The ‘Scots porridge case’ of 1969: bogus discrimination, the loony state and the white backlash archive

Abstract

ABSTRACT In November 1969, a quite odd and ludicrous case of alleged discrimination was blown out of all proportion, perhaps wilfully, by Conservative politicians and the media in Britain, some eighteen months after Enoch Powell’s Birmingham speech. A quite high-profile issue at the time, the case has now been completely forgotten. Yet, Esteves’s article suggests that the event itself is helpful to make better sense of the British—rather than merely English—ramifications of debates on race relations and discrimination, particularly at a time of an upsurge in Scottish nationalism. More importantly, the case partakes of what Esteves calls the ‘white backlash archive’, a populist and popular repertoire that nativists—not only in Britain—draw from in order to underline that the state is inefficient and counter-productive when it tries to legislate against discrimination, as well as that ethnic minorities and immigrants get undue protection from the state authorities, even though the 1969 case itself had nothing to do with ethnic minorities or immigration.