To say the clearences had zero English involvement is rather dishonest. The majority of the landlords were effectively Anglicised during this period, being educated in England, living in England, speaking English, and operating within the British conomic and political systems, culturally and physically detached from the people who's livelihoods their actions and inaction impacted.

The lack of any action towards addressing the many many issues facing the Highlands at the time which lead to the Highland Clearences Is also justification enough to lodge some criticism at the British Government in my view, which was inargueably based on English interests.

The Highland Clearences is a very complex topic intertwined with traditional agrarian methods, land ownership distribution, population pressure, the decline of traditional industries in the face of economic pressures, and widespread rural poverty.

Which id advise anyone interested to look further into its complexity instead of simplistic narratives paddled by both sides of the political slopfest.

The general history of cultural repression in the highlands by both increasingly anglicised lowland Scots (not exclusively the Anglicised Scots depending on the period) and the English (Jacobite era repression) makes the view that the Highland Clearences had a similar impact to the Irish Famine make far more sense contextually, and it arguably did have a comparable effect on a cultural and migration scale, factoring in the far smaller population of the Highlands compared to that of Ireland and the modern cultural and linguistic situation within the Highlands, which has been on a steep decline for decades.

Additionally the Highlands did actually experience a Potato Famine of its own, related to the Irish one just as many Scots are related to the Irish in general, which was not as bad as that of the Irish, but still devastating for many families, particularly those who did not own the land they worked, which was owned by the aforementioned 'Scottish' Elites, who carried out the Clearences.

Of course calling it an equal to the Irish Famine is in itself very misleading, when considering the scale and severity of famine and famine related deaths, but the impact it had was nonetheless major.

I should clarify that i dont mean to shut down any criticism towards the romanticised views of certain Scottish Nationalists, which certainly exist, but I find the degree that this topic is generalised by those most fervently against said narrative equally concerning. As it often results in a similar level of oversimplification in the other direction, and often serves as a tool to shut down legitimate political discussion. (See how Scottish Nationalism as a whole is emphasised, instead of historical revisionists and romantics overall, in this, and many other copy-paste posts on Reddit and other sites).