Deportees. 

Some of you lot are as old as me and remember the Victor, Hotspur, Beano and the Commando comics.  We thought we could identify the heroes and the villains, collaborators and cowards. Here’s news for ya – we were wrong. It seems us Brits, willing or unwitting, are actually the baddies.

We’ve been complicit with a government intent on sending refugees to a country, for ‘processing’, where five minutes ago people were being massacred, amputated and murdered with machetes, gang raped, ethnically cleansed. That’s people trafficking, modern slavery and utterly inexcusable.

It is also a policy which is racist.

Do you see people from Ukraine being sent to detention centres?

Are Ukrainians ‘housed’ in Dungavel? They should not be but neither should any refugee seeking solace. We have a duty to be a welcoming and comforting place of support and safety.

Is there an analysis and breakdown by race and ethnicity of those deemed appropriate to be transported thousands of miles to Africa?

Don’t get me wrong – I do not expect that any single individual claiming asylum deserves requires or should see the inside of a detention cell. I prefer the humane approach and if that means that now and again a chancing wee bampot slips through a net I couldn’t care less. 

But really – Johnson and Ms Pritti Patel believed they could send asylum seekers to Rwanda, of all places, and get away with it? Who were Joseph and Mary but asylum seekers? What would have become of Jesus were he born without a state? If you have looked at the names and origins of those fighting the Rwanda transport you will see their names and origins are not white. That says it all. Shame on Johnson, Patel and the entire British Establishment. 

Let us pledge that Scotland will always do better. We can’t be worse, but that’s not good enough. Raise the bar Scotland. Raise the bar and save more lives. Now.