TRAPPED: Nobody Asks Scotland · The chapters

Chapter 12: The Flag on the Tin

"rooting out or transporting the barbarous and stubborne sort, and planting ciuilitie in their rooms."

King James VI, Basilicon Doron, 1598.

You don't need to ban a nation. Make its language useless and put somebody else's flag on its produce.

The receipts

The source list for this chapter, as the publisher maintains it. Archive links are given wherever a cited page could move or die.

• Statutes of Iona, 23 August 1609, and the Band of Iona, 24 August 1609; registered by the Privy Council 27 July 1610. Education statute quoted verbatim from the Register of the Privy Council as printed in Martin MacGregor, "The Statutes of Iona: text and context", The Innes Review 57.2 (2006), 111–181, at 145 (University of Glasgow Enlighten, eprints.gla.ac.uk/7031/1/7031.pdf).
• Privy Council supplementary act on education, 26 July 1616, quoted verbatim from Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. x, p. 777, as printed in MacGregor (2006), 145.
• The historiographical debate on 1609 intent: Julian Goodare's reading (the education statute intended "to convert the clan elite into Lowlanders") and MacGregor's more pragmatic reading, including the observation that Gaelic is not mentioned in the education statute and the evidence that some chiefs may have signed in Gaelic script, all per MacGregor (2006), 145–146, 150.
• James VI, Basilicon Doron (1598): "Colonies among them of answerable Inlands subiects that within short time may reforme and ciuilize the best inclined among them; rooting out or transporting the barbarous and stubborne sort, and planting ciuilitie in their rooms", quoted from King James VI and I: Political Writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 24, as quoted in Alison Cathcart, "The Statutes of Iona: The Archipelagic Context", Journal of British Studies 49.1 (January 2010), 4–27, at 7 (strathprints.strath.ac.uk/26412/1/strathprints026412.pdf). Used for the epigraph and in the body.
• Cathcart (2010), as above: the civilising policy for the Highlands taking shape in the 1580s and 1590s under James VI's sole Scottish kingship, before the Union of the Crowns (1603); the Scottish Privy Council as a continuously separate Scottish institution until 1708, the year after the Union of the Parliaments (1707).
• Martin MacGregor, "Gaelic barbarity and Scottish identity in the later Middle Ages", in Dauvit Broun and Martin MacGregor (eds), Mìorun Mòr nan Gall (University of Glasgow, 2009), 7–48 (gla.ac.uk/media/Media_792382_smxx.pdf): John of Fordoun's Chronica Gentis Scotorum, Book II ch. 9 (later fourteenth century), as the scholarly consensus starting point for the "barbarous Gael" framing among Lowland writers.
• A. J. Aitken, "A History of Scots" (1985), reprinted in Collected Writings on the Scots Language, ed. Caroline Macafee (Scots Language Centre, 2015), Paper 7 (media.scotslanguage.com/library/document/aitken/A_History_of_Scots.pdf): "Not until 1494 did any Scottish writer apply the name Scots to his own tongue"; Inglis as the earlier name for the Lowland tongue; Gavin Douglas naming his tongue "Scottis" against "sudroun" in the Eneados Prologue (1513).
• Dictionary of the Scots Language: "Scottis" entry, DOST division (dsl.ac.uk/entry/dost/scottis), the term "originally designated Gaelic"; "Erse" entry, SND division (dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/erse_adj_n2), Erse as the Lowland Scots term for Gaelic, i.e. "Irish".
• Scots Language Centre, "Timeline of the Scots Language, AD 550–1700" (media.scotslanguage.com/library/document/Scots%20Timeline%20Pre-1700.pdf): the 1494 Adam Loutfut attestation (BL MS Harley 6149), corroborating Aitken's dating.
• Act of Proscription 1746 (19 Geo. 2 c. 39), including the dress ban (section 17, the "Dress Act"), the oath requirement on private schoolmasters, tutors and chaplains in the long title, and repeal of the dress ban by the Use of Highland Dress Act 1782: stated here at fact level only, penalties described only as heavy criminal penalties, pending primary verification of the statutory wording (see Verification notes).
• Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act 1746 (20 Geo. 2 c. 43), section 1 quoted verbatim from the live text at legislation.gov.uk/apgb/Geo2/20/43/contents; royal assent 17 June 1747, jurisdictions ceasing 25 March 1748; an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain. VERIFIED 22 August 2026, with a caveat: the quoted line is section 1's heading/rubric, which legislation.gov.uk still displays; the substantive enacting text of s.1 was repealed in 1993. The prose ("its first section is one line") is defensible since the site shows this line under section 1, but before print consider whether to make clear it is the section heading rather than live operative text.
• Education (Scotland) Act 1872 (35 & 36 Vict. c. 62), full text at legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/35-36/62/enacted; the absence of Gaelic anywhere in the Act, the compulsory ages five to thirteen, and the school-board system. STILL-OPEN (22 August 2026): the negative claim (that "Gaelic" appears nowhere in the Act) and the ages/school-board detail could NOT be independently verified this pass because legislation.gov.uk's full-text endpoints for this Act are gated by an AWS WAF bot-challenge; needs a direct browser session or a library/archive.org full-text copy to search before print.
• Stephen J. McKinney and Walter M. Humes, "Interpretations of the Education (Scotland) Act of 1872" (peer-reviewed; eprints.gla.ac.uk/265060/3/265060.pdf): the "significant omission" of Gaelic; the Napier Commission (1884) quotation "discouragement and neglect of the native language in the education of Gaelic-speaking children"; the 1886 Scotch Code; the Education (Scotland) Act 1918 "adequate provision" requirement; Smout (1986) on the economic-pragmatism reading; MacKinnon (1972) on "social control through cultural assimilation"; Withers (2000) on prejudice against Gaelic among persons of authority in education.
• National Records of Scotland, "Scotland's Census 2022: Ethnic group, national identity, language and religion", 21 May 2024: Gaelic "some skills" 1.9 per cent (2001), 1.7 per cent (2011), 2.5 per cent (2022, an increase of 43,100 people); Na h-Eileanan Siar 57.2 per cent, Highland 8.1 per cent, Argyll and Bute 6.2 per cent, all other council areas under 3 per cent; Scots "some skills" 37.7 per cent (2011) and 46.2 per cent (2022); Aberdeenshire 64.1 per cent, Na h-Eileanan Siar 30.7 per cent.
• General Register Office for Scotland / Ipsos MORI Scotland, "2011 Census Question Testing: The Language Question" (2009), scotlandscensus.gov.uk/media/ljqhbh5w/2011-census-language-question.pdf: the 2011 census as the first in Scotland to ask about Scots, and the understand/speak/read/write matrix design.
• Scottish Government, Scots Language Policy (2015), gov.scot/publications/scots-language-policy-english/: Scots as "one of the three historical indigenous languages of Scotland" and the commitment to enhance its status.
• The Ferret fact-check on the Scots language (theferret.scot): Scots under Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, its UNESCO listing, and the linguists' sister-language consensus (Pavel Iosad, University of Edinburgh, as reported).
• The nineteenth-century comparative parallels, all per the dossier Wales: the Welsh Not as a school-level practice created by no statute, and the finding that school non-attendance and emigration did more than the token to push Welsh into decline, per Martin Johnes, Welsh Not: Elementary Education and the Anglicisation of Nineteenth-Century Wales (University of Wales Press, 2024), with the 1847 Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales (the Blue Books) as the documentary backdrop. France: the Jules Ferry laws of 16 June 1881 (free) and 28 March 1882 (compulsory and secular), silent as legislative texts on the regional languages; the classroom token le symbole against Breton and Occitan; Anatole de Monzie, Minister of Public Instruction, 1925: "Pour l'unité linguistique de la France, la langue bretonne doit disparaître." Ireland: the national school system established from the 1831 Stanley letter, English-only in medium, with Irish not permitted as a medium of instruction until 1904.
• Full research dossiers and
• Protected geographical indications: individual product pages at gov.uk/protected-food-drink-names/ for Scotch Whisky (UK registration 31 December 2020, original EU registration 12 June 1989), Scotch Beef and Scotch Lamb (both 21 June 1996), Arbroath Smokies (2 March 2004), Scottish Farmed Salmon (12 August 2004; renamed Scottish Salmon 24 April 2024), Stornoway Black Pudding (9 May 2013); all six transferred to the UK GI schemes at 23:00 on 31 December 2020, checked directly against the live register.
• The "flag loophole" mechanism (Union flag or "Product of UK" permitted where last substantial processing is in the UK): The Grocer, Farmers Weekly and Food Manufacture reporting, cross-checked against the 2024 consultation's own framing.
• Consultation on fairer food labelling: opened 12 March 2024, closed 7 May 2024, run by Defra on behalf of the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive (consult.defra.gov.uk); government response published 12 June 2025, quoted verbatim from the gov.uk outcome page ("We are committed to using this evidence on an ongoing basis as we consider the UK and Devolved Governments' priorities"). The 2021 first pass: Defra call for evidence on animal welfare labelling, 13 September 2021 (England, Wales and Northern Ireland only).
• Mairi Gougeon quote: as reported in the Scottish Daily Express, "Flag row as SNP Government refuse to back new UK-wide Buy British labelling as it may feature Union Jack" (February 2024), cross-referenced against contemporaneous reporting; primary gov.scot source still to be located (see Verification notes).
• Andrew Connon quotes and NFU Scotland's "Fair Labels, Fair Markets" proposals: FarmingUK, "NFU Scotland ramps up pressure on ministers over 'misleading' food labels", 5 February 2026 (farminguk.com). NB (verified 22 August 2026): the Connon quotes are genuine and verbatim but come from this February 2026 story, NOT the 1 November 2024 Food Manufacture piece ("NFU Scotland calls for radical overhaul of food labelling"), which quotes chief executive John Davidson, not Connon; the earlier date and event were mis-cited and are corrected here.
• ESIF-GN-1-005, "ERDF and ESF Branding and Publicity Requirements", version 8, August 2019 (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk), implementing EU Regulation 1303/2013 arts 115–117 and Annex XII, Regulation 1304/2013 art 20 and Implementing Regulation 821/2014: the EU emblem as a mandatory condition of structural-fund grants.
• HM Treasury, "New Union Jack infrastructure plaques announced", 1 March 2015 (gov.uk), with the Danny Alexander quote.
• The 13 August 2020 Union-flag policy for Westminster-funded Scottish projects: PoliticsHome, "PM to Put Union Flag on UK-Funded Scottish Projects as SNP Objects" (carrying the Tommy Sheppard quotes); Yahoo News republication of 14 August 2020 (Alister Jack quote; Johnson/Gove sign-off); The Scotsman, "Union Flag plaques to adorn tax-funded projects" (direct fetch failed, re-fetch needed, see Verification notes).
• UK Shared Prosperity Fund branding and publicity guidance, gov.uk/guidance/uk-shared-prosperity-fund-branding-and-publicity-6, last updated 29 July 2024, quoted verbatim; compliance a condition of the Grant Funding Agreement, corroborated by council-level implementing guidance.
• Government Communication Service branding rules, communications.gov.uk/publication/branding/, dated 10 March 2020, quoted verbatim (the mandatory Union Jack logo on international communication; the GREAT campaign exemption).
• DCMS and MHCLG, "Union flag to be flown on UK Government buildings every day", 24 March 2021 (gov.uk), with the Dowden and Jenrick quotes; Jenrick letter to English councils dated 26 March 2021 (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, metadata only so far); the designated-days regime it replaced, and the "no controls on the flying of national flags" position for Scotland, per the live gov.uk flag-flying guidance.
• UK Internal Market Act 2020 Part 6 financial assistance power, its January 2021 first use for the Shared Prosperity Fund, and the "more than £100 million a year" figure: gov.scot, "After Brexit: The UK Internal Market Act and devolution" (the Scottish Government's own analysis, labelled as such in the prose).
• Queen Elizabeth House and hub branding: gov.uk news items on the Edinburgh hub ("Flagship UK Government hub in Edinburgh named Queen Elizabeth House" and related); Nation.Cymru, "Giant UK Government branding only applied to offices in Wales and Scotland", 19 June 2021 (the £14,677 and £53,317 costs and the "Union Jack flag abstracts" description).
• The scrapped Cardiff flag: BBC News, "Eight-storey UK flag for Cardiff scrapped over £180k price tag"; Nation.Cymru, "Welsh Secretary scraps plans for massive Union Jack on Cardiff building as cost balloons"; The London Economic (the £11,000-plus removal figure).
• Scotland Office naming and branding history: gov.uk organisation page cross-checked against Wikipedia, "Scotland Office"; the @UKGovScotland X account; the 2015–2018 "UK Government" output branding (see Verification notes for the unresolved discrepancy).
• Driving licence, Union flag added: "Driving licences to display Union Flag", DVLA/Department for Transport press release, 30 December 2014 (gov.uk/government/news/driving-licences-to-display-union-flag), with the Claire Perry quote, quoted verbatim; rollout confirmed in "Union Flags now feature on British driving licences", DVLA, 6 July 2015 (gov.uk/government/news/union-flags-now-feature-on-british-driving-licences). England, Scotland and Wales only, driver licensing in Northern Ireland being devolved. The flag was added alongside the EU flag, which had been on the photocard since its introduction in July 1998: DVLA FOI correspondence (whatdotheyknow.com/request/gb_flag) and Scottish Government FOI release FOI-17-02974 (gov.scot).
• Driving licence, EU flag removed: "New style driving licences and number plates mark one year anniversary of Brexit as EU flag is removed", Department for Transport, 31 January 2021 (gov.uk), with the Grant Shapps quote, quoted verbatim.
• Number plates: the GB-to-UK international identifier change of 28 September 2021, and the rule that a Union-flag-plus-UK plate is valid on its own abroad while Saltire, Welsh dragon and Cross of St George plates require a separate UK sticker: British Number Plate Manufacturers Association, "Legal plates and stickers for driving overseas changing from GB to UK"; Kwik Fit; Motoring Research (statutory instrument still to be pinned, see Verification notes).
• Matt Hancock, June 2019 Conservative leadership contest, pitching as the pro-Union candidate to replace Theresa May: BBC interview, quoted verbatim ("I want to see the UK government doing more to explain the value of the Union. Symbols are important, as is the hard policy of improving people's lives"; his greatest achievement as Culture Secretary, "making sure we got Union Jacks at the Edinburgh Festival"). Fiona Hyslop, Scottish Government culture secretary, in response, quoted verbatim ("One, he didn't. Two, it would be completely wrong for the UK government, or indeed any government, including the Scottish government, to try and hijack [and] appropriate independent arts festivals"). Edinburgh International Festival spokesman to The Times, quoted verbatim ("We don't believe that Mr Hancock's comments relate specifically to any International Festival initiative").
• Dunlop Review of UK Government Union Capability, submitted November 2019, published 24 March 2021, quoted verbatim from the published PDF (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk), pages 43 and 45: the recommendation that UK Government spending in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland "should be clearly marked with UK Government branding", and the caution that "overly nationalistic branding would be insensitive in some contexts".
• Full dossiers for this section and, both compiled 21 August 2026.
• Publication review additions, 9 October 2026 (the advocate merge; each tag is the edit it sources): - (12-A02#1) Scottish Languages Act 2025 (asp 10), passed by the Scottish Parliament 17 June 2025, Royal Assent 31 July 2025, Part 2, Chapter 1, section 33 'Status of the Scots language': '(1) The Scots language has official status within Scotland. (2) Subsection (1) is given legal effect by the provisions in this Act conferring functions on the Scottish Ministers and other persons in relation to promoting, facilitating and supporting the use of the Scots language. (3) Subsection (1) does not affect (a) the operation of any other enactment or rule of law, (b) the status of any other language.' Annotation: 'S. 33 in force at 30.11.2025 by S.S.I. 2025/348, reg. 2, sch.' https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2025/10/section/33 archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20261009094523/https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2025/10/section/33. Read from https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2025/10/data.xml and /section/33/data.xml.

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