Clarkson to be set straight on Scotland
LONDON: Labour leader Ed Miliband is set to launch an attack on Jeremy Clarkson and Scottish nationalists today in a speech hailing patriotism and defending the Union.
Miliband will criticise the TopGear presenter for “shrugging his shoulders” at the prospect of Scotland breaking away from the UK.
He will accuse Clarkson and the Scottish National Party of holding “deeply pessimistic” and “narrow” views of national identity and warn that it is a “false choice” to ask people whether they want to be Scot- tish or British in the referendum that is expected in 2014.
Clarkson used his newspaper column in January to proclaim: “If the Scottish people want to break away, then I shall stand on Hadrian’s Wall with a teary handkerchief, and say, ‘Good riddance to the lot of you, and take your stupid bagpipes with you’.”
In a speech at the Royal Festival Hall in London, Milliband will warn against a retreat into narrow nationalism within the UK and call for a progressive patriotism which embraces the mixed identities of modern Britons.
He will say in his speech: “The nationalists of the SNP pose a false choice. They ask: are you Scottish or British? I say you can be both. And here in England there are people like Jeremy Clarkson who shrug their shoulders at the prospect of the break-up of the Union.
“Having to say Scottish or British, Welsh or British, English or British. It’s always a false choice.”
Admitting that his party has been “ill at ease” discussing nationalism in recent years, Miliband will say: “For too long people have believed that to express English identity is to undermine the Union. At the same time we have helped express Scottish identity within the Union.
“You can be proudly Scottish and British. And you can be proudly English and British, as I am.” – Daily Mail