Campaign for an English Parliament

As soon as Scotland qualifies for a major sporting tournament, we’ll have to return the favour …

No need to get shirty, England

Britain’s equality watchdog had defended “Anyone But England” World Cup T-shirts as “harmless fun” despite a warning by police that they could inflame racial tensions.

Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the slogan was “good-natured banter” that was unlikely to cause offence.

Earlier this month police asked Slanj, an Aberdeen-based kilt-maker, to consider removing a window display of the T-shirts because of its “potential to cause disturbance”.

The firm, which has stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh, also received a warning about a range of T-shirts with the slogan “Algeria, USA and Slovenia Supporters Club”, referring to England’s group opponents at the World Cup in June.

While Phillips said the commission would react swiftly to any serious evidence of racism, he said that over-reacting to “jokes” such as the Anyone But England T-shirts risked making equality watchdogs appear like “po-faced thought police”.

“I don’t think there’s any unpleasant intent in this,” said Phillips. “The point about sport is that it should be fun.

“I’m not going to get in the way of the usual good-natured banter, when there is no evidence that it is turning into anything more than that. People need the Equality and Human Rights Commission to be able to tell the difference between a joke and something more serious, and this is a joke.”

Andy Murray coined the phrase “anyone but England” when asked at a press conference who he would support at the 2006 World Cup after Scotland had failed to qualify. The tennis star’s reply provoked a backlash among English fans and he later apologised.

During the event, there were a number of racially motivated attacks in Scotland. In Aberdeen a gang of 11 men knocked a fan to the ground and repeatedly stamped on his head because he was wearing an England shirt. In a park in Edinburgh, a seven-year-old boy was punched in the head by a man for supporting the England football team.

Ross Lyle, of Slanj, which produced T-shirts supporting England’s group opponents Sweden, Paraguay and Trinidad for the 2006 World Cup, welcomed Phillips’ intervention.

“He’s got it absolutely right,” he said. “It’s a bit of fun. It’s football banter. There’s no malicious intent … We’re not a racist company and we certainly don’t hate the English — we’ve got lots of English customers.”

However, Stuart Parr, of the Campaign for an English Parliament, said the T-shirts reflected a persistent culture of anti-Englishness in Scotland: “It was probably intended as a joke, but does it hide more of a sinister attitude to English people? I think it probably does.”

Phillips, who visited the Royal Society of Edinburgh last week to give a talk on the future of equality, has been under scrutiny in recent months after four board members resigned from his organisation and criticised his leadership.

Last November, he denied operating a culture of “intimidation and cronyism” at the quango after being called to answer questions by a parliamentary committee. Dr Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP and member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, described Phillips’ position as “untenable”.

While Grampian police took no further action against Slanj, they said they would have failed in their duty “if we did not make people aware of the potential for disturbance” that the display could cause. The force added that it had “recorded incidents relating to nationality” and that it had a responsibility to minimise such incidents.