretty scary I can tell you

Why of all places? Aren't you aware that Australia is known to be an incredibly racist country?

IMessedUpToday · 27/05/2019 14:47

And the "families were divided by the indy ref and it caused massive ongoing schisms" claims from the unionists is rubbish

Not rubbish at all. Your personal experience is woefully limited.

IMessedUpToday · 27/05/2019 14:57

@InTheHeatOfLisbon

"I really really hate this. What right has anyone to tell someone to leave? Nobody."

Indeed. A different example, but a fellow Scot told me, completely seriously, that as a NO voter I wold be "welcome to stay in Scotland once independence was achieved".

Welcome.

To stay in my own country.

WTAF.

LassOfFyvie · 27/05/2019 15:05

InTheHeatofLisbon

Thank you.

StoneofDestiny · 27/05/2019 15:21

If somebody hates where they live and despises the whole of their neighbours - why stay? Nobody has to stay where they are born! (or I guess one could just stay, moan, complain, be miserable and insult a whole nation 🙄)

Davros · 27/05/2019 15:23

Having said that I 100% agree about rich English people coming in and buying up all the houses in places like Pitlochry, Orkney and the islands completely changing the tone of the area and making it hard for locals to afford to get houses
But it's ok if it happens in other areas? You want to try being a native Londoner if you find this unacceptable, you wouldn't last long!

LassOfFyvie · 27/05/2019 15:39

If somebody hates where they live and despises the whole of their neighbours - why stay? Nobody has to stay where they are born! (or I guess one could just stay, moan, complain, be miserable and insult a whole nation 🙄

You are making things up. Stop it now. No one has said they hate where they stay and despise all their neighbours. That is, at best, a figment of your imagination; at worst a malicious twisting of what has been said.

What I hate is the sentimental "fa's like us" , kailyard mentality.

However your posts are certainly belying the idea that everyone in Scotland is so tolerant and welcoming.

Pinkvoid · 27/05/2019 15:42

I’d prefer to just leave the UK all together tbh.

LassOfFyvie · 27/05/2019 15:45

StoneofDestiny your last few posts are hyperbolic nonsense. No one has insulted a whole nation.

I assume you blithely ignore the fact that those of us who don't view Scotland through bottle thick rose tinted glasses are as much a part of that "nation" as you undoubtedly think you are and we are perfectly entitled to see it from a different and realistic perspective?

fairweathercyclist · 27/05/2019 15:55

By Spain, before the Catalonian independence referendum. Because they'd have vetoed it because of that. Now they've squashed the result, they've explicitly said they wouldn't block an independent Scotland joining the EU No they haven''t. This is a myth.

Do it if you want to but have you considered how much worse the weather is? I just couldn't do it

I really like Scotland and would have happily moved there years ago but DH has always said it is too cold. I have to say he has a point in relation to the winter weather.

fairweathercyclist · 27/05/2019 15:56

rich English people coming in and buying up all the houses in places like Pitlochry, Orkney and the islands completely changing the tone of the area and making it hard for locals to afford to get houses

and in England you get locals forced out by Londoners who are in turn forced out by the Chinese, Russians etc. Happens everywhere.

PrincessTiggerlily · 27/05/2019 16:06

It is easy to be welcoming to immigrants if hardly any come. N Sturgeon keeps on about skilled migrants but apart from the NHS where are they all going to work? It would take jobs from locals surely.
I DONt know whyouR SNP gov can't make the changes it wants - things will improve when x or y happens . Some excuse or other.

I think you could move to the Highlands , very low population. As someone said - not living on top of each other should be good though might be some strong views on independence.

1moremum · 27/05/2019 17:27

My English husband hasn't been hassled for englishness here in Glasgow. My friend from Glasgow but married and lived down south was worried her child would get hassled for being/sounding English when they moved back up here: didn't happen.

I often read here of people saying they got hassled for it, but it isn't a universal reaction to englishness, often there isn't any reaction at all.

for that matter, being American doesn't draw any bother for me or our son (who is technically English but doesn't sound it or have any memory of ever living there.)

I guess it is all where you live and who you hang out with though. we consciously chose to live near Glasgow Uni, my son's schoolmates speak 32 different languages at home, not even counting the multiple sorts of English spoken by the locally born kids, the other Scottish kids, the other UK kids, the New Zealanders, the Americans.

go ahead and move up here. depending on where you are coming from, things are cheaper in general than London or anywhere near enough to commute (which is as far north as Norfolk according to my inlaws whose neighbors take the train from there 4x a week). from anywhere outside of the London commuter belt, it's likely much the same costwise. Bits of Edinburgh and Glasgow are pricey, but other bits aren't.

We may or may not ever break away. I agree with the right wing scariness, but in England and in America. We are glad to be here.

1moremum · 27/05/2019 17:29

But even if you think you know how to live with rain because you are English, you know nothing about it. Glasgow and the west of Scotland actually do get as much rain as the rest of the world sees as the UK stereotype. And then it rains just a bit more to prove the point.

LassOfFyvie · 27/05/2019 17:39

I DONt know whyouR SNP gov can't make the changes it wants - things will improve when x or y happens . Some excuse or other

Because it is easier to do nothing and blame Westminster. That allows the SNP to ramp up its anti- unionist propaganda.

LJdorothy · 27/05/2019 18:46

Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t need to do anything to ‘ramp up its anti-unionist propaganda.’ The absolute shitshow that is Westminster politics at the moment is making many Scots think that despite the difficulties that might ensue, they couldn’t do a worse job on their own. And none of that has anything to do with ‘hating the English’ despite the anecdotes on here. My sister was told to ‘f**up back where she came from’ once when she was in London. You can run into an idiot anywhere.

fairweathercyclist · 27/05/2019 18:59

But even if you think you know how to live with rain because you are English, you know nothing about it. Glasgow and the west of Scotland actually do get as much rain as the rest of the world sees as the UK stereotype. And then it rains just a bit more to prove the point

Best comment on the thread.

LassOfFyvie · 27/05/2019 19:03

Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t need to do anything to ‘ramp up its anti-unionist propaganda.’

Sturgeon's government is entirely responsible for the shambles in Scottish education and policing, yet does nothing to sort it out. It's a deliberate policy. The SNP government does not fully use the powers it has as it would rather pretend it is shackled.

dementedma · 27/05/2019 19:23

bygaslight makes a lot of excellent points about how independence will actually work up here. The SNP talk a lot about freedom, bu very little about the price of it. Raise taxes? We're already the highest taxed part of the UK? Anti-English bigotry DOES exist. I have a friend who was born in Scotland to Scottish parents who can trace their Scottish family back for generations ( landed gentry house been in the family over 400 years etc). He has been told on several occasions to fuck off back to England...because he was educated at English boarding schools and has a very English accent.

TrendyNorthLondonTeen · 27/05/2019 19:35

People on this thread talk about "Anti-English bigotry" from Scottish people as though the reverse doesn't exist? There are idiots everywhere.