Flegs, Rylan and the Memeification of Dundee
The descent into hysterical delirium about asylum seekers is ongoing with memes and panic resulting in dangerous misinformation being spread like wildfire by ‘influencers’ from, er, Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk, to the Knights Templar and Rylan.
This week saw D list sleb Rylan Clark take to the airwaves to repeat far-right talking points on ITV1. Confusingly, speaking on This Morning on Wednesday (27 August), he explained how doctors and nurses from “other countries” saved his mother Linda’s life when she fell ill earlier this year. Before adding, there is “something wrong” with the way refugees are welcomed. “Here’s the iPad. Here’s the NHS in reception of your hotel. Here’s three meals a day. Here’s a games room in the hotel. Have a lovely time and welcome.”
Quite how or why Rylan was given this platform to speak to the nation nobody will ever know. Such ill-founded views were repeated by none other than BBC Scotland’s Gary Robertson:
BBC host Gary Robertson is forced to apologise after echoing far-right rhetoric live on air 🎙️ pic.twitter.com/2amVZGxQkY
— The National (@ScotNational) August 27, 2025
Robertson apologised for his ‘clumsy language’ but appeared confused about who he was speaking on behalf of, the BBC or Reform UK.
The confusion happens in the context of ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ [Douglas Murray, the Summer of Hate and the Victimhood Olympics] – an outbreak of ‘patriotism’ that has echoes of Northern Ireland-style marking out of territorial boundaries and has the clear consequences of seeming to demarcate ‘white’ areas in England’s streets and towns. This now includes spraying St George’s flags over Welsh placenames. This is in Henllys outside Cwmbran:
Such hysteria has led to one incident involving a 12-year-old girl in Dundee going viral after it being shared by Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson, among others. The video showed the girl brandishing a knife and axe and was portrayed as a brave girl defending herself against a predatory immigrant. The incident shows the perils of social media and the desperation of the far-right to weaponise the moral panic they are perpetuating. The facts seem to be very different and prompted Police Scotland to issue a statement saying:
Chief Superintendent Nicola Russell said: “We are aware of misinformation being shared on social media in relation to an incident where a Bulgarian couple were approached by youths in St Ann Lane, Dundee, on Saturday, 23 August 2025.
“A 12-year-old girl has been charged with being in possession of offensive weapons. She will be referred to the relevant authorities and our enquiries are ongoing.
“We would like to thank the local community for their help with our investigation and would urge the public not to share misinformation about this incident or speculate on the circumstances.”
Just as ‘patriots’ spraying Welsh towns with the St George’s Cross, this incident quickly spiralled into absurdity with ‘the Knight’s Templar’ entering the chat claiming her as ‘Boudica’. Admittedly, this historically confusing attribution is the least of our worries.
Others have pointed out that the real issue at stake here is the child’s welfare and obvious state of trauma. But these incidents just highlight the dark moment we are in – and the extent to which the atmosphere of hatred and violence has gripped Britain this summer. A post-fact society is a pre-fascist one, as the saying goes. Unfortunately, what is essential for rational discourse is a media with a moral compass, editorial acumen, and a commitment to fact-checking, rather than relying on the petri dish of social media in such dark times.
Instead, we have the perpetual search for the dopamine hit in the attention economy, the low-grade quality of daytime tv, the mayhem of unregulated British media, and the hellscape of Twitter/X dominated by a far-right billionaire. Among all of this, we have a contender for Prime Minister laying out the prospects for fascism in Britain and a campaign to get the UK to withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights, which would take away all of our statutory human rights.
Yes. Media crap rules!
Dumbing down rules!
Folks need to start getting a bit more savvy, and quick.
Hm, I tend consider Gary Robertson in the same light as Douglas Ross.
What they say, how they say it – one or two screws loose?
Good for Stephen Gethins who challenged Gary Robertson’s use of racist tropes in his loaded question.
He also raised the fact that Brexit has exacerbated the issue of asylum seekers and that Farage and other Brexiteers should be held accountable.
Similarly only Colin McKay on STV stated the obvious fact to Farage yesterday that immigration is a reserved issue and not under Holyrood control. Nobody raised the issue of Graham Simpson previously vocally stating that anyone switching parties mid parliament should stand aside. He is a list MSP so was not elected on any personal mandate but is an MSP only because he was a Conservative.
Such simple, obvious issues that show the hypocrisy of Farage and his crony and media do not do their job in holding him to account. It is pathetic and how any journalist working in BBC etc, with any sense of professionalism, can look at themselves in mirror is beyond me.
Another excellent article! Many thanks.
Wow!
What was Gary Roberston on? He’s lost the plot completely; “the indigenous population”, “lap of luxury”.
“Being given money by the governement and staying in hotels” FFS! What exactly do they think should happen to someone arriving from a country where they were in mortal danger?
Should we put them in a dog kennel? A special, deliberately-nasty accommodation block? Starve them? Deny them the means to make a phone-call, buy some food, some shoes?
Hotels are used because there is no alternative short-term accommodation. There is no alternative accommodation because this entire country is run on a shoe-string when it comes to public services.
It says a lot about the ignorance, lack of imagination and empathy of the hotel-protestors that they imagine months of forced unemployment in a peripheral, two-star hotel is some kind of luxurious holiday.
Who needs Farage when Gary Roberston is on hand to broadcast his lines for him?
It’s people awaiting their assylum applications to be processed. About 40% of applicants are deemed not to be fleeing danger and are turned down and then have to rapidly apply for a visa by normal means or get deported. Don’t use assuming language like Nigel.
What point are you trying to make M. Mouse? It’s not clear. In what way is my “language like Nigel” ?
From UK Refugee Council:
3. Around half of asylum claims are granted protection at the initial decision stage.
47% of initial decisions made in the twelve months to March 2025 were grants of protection, meaning they have been awarded refugee status or humanitarian protection.
A total of 44,370 people were granted protection as a result of an asylum claim, a 34% decrease from the previous year when 67,533 people were granted.
4. Refusals are often overturned on appeal.
The proportion of asylum appeals allowed in 2024 was 48% (almost unchanged from the previous year). The appeal success rate has been steadily increasing over the last decade (up from 29% in 2010).
The quality of decision-making is often poor, with many refugees having to rely on the courts to award protection following an appeal of the Government’s initial decision.
The appeals process can be complex and lengthy, with people seeking asylum having to wait months for their appeals to be heard.
The increase in asylum decisions over the last year has led to a sharp rise in the number of asylum appeals being lodged. In 2024 there were 36,552 asylum appeals lodged at the first-tier tribunal—71% higher than in 2023. The number of appeals outstanding has also increased substantially, from 7,113 at the start of 2023 to 41,987 at the end of 2024.
So, a 73% “success” rate after appeal. Or 27% deemed not to be in danger.
In any case, why would you not treat everyone claiming assylum with dignity and respect? They are human beings.
Knowing, as we now do, that 40% of the flag-worshiping, far-right protestors arrested last year have a history of domestic abuse, we could make this country a safer place by simply rounding up the wannabe hotel-burners. Job done.
Its not complex. If you want newspapers in which good journalists research, think. melt the phones and agonise over their copy you have to pay them proper money, which means you have to buy the papers.
Thirty years ago on the Sunday Times some of their their top reporters were getting £80k a year ( true I knew one of them) , and you could trust every word they wrote as being properly researched., even if you didn’t agree with their angle. Pay peanuts and you get ,monkeys
Meanwhile the 3 biggest cities in the UK (London/Birmingham/Manchester) the indigenous(white) population are now in the minority and by 2063 the ‘Indigenous’ I.e anglo/celtic peoples will be in a minority in the UK as a whole.
So even though the “great replacement’ theory is meant to be a “right wing’ conspiracy theory it’s happening anyway.
.
John – this sort of rubbish has been debunked over and over again. Census data shows that in 2021 53.8% of people in London identified as white, compared to 59.8% in 2011. According to Census data for England and Wales in 2021 36.8% of people in London identified as “White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British”.
However, a further 17% of people in London identified as “White: Other”, meaning that a total of 53.8% identified as white.
By comparison, Census data shows that in 2011 a total of 59.8% of people in London identified as white, with 44.9% identifying as “White British”.
This means that while it is true that the percentage of people in London who identify as white fell between 2011 and 2021, it did not decrease to the extent that these posts claim.
We’ve fact checked a number of claims about ethnic diversity in UK cities, including Nigel Farage’s claim that London and Manchester are now “minority white” cities, and claims on social media that London is “55% non-white.”
Thanks for pointing this out.
I also looked these claims up and only Birmingham just applies with 49% white. But also 5% mixed race though of course for John Learmouth that kind of blood mixing doesn’t count. The West Midlands as a whole is 72% white. Manchester is 57% white.
London has been an ethnically diverse melting pot for many decades of course.
At the end of the day you have two kinds of people – those who do not have any serious issue with ethnic diversity (though may have concerns about proportions) and those who just want as few foreigners in the country as possible due to a fundamental focus on apparent indigineous ethnicity. Those who quote and distort stats to highlight demographic change, are always in the latter camp.
Yeah it’s also really shifting the goalposts and admitting that the thig you don’t like/can’t stand is people of different races and cultures. All this fear of resources or public services or ‘defending our women’ stuff is just window dressing.
Yes, it is window dressing even if concerns about resources are real.
It is like the flags. Interesting debate on the radio about this this morning – one Reform supporter, after saying there was nothing wrong with flying the flag (potentialliy true), then said ‘we’ (he claimed the majority) are ‘sick of immigrants’ and sick of (for example) seeing all these Palestinian flags. If you cannot see the link, you must be blind: flags of division. One caller summed it up well – using the flag to emphasise an us and them brings shame on it, taints it. Trying to reclaim the flag as not about ethnic nationalism as some callers were keen on is a decent idea but very hard in reality when you see the way it has been deployed recently.
I admit I am not keen on flags generally and one question that was not asked in the phone-in, is what exactly is the point of ‘flying the flag’? What does it really acheive? It is very hard to have a national flag that does not come across as exclusive rather than inclusive, almost by default.
Niemand – it is patently obvious that the current flags campaign is about dislike of immigrants.ie it is divisive- putting up flags during an international sporting competition is not something I would do personally but it isn’t divisive.
If I can give you an anecdote about immigration- several years ago I moved to Australia – we met up with a family who had also moved out from North West England like us. We were discussing why we moved and the dad said there were too many immigrants where he stayed in England. I made comment that we were immigrants now so boots on the other foot now. He responded by saying that we weren’t the same type of immigrants. Even my 10 year old son understood what he meant.
Some of your friends are black ?
Why does this even matter though?
Is there a law that says Britain must always be majority white? Who cares? No single race has the right to insist on being a majority. You don’t get to choose your neighbours. Get used to it.
Things change. The world moves on. People die. People are born. Life goes on. FFS Grow up!
Dont go near social media..preserve your sanity and your intuition.
Compared to much of the UK, Scotland remains a place of relative ethnic and cultural purity, with people with a non-British background regarded as something of a novelty (if you don’t live in a lower class area) => let’s leave! 😉
The wealthy needing immigrants to deliver their dinners because locals are too exensive and don’t have the right mindset/are just as lazy as the wealthy (ditto medical personnel, agricultural and fish labourers, etc), does seem to be the Scottish government’s policy, and they seem to want more. I feel sorry for the Ghanain & Pakistani health services, but no-one else seems to be bothered. It is a system based on exploitation.
Asylum seekers are a drop in the ocean.
The economic arguments for immigration to Scotland are compelling. But there are other, equally valid and positive arguments based on the cultural diversity that immigration brings, in every walk of life. Nothing is lost; much is gained.
And in the wider scheme of things, all modern humans came out of Africa anyway…
Underneath this obsesssion with whiteness, lie obscured the tropes generated by 400 years of colonialism and racism…
The repressed thought – or not so repressed in some cases – that whiteness equals rationality, law and order, progress, science and art – civilization in a word – and that blackness equals the opposite…
This is what people who complain about immigration are really saying… ie, if white people are no longer the majority, chaos and anarchy loom…
The deep imprint left by colonialism and empire really require a concentrated effort by the State to begin to address…
Racism and colonialism are eveywhere, in virtually any 19th century novel or philisophical tract, in science and art too… it’s everywhere… which is why Edward Said is such a fundamental thinker of our time, his writings addressing precisely that…
What Edinburgh and Glasgow universities have done, ie, an investigation into their role in slavery and racist ideas, ought to be carried out at the national level, right across the board. What role did the Church of Scotland play in colonialism and racism? What about the Scottish legal system?
The hysterical reaction to the prospect of a non-white majority has deep roots that need to be exposed to the fresh light of day…
Suffice to say civilization existed all across the globe for centuries before white Europeans claimed it as their own exclusive preserve…
The give-away, the reveal, as to what is really going on here at the deepest psychological level can be found in our own history books, with the dread and hostility felt as recently as the 30s by so many Lowland protestant Scots in relation to mass Irish immigration to Scotland, and also from the Highlands, considered to be racially the same thing (Gaelic was referred to as Erse)…
The Church of Scotland even called for the repatriation of the Irish because it believed they were going to dilute the genetic stock of “civilized, hard-working” Lowland Scotland… As recently as not even 100 years ago…
So, skin colour itself isn’t the issue… it’s the connotations, created by racism, colonialism and unfinished empire, passed on through the mediation of a racist and imperialist culture, which creates these fears and misgivings…
The BBC has a lot to answer for. Think of all those soaps back in the 70 like “It Aint Half Hot Mum”… total racism….
There’s a book, which I haven’t read, called “How The Irish Became White”…
https://books.google.es/books/about/How_the_Irish_Became_White.html?id=fqUAzhs-FLEC&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
@Douglas, yes, colonialism, empire and less formal acts of expansionist banditry must be considered fundamental here, as generations of Europeans and their descendants raped and multiplied across the globe. Meaning that some of these asylum seekers will be descended from people who came from these Isles. But even much closer to home, children born to unmarried mothers were regularly rejected, and even wedlocked children abandoned, neglected or abused, so it isn’t that surprising that a warm welcome for distant kin isn’t forthcoming in parts.
Collectively we are all ‘replaced’ as one generation follows another. But even Neanderthals weren’t completely ‘replaced’. Not even the dinosaurs were completely ‘replaced’. So what exactly is this fear of ‘dying out’?
I’m glad you mention the recent Edinburgh University report, which for some reason Bella seems hostile to addressing, and expanded this to churches and legal systems. Certainly churches were behind extreme and sustained atrocities like residential indigenous schools (I’ll be reading a book on that soon), and jurists who drafted all those colonial race laws around the world, some of which might still be in force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_Tribes_Act#Continued_effects
Thanks, the sins of the past still havent been fully disclosed, and the sins of the present go on to this day…
See yesterday’s Guardian which reported that the former head of the British Army had used his influence as a member of the House of Lords to get the British Embassy in Gana to intervene in a mining dispute there where he is an investor..
This is how Empire 3.0 works. Empire 1.0 was N America, Empire 2.0 India and Africa, and with Empire 3.0, we use corrupt elites in the developping world to extract huge amounts of wealth and systematically underdevelop continents like Africa rather than actually occupying them.militarily…
In any other country, there would be a scandal, but as Britain is itself a scandal and has been for centuries, no one bats an eye…
I’d say there are two issues where the new far right are absolutely entrenched, firstly, white racial superiority – though they never express it like that, at least not in Britain- and male superiority over women…
That is Trump in a nutshell. All else is secondary to those two pilars of their worldview…
And then you look at the catalogue of horrors the west has imposed on the developing world, even from WWII and decolonisation on…
It has no end…
What’s going on in The Congo today? The most resource rich country in Africa has been torn apart by decades of civil war and systematic looting by the west, and now China. It is hell on earth.
It all started when the Belgians and Americans decided to overthrow Patrice Lumumba in 1960, who was too progressive and enlightened to be allowed to remain in office… He was ultimstely murdered, burned, and his bones ground to dust so no trace of him would remain on the earth….
There’s a recent documentary film about that, “Soundtrack To A Coup d’Etat”…
But there has never been so much information, critique and analysis out there… maybe things can one day change? Maybe one day we will awaje from our apathy?
Well said!
just another day in the headlines of dishwater on Thames by Tay.
Advice on how to deal with Reform in Scotland.
1.Reform are an AngloBritish nationalist party formed from UKIP and Brexit.
2.Scotland rejected Brexit.
3.Reform are presenting themselves mainly as an anti immigration party.
4.Brexit has led to an increase in both legal and illegal immigration.
5.The dynamics of immigration in Scotland and England are considerably different.
6.Reform are trying to stir up hatred and division in Scotland based on anti immigrant rhetoric.
7.Immigration is a reserved issue.
8.Reform have little relevant to say on devolved issues.
9.Reform representatives in Scotland are mainly former right wing Tories with a few whackos from other parties.
10.Reform do not believe in Holyrood and will advocate its abolition.
11.Reform are an AngloBritish nationalist party formed from UKiP and Brexit.
Why can’t all other politicians in Scotland just concentrate on these facts in run up to Holyrood elections. You never know but if they did maybe even the media in Scotland might start asking Reform representatives real questions as well?