“Campaign for Britishness” gives cause for a glimmer of amusement!

The Daily Telegraph’s relentless talking up of the Union in its “Campaign for Britishness” is obviously tiresome to any English nationalist but occasionally gives cause for a glimmer of amusement!

Such an opportunity arose in the article, which I copy below by Graeme Archer, in which he obsesses about the importance of the Union because his sense of Britishness arises from his mixed Scottish and English background!  This is in a paper which, like all the Lib/Lab/Con supporting media, usually claims that Britshness is open to all ethnicities in a spirit of inclusive multi-culturalist diversity, a "Team GB", with a tincture of globalisation!

Mr Archer is however clearly speaking for a significant constituency if the results of the 2011 Census are studied.  The results of the Census show that it is clear more than half of the under 30% of the population of England that regarded themselves as being in any sense British, are Black Minority Ethnic (BME) or of White Irish, White Scottish or White Welsh ethnic origin!  So Mr Archer your feelings of Britishness are not so untypical of your ethnic origin!

Here is Graeme Archer’s article.  See what you think:-

First the poetry, then the prose. I’m talking about Scotland, of course. The fight to retain the UK, remember? No? I don’t blame you. Until recently, the independence vote has had insufficient coverage down here – that is, in England, where I live.

The poetry of the Union is simple, but provides the strongest reason to oppose Salmond’s carve-up-a-small-island nationalism: that I was born in Scotland to an English father and Scottish mother, and now live in London.
That’s it. But this one sentence contains the big question that separatists prefer to avoid. Namely, why should my parents be made foreigners to one another, and I to one of them?

The Nationalists brush it aside, because the whole SNP shtick is to pretend that such a profound change can take place with no consequences other than Scottish government policies acquiring an even more Left-wing sheen. But if Salmond wins, my late father is recast as a foreigner, and I will become an immigrant. That’s what being a separate country means. My romantic attachment to the Union is no more ineffable than my love for my mother and father, and its companion desire that we remain citizens of the same country.

The lack of interest among the London media – compare coverage of the referendum with that of the Olympics, whose memory David Cameron yesterday invoked in belatedly making the case for the Union – is strange. A few weeks ago, I came in to the Telegraph offices to meet Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton. During our debate on this paper’s Telegram podcast, he used his precise, passionate intellect to outline the case for withdrawal from the European Union. What could be more natural than for two Eurosceptic Tories to discuss the outcome of the EU referendum, which will be held by 2017?

We should have talked about Scotland, of course. After all, if Salmond isn’t defeated, there might not be a recognisable UK left by 2017 in which to hold that all-important vote.

On the day we met, I heard one brief mention of the Scottish referendum on a radio bulletin, reporting something that Alistair Darling had said about university funding. Why have British politicians, and Tories in particular, had so little to say about a real referendum – the Scottish vote will happen, subject to meteor strikes, with 100 per cent probability – yet so much to say about the EU referendum, which, contingent as it is upon a general election outcome, must still be classed as a theoretical proposition?
Partly English politicians – particularly Conservatives – have held their tongues for fear of helping Salmond. The theory is that the Scots so loathe English Tories that the mere recitation of a desire to maintain the Union, if uttered in an accent not drawn from north of the border, will release antibodies into the political system that will attack the Unionist host.

I’m not so sure. The more extreme nationalists are, fortunately and by definition, atypical, and my family-based anti-separatism is hardly unique. By staying silent in the debate, I worry that English politicians have merely reinforced the SNP narrative, about some mythical, mutually exclusive, foreign nature to our inter-relationship.

The other reason for English diffidence is probably politeness. Disquiet over Scottish preferentialism – over tuition fees, for example – hasn’t boiled into political anger. English votes for English laws, a formula I support, never commanded enough political bandwidth to become a dominant issue. So English politicians think: “This is for Scotland to decide, and anyway I’d only make matters worse” – and end up saying nothing about a vote that could destroy the UK.

Thank heavens, then, that this has begun to change. Last week, Mark Carney visited Edinburgh to spell out the truth: an independent Scotland’s preferences in a future currency union would no more dominate decision-making in the Bank of England than did those of Cypriots within the European Central Bank. Currency union absent political integration is the reason the single currency could never work. This is Salmond’s best currency outcome, remember: his alternative is to join the euro.

And yesterday, from the Prime Minister, at last, some poetry for the Union. Only Scottish residents (not “only Scots”) can vote in this referendum, but its outcome will affect “all 63 million of us”, he said in Stratford. And then: “We want you to stay.”
Perhaps Mr Cameron’s Home Counties accent sounded English to Scottish ears. But then, so did my Norfolk father’s. My own Ayrshire tones aren’t anything like Salmond’s West Lothian voice. It’s not the accent that matters, but the words those accents conjure into existence.

So say it with a Devonion burr, or with glo’al-stopped Estuary. Say it in Mancunian, in Liverpudlian, in Jamaican, in Bengali, Greek, Geordie and Brum. Use the Queen’s English or Yorkshire directness. Say it any way you like, whether you’re a politician or a business leader or just an ordinary Briton, but let Scotland hear it, over and over again: we want you to stay.

(Here is a link to the original>>>If Scotland kills off the the Union, I will be an immigrant in my own country - Telegraph )