Scottish Police Racist? Ask the F***ing English B******s they work with

Claims of racism within UK police forces continue to provoke anxiety, 13 years since the Macpherson report, and with fresh allegations against Metropolitan Police officers in recent months. The Independent on Sunday last month produced a disturbing analysis showing that complaints of racism made against British police officers have more than doubled in the past decade, despite strenuous efforts to improve relations with ethnic minorities. Yet the vast majority of the complaints submitted by alleged victims of racial abuse have been rejected, because the police themselves have ruled either that they are untrue, or that they cannot be substantiated.

The excellent BBC investigative series, File on 4, then covered similar ground with a treatment of claims from black and Asian officers that discrimination had destroyed their careers .

Yet deep within the figures obtained from UK police forces lies a hint of another phenomenon that is beginning to raise eyebrows: claims that English people have been discriminated against by police in the “nations and regions” of the UK, particularly in Scotland and Wales. Dumfries and Galloway Police, for example, report a complaint listed simply as “English”, while Gwent reveals that a member of the public had reported an officer for “racist comments perceived due to being English” – neither of which were substantiated.

Most curious of all, however, was the case of the Northern Constabulary officers accused of racism - by their English colleagues.

The force is no stranger to claims that its officers have mistreated English members of the public (“This isn’t bloody England and it’s not the Bill”, “Why don’t you just fuck off back to England?”, etc). But the most remarkable entry in the Northern log notes allegations that, last year, “Scottish officers have been making inappropriate comments towards English police officers (names unknown), openly stating that they do not like English police officers”. Worse, it was claimed that the Scots had been “referring to them (at the station and in general) as FEBs, which stands for Fucking English Bastards”.  The report adds: “This term is openly used by the Scottish police officers in the station and is usually directed at the new Probationer at the station, who is English.  There are around three English police officers at the station and some of them have recently been made aware of the comments made against them.”

The force launched an internal investigation and interviewed the offended English officers, but ultimately ruled that the complaints were “Unsubstantiated”. Unclear whether the judgement restored harmony to the locker room.

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  You couldn’t make it up!

  But you probably did.

• John Durst

  Easy, tiger. The authority of the police is invested in them by the law, and if in Scotland they abuse that to indulge in racism, at all, that’s far more serious than however Clarkson or the London press patronise or insult Scotland — we cannot have police officers who are bigoted, against the English or anyone else; it’s a position of too much responsibility, unlike being a pundit. As for the difference between Scottish and English pride — sure, sometimes it seems hard for English people to celebrate Englishness without tinting it with racism and superiority, a problem which the Welsh, Irish and Scots don’t seem to have (we just get chippy). But that’s no excuse for anyone else to get racist and superior about them!