A Scottish council is considering a crackdown against anti-English racism on a similar scale to actions taken to eradicate Islamophobia.
Moray council this week adopted a widely-accepted definition of Islamophobia and committed itself to tackling discrimination and harassment against Muslims.
Conservative councillors complained that they receive more complaints of racism from Moray’s English “minority group” than Muslims and called for a similar strategy to tackle Anglophobia.
Graham Leadbitter, leader of the SNP-controlled Moray council, said he was open to enacting a similar council clampdown on anti-English sentiment if an agreed definition could be devised.
Claire Feaver, the Conservative councillor for Forres, welcomed the council’s efforts to root out Islamophobia and antisemitism at the council’s corporate services committee yesterday.
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She said: “We need to also recognise, together with Islamophobia, Anglophobia. From our point of view as Moray councillors, as a minority group in Moray I get more emails and telephone calls from people who suffer from Anglophobia in Moray.
“I have actually witnessed Islamophobia in Moray. Luckily, the gentleman involved was quick enough to say ‘when you want me to go home should I go home to Edinburgh or Pakistan?’… but Anglophobia is there all the time.
“I have had numerous constituents over the last five years come to me as a minority group saying ‘what are we going to do about this?’.”
Feaver asked for the motion to be amended to “acknowledge that in Moray we do suffer from Anglophobia”. She said: “In Moray, the minority group of English people actually do have to cope with Anglophobia.”
Donald Gatt, the Conservative councillor for Keith & Cullen, said: “I was told to go back to England … probably because I don’t have a particularly strong accent. I was born in Perth so I am as Scottish as anybody else.”
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Aaron McLean, SNP councillor for Forres, said Moray has “a very diverse community probably because of the two air force bases” at Lossiemouth and formerly Kinloss, which became a British Army barracks in 2012.
He said: “Those people have loved Moray, decided to stay here and are now part of our community, friends and part of our family in my own instance. Any abuse of them is of course unacceptable.”
Leadbitter said it would be inappropriate to amend a motion on Islamophobia to include Anglophobia, as “there is a very clear and well researched definition of Islamophobia”.
He agreed that “any form of discrimination expressed to anyone about where they are from or what their cultural heritage, even if somebody perceived something exists that doesn’t exist, is a particularly insidious form of abuse and is completely unacceptable”.
Leadbitter said there was a risk of diluting the motion on Islamophobia with discrimination against other minorities, such as gypsy travellers, if it was amended. He said: “I am not averse to having that incorporated into the council’s policies. I just think it needs to be done correctly. If there is a definition to be incorporated we need to know what that definition is and I don’t want to make that up on the hoof.”
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An SNP spokesman said: “The SNP believes in equality for all and we’re working hard to deliver a truly inclusive society. All forms of discrimination and prejudice are completely unacceptable.”
