In this commentary piece, Charlie Ellis examines what the online reaction to the demolition of a well-known Edinburgh nightclub reveals about the current state of public discourse in Scotland. Taking Facebook commentary on the demolition of the Atik on West Tollcross as his starting point, he traces the journey from personal nostalgia to nativist grievance, arguing that structural economic explanations for urban change are routinely displaced by narratives that locate the source of decline in immigration and demographic change

An ‘iconic’ venue and its memories

Last week, the demolition of the Atik nightclub on West Tollcross attracted substantial media attention. Originally opened as The New Cavendish dance hall in the 1940s, the venue had passed through several incarnations over the decades, trading under names including The Cavendish (or simply The Cav), Clouds, Outer Limits, Bermuda Triangle, and Lava & Ignite. Given the generations of clubbers and gig-goers who had spent time within its walls, it was no surprise that footage and photographs of the demolition prompted a considerable volume of online commentary. What was noteworthy, however, was the character of much of that commentary, particularly in response to an Edinburgh Evening News story covering the demolition.

The subheading ‘Iconic Edinburgh nightclub demolished to make way for student flats’ was clearly designed to attract attention and provoke engagement. The word ‘iconic’ is instructive in itself: it has become so overused as to be almost meaningless, applied to everything from buildings to burger restaurants. But its deployment here is deliberate, cueing a sense of loss, of something significant passing from the world. This tone is immediately picked up in the comments below. ‘Sad times,’ writes one commenter, ‘all the classic places and great buildings of Edinburgh’s bygone era being eroded.’

The phrase ‘all the places’ is worth pausing on: it is a small but telling instance of the catastrophising that runs through much of this commentary, in which the loss of one venue becomes evidence of a wholesale erosion of the city’s character and identity. This is significant in a city that is, by UK standards, notably well-preserved, with major redevelopment projects relatively few in number. The original demolition of St James Square and the radical remodelling of George Square are rare examples of the kind of upheaval far more common in other British cities. It is one instance of the lack of perspective that characterises much commentary about Edinburgh.

Grievance without explanation

The nightclub model is, in many respects, a product of the twentieth century, disrupted by pre-drinking culture, the rise of dating apps, and growing health consciousness among younger generations. Similarly, the construction of student flats reflects Edinburgh’s status as a highly sought-after city, drawing large numbers of people. The prevalence of purpose-built student accommodation is itself a structural phenomenon, driven by tax incentives and high yields that make it one of the few financially viable development models in a high-cost city. These are not conspiracies; they are market conditions.

Yet the online commentary rarely engages with any of this. Instead, the student flat has become something of a monolithic villain in Edinburgh’s public discourse, with commenters expressing bafflement at the volume of such developments while overlooking the economic logic behind them. ‘How many blooming student flats do we need?’ and ‘Soon there will be more student flats than students’ are typical responses, reactions that feel intuitively reasonable but rest on a misunderstanding of how the housing and development markets actually function.

From Nostalgia to Nativism

A significant strand of the commentary is rooted in personal nostalgia. Commenters view the nightclub not merely as a failed business but as a landmark of their youth and social identity. ‘1977: Clouds. Tavares, Marvin Gaye, Boney M… happy memories’ is representative of many such responses. This genuine sense of loss creates a vacuum that resentment readily fills, and the target of that resentment is invariably whatever replaces the landmark.

From there, it is a short step to a more nativist register. ‘Affordable, residential flats for born and bred Scots would be a refreshing change’ captures a grievance that has quietly shifted from concern about housing supply to a claim about who deserves to be housed. The logic moves from ‘we need more housing’ to ‘housing should be for us rather than them.’

In several comments, this frustration bypasses urban planning altogether and adopts the vocabulary of the radical right. One referred to the intended residents as ‘manky you know who’s,’ accompanied by a boat emoji, a direct invocation of the ‘small boats’ migrant trope. Another attributed the planning decision to a councillor having received ‘a back hander’; no evidence offered, none apparently needed. The implication is that anything unwelcome must be corrupt by definition. It is a closed loop: suspicion substitutes for scrutiny, and the very ease of the accusation makes genuine investigation feel unnecessary. Together, these comments illustrate how swiftly a local grievance can be radicalised: any development not earmarked for ‘native’ residents becomes evidence of a broader conspiracy to house asylum seekers or other unwanted outsiders.

The political utility of nostalgia is well documented. In Imperial Nostalgia, Peter Mitchell identifies imperial nostalgism as a cornerstone of radical-right politics in the UK. Agnes Arnold-Forster’s Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion examines its use by populist leaders including Trump and Farage, arguing that slogans like ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Take Back Control’ work by evoking idealised pasts and channelling anxiety into political energy. Arnold-Forster is careful to note that nostalgia’s misuse is not exclusive to the right, but its particular potency for populism lies in a recurring trope: the claim that a golden age has been stolen by corrupt elites. That claim, in various forms, runs through much of the commentary examined here.

A Shifting Nostalgia

It is worth noting that those who comment online are not representative of the wider population, and different platforms attract particular demographics. The comments discussed here were made on Facebook, which tends to skew towards an older demographic, so it is unsurprising that nostalgic sentiment frequently surfaces in responses to certain stories posted there. What is interesting, however, is to observe the focus of that nostalgia shifting over time. It has become increasingly common to see nostalgic sentiments directed at the 1990s and even the early 2000s.

A recurring refrain is that these were the last eras before social media took over, a time when people were more absorbed in their leisure activities than in their screens. ‘We didn’t know how lucky we were,’ as the comments often put it. One commenter wrote: ‘Times have changed and not for the better. Miss going out clubbing. Dancing. No phones, just the music and some disco biscuits. Cheap pints and not a care in the world.’ This nostalgia is frequently combined with observations about the state of city centres, remembered as far busier and offering a generally higher quality of retail. In short, the period before the crisis of the high street that preoccupies us today is cast as a final golden age before things went to pot. And if things have indeed gone to pot, the question naturally follows: what is the cause?

Immigration as explanation

What comes across in much of this online commentary is a strong and recurring sense that the driving force behind apparent decline is demographic change brought about by mass immigration, and that this has been engineered by local politicians dancing to a ‘globalist’ tune. Such narratives surface not only in response to stories about development and housing but also in relation to incidents of crime and public disorder.

Recent events in the Calders area of Edinburgh are a case in point, where radical right tropes frequently dominated the online response: ‘He’ll be released tomorrow once Starmer’s ECHR buddies appear,’ ‘Mainstream media lying again,’ ‘Isn’t multiculturalism beautiful.’ Given the disturbing nature of the crime and the palpable fear it generated, it is perhaps unsurprising that extreme commentary followed. Reform UK’s Scottish leader, Macolm Offord, was accused of stoking racial tensions by blaming illegal immigration for a knife incident in Edinburgh that left two people injured. Offord, appointed by Nigel Farage in January to lead the party into the Holyrood elections, admitted he did not know the full facts of the incident, yet claimed that ‘we can tell by the photographs’ that a surge in immigration had been a factor.

Views that would have been considered extreme only 15 years ago are now articulated quite openly in public forums.

The Bigger Picture

The demolition of a former nightclub might seem a far more benign topic, and yet the online commentary carries a similar flavour. This tells us something important, not least about a certain radicalisation of the British right. Views that would have been considered extreme only fifteen years ago are now articulated quite openly in public forums. The rising prominence, and even apparent acceptability, of ethno-nationalist sentiment is one such example.

This commentary also speaks to something broader. The radical right is becoming an increasingly visible presence within our culture, not necessarily in a highly organised sense, though Reform is polling well, but certainly within everyday public discourse. Central to this worldview is the conviction that the changes transforming our cities and cultural life have clear and obvious causes, with wider structural factors conspicuously absent from the analysis. It forms part of a pervasive sense that malign, unelected forces are reshaping our cities against the wishes of the majority.

That this narrative can attach itself as readily to the demolition of a nightclub as to a violent crime speaks to how thoroughly it has permeated everyday commentary on urban life. The Atik is gone, and with it another fragment of the city’s collective memory. But the commentary surrounding its demolition will outlast the rubble. It offers a telling snapshot of a culture in which grievance travels fast and structural thinking struggles to keep up. The Atik is rubble now. But the commentary it generated is a reminder that in contemporary public discourse, almost any loss, however local, however personal, can be recruited into a much larger and uglier story about who belongs and who does not.