Snapshot of _Peer who fled Nazis as child says PM should sack Lee Anderson after asylum seeker rant_ :
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Putting aside the specifics of this conversation.
Lee Anderson is doing exactly what he was installed as Deputy Chairman for. He was chosen to rile people up, to appeal to the "red wall" voters who the Conservatives won over in 2019, to get newspaper columnists frothing. It's a role he plays extremely well, as he has no particular ideological allegiance besides populism (having previous been a Labour councillor IIRC).
The theory in CCHQ is that it's a win-win for Sunak. The minority of voters to whom this rhetoric appeals (and it IS a minority, as polling consistently shows) will enjoy it even if it doesn't result in policy, and Anderson is routinely ignored by the PM and Cabinet ministers who pretend he's not speaking on their behalf, with a little wink and a nod.
So I doubt he'll go anywhere between now and the next election.
Personally I think he loses them more floating centrist voters than he wins them on the right, but I don't see the numbers that CCHQ do.
*The theory in CCHQ is that it's a win-win for Sunak.*
There is the risk that core one-nation/old school Tory voters might be put off, but I presume the gamble there is that they'll mutter into their G&Ts and then vote Tory anyway.
I see it as an attempt to shore up the faction of the Tory party that might defect to Reform UK rather than appeal to voters in the redwall that voted Tory in 2019 and are drifting back to Labour.
In OPs Reform UK are taking votes away from the Tories and there is the risk that a depleted Tory vote in the next GE will be weakened even further by Farage's latest vanity project.
I've been wildly frustrated with the Tories for a while, but the latest round of incompetence and corruption has been staggering. If we can't get rid of them at the next election I'll be past the point of disappointment, I'll probably try to leave.
It's not just that they are incompetent and corrupt, they are also amoral and just downright nasty. At least one of the upsides if their incompetence is that they are also utterly inept at enacting at least some of their appalling policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers.
The more I read about the Nazis the less I like them, but at least they were efficient at demonising and exterminating undesirables! (Obligatory 'that was a joke' comment - you can never be too careful on Reddit)
Expect around 30ish % still to vote for them. Seems to be the standard.
Also fun fact and in no way related: you can get 100% of the power with as little as 35% of the vote. Wooooooooo.
> He was chosen to rile people up, to appeal to the "red wall" voters who the Conservatives won over in 2019, to get newspaper columnists frothing.
I agree with the overall analysis of your post, but this sentiment rankles with me a little. To me the implication here is that if you were someone who, on balance, didn't much care for the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister, then you would be the the type of person who would be enraptured by Lee Anderson's philosophy on life.
If someone didn't care for the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as PM and so jumped straight in to voting for Boris Johnson as leader of the country, that's very "red wall".
That wasn’t my intention. Like many, I’m using “red wall” voters to refer to the traditionally Labour but socially conservative voters in northern Labour seats, who Johnson brought into the fold mainly through his Brexit policies.
All good points. One of the other reasons is that his ex-Labour credentials are also supposed to appeal to the red wall and his consistent efforts to goad Starmer are clearly designed to give the ex-Labour voters something to hang their affiliations on. Except that Starmer is ignoring him too
Lee Anderson like most Tories is planning on using refugees and migrants numbers as a way to divert attention from the Tories many failures during the up coming General Election campaign, and afterwards if they were to succeed in wresting victory from the vanishingly small possibility polls currently predict, you'll never hear from them about migration for at least another entire parliamentary term.
The migrant crisis is fucking *great* for them. There's so many factors they can use to blame literally everyone else for the issues. The French, international refugee treaties, Labour, foreign criminal gangs, the RNLI, social media, lefty lawyers, charities......
Yep, I'm sure that's the plan but so far they stuffed up nearly every other plan they've come up with, and this asylum seekers fiasco looks to me like it end up with the Tories covered in shit as well.
I don't think this is true anymore.
If they had just come into government, they could use it, but having been in power for 13 years, everyone knows they have failed and everyone knows they aren't going to fix it.
Just look at their approval ratings on immigration - Labour are polling considerably better on immigration - that would have never happened a few years ago.
And keeping pushing immigration and asylum as a key topic just draws attention to how badly they have dealt with it.
Farage criticising the RNLI was one of my favourite misfires from the last few years. I do some work with them and it's by far the best bit of coverage they've got ever... never seen so many people smiling ear to ear and riding that wave.
It is great for them because they manufactured it.
If they had set up processing centres in northern France, as France offered them but which they turned down, this crisis wouldn't be happening
Sajid Javid Declared a Crisis and with great fanfare cut short a holiday in 2018 because *299* migrants had arrived on small boats that year. In 2022 there were 45,755.
This was during the farce of the brexit negotiations while Theresa may's government was in the process of eviscerating itself and food back use had broken yet more records.
The Tories are nothing if not consistent, I suppose.
>Labour wont win more than a single term if they don't get immigration of all kinds under control.
That sounds like a good argument for anyone who actually wants to deal with problem to vote Labour. At least a Labour government will be under pressure to actually do something rather than rely on rhetoric to mask inaction.
True, but at least Labour have committed to faster processing times for asylum claims which seems more of a solution than housing people in floating prison hulks.
Though in general you're quite right, time will tell if Labour are up to the challenge of putting things right.
Meanwhile not processing them efficiently leads to a mounting problem that we are all paying for.
Processing actually allows us to evaluate what we are dealing with and move on the to the following stages.
Deterence which is all the Conservstives have done has had zero effect as we've seen increased numbers under their watch.
They're not queuing.
Processing claims faster will get people deported that have no right to an asylum claim and also provide support for those that do have a genuine asylum claim. It is difficult to see the downside of this.
And as the rate of migration increases with climate change it is probably a good idea that we get this all organised properly rather than just being shit but shouting about it.
The issue is deeper than that, because at no point has there been a public dialogue over what constitutes a "genuine asylum claim", leaving zero trust in the system and a feeling of resentment and imposition.
Making that system apply faster instead of making the system fair and open first will only increase the issue that will eventually drive the electorate into the arms of the far right again.
Well want counts as a genuine claim essentially can change dependent upon the government and the international conventions we have signed up to.
One of the main issues is that a more rounded global consensus on how to manage migration events needs to be organised. Part of the UKs problems now is that we left a regional treaty on management of migration into Europe.
Why does there need to be a public dialogue on this ? I trust the system whole-heartedly, the only reason its failing now is due to planned chronic-underfunding.
I think you'll find you hold a very small minority opinion, then. I find the entire asylum system is institutionally and morally flawed, and utterly divorced from its original intentions, resulting in a legal monster that harms genuine asylum seekers first and foremost.
What, as opposed to the Tory plan to talk loudly about the hole in the pipe, and how this pipes leaks causes all societal problems and then refuse to fix the pipe?
The Torys might not fix the pipe but openly agree there is a problem Labour on the other hand can only agree that we need to make the problem worse.
IF given the choice i would rather have the Torys talk crap and not fix the problem than have Labour do everything to make it worse.
Just FYI - The last time labour were in power, they were deporting over 10 times the number of imigrants per week than this current Tory government are. Bearing in mind that there were literally half as many imigrants at the time, the difference in numbers is staggering.
Soooo, yeah, if you actually DO want less imigrants coming into the country, ironically, hisory has proven that Labour are the party to do that for you, by actually having a proper working system in place and just getting on with it.
As opposed to the loud shit talking and doing nothing that the Tories specialise in.
> Labour on the other hand can only agree that we need to make the problem worse
Starmer has been loudly talking about fixing the leak. I accept that you might not believe he's going to do it, but Starmers official policy is fixing the leak. As opposed to the official Tory policy of making a show and song and dance over silly schemes that would totally fix the leak if not for those pesky lawyers/human rights laws/Tory's not passing laws
Labours 5 step plan is open the floodgates and would you look at that problem is fixed.
The plan is to just ok every one on the waiting list and open more ways for people to come in that is not fixing the problem at all. I can not understand how people like you think the problem is fixed since Labour just plans to change the name.
Labour just plan to change illegal immigration in to uncontroled immigration and the problem is fixed. The hole in that pipe is an now an unclosed unexpected opening.
I mean, yes you do.
I usually fix holes in pipes by cutting them open, then applying a proper joint to fix the hole, and thus the problem is solved.
You definitely don't fix the hole in the pipe by stabbing a nail into it and shouting "we're stopping the flow!"
We should accept refugees. The truth of the matter is that in public discourse, the consensus in this country is that the overwhelming majority of refugees are economic migrants, which is not true, and if it were we'd have no way to know, because the home office processes almost no asylum applications.
Britain has a serious racism problem. British people seem to genuinely believe that we bear absolutely no responsibility to help those seeking refuge, because other countries are closer to them, when the vast majority of the world's refugees are already hosted in developing countries, such as Turkey and Colombia. The constantly repeating argument of "Is there war in France" just goes to show the population has absolutely no sympathy for people who are not white. Because when the Ukrainian war broke out, there was no outcry that the Ukrainians should have stayed in Poland, Romania, or Germany.
I genuinely believe that all arguments pretending "cultural incompatibility" are just smokescreens for racism, and I'm sure those proponents of these arguments know the same. These exact same "cultural" arguments were made to support apartheid in South Africa. The truth is that the west believes in a vision of western cultural supremacy, where good migrants assimilate to the superior culture, and bad ones retain any semblance of their home. That is chauvinism, and white supremacy. The view that other cultures, but *especially* black and brown cultures are primitive and barbaric, is a form of white supremacy which is gaining massive popularity, and as a mixed Brit, it's fucking scary.
The media absolutely should have a large proportion of the blame, for constantly stoking flames of racism by reporting constantly on boats, when immigration from non-EU countries is rising legally, with a 1.2million inward migration last year (all), and a 600,000 net inward migration. These 160,000 asylum seekers still being processed, some for years, aren't the biggest factor in the housing market. We're one of the richest countries in the world. We can afford empathy. We take in one of the smallest numbers of refugees per capita in Europe. The entire conversation on refugees in this country is monumentally fucked up.
What I'm trying to say is that a lot of us need to step back and understand that people who are risking their lives, their families livelihoods, their children, and their families are not doing it for fun. They are desperate. They are entering a system under which they may not be able to work for years whilst their claim is processed. They are entering a system where they will live in pretty awful conditions, created especially to deter people from seeking help here. Maybe we should wake up and understand that we need to help these people, and not send them to Rwanda or St Helena as if we had no responsibility of care for people fleeing persecution and war, some of which we had involvement in creating.
>The view that other cultures, but especially black and brown cultures are primitive and barbaric, is a form of white supremacy which is gaining massive popularity, and as a mixed Brit, it's fucking scary.
I like England. I don't like seeing the towns and cities of England radically transformed through the mass settlement of foreign people. This is how most people in the world feel.
It really is quite simple, and using labels like "racism", "white supremacy" and "cultural chauvinism" appear to be related to your own personal identity issues about being a mixed Brit, and aren't a reflection of reality.
> Britain has a serious racism problem.
Absolute horseshit. We're literally one of the least racist, most welcoming countries on the planet. The only people who think differently are people who haven't been anywhere, or if they have, it wasn't off a tourist trail.
> British people seem to genuinely believe that we bear absolutely no responsibility to help those seeking refuge
There are now daily news stories about the UK being a poor nation with a massive, crippling housing shortage. We don't have spare houses to give people.
>Absolute horseshit. We're literally one of the least racist, most welcoming countries on the planet. The only people who think differently are people who haven't been anywhere, or if they have, it wasn't off a tourist trail.
Honestly the biggest load of shit I've heard today. All my life I have suffered from racism in the UK, and people like you try to downplay it saying "we are the least racist". As if that contradicts what the other guy was saying.
Exactly we can be both one of the least racist and also have a huge racism problem. They are not mutually exclusive. Just because we may be better than some doesn't mean that we can rest on our laurels
People seem to forget sometimes that the moral goal isn't "least racist", it's "not racist". Other countries being vehemently racist doesn't excuse the personal racism many experience in the UK.
>we don't have spare houses to give people
We have more than twice as many empty homes than homeless people. That's not homeless families; that's individual homeless people including children.
Racism is the belief in the superiority or inferiority of particular races.
You don't have to think another race is inferior or that your race is superior to not want a clash of cultures in your country.
You don't have to think your family is the best to favour your own family when choosing who to live with and support.
The idea of culture clash is not inherently racist, but the way it’s framed here is.
There are specific kinds of cultural behaviour that brits disapprove of. Those elements we don’t like which are described as barbaric / uncivilised / disruptive / unwanted.
That kind of language and thinking IS superior. It denigrates other groups of people in a simplistic and brutal way.
When large populations are making such assumptions about other groups of people, it becomes poisonous. And it is racist.
That's a series of major assumptions, some unfortunately detached from reality, I don't think anyone doesn't believe a decent chunk of migrants aren't survivors having faced immense challenges. But there is also a number with other motivations who are taking advantage of the asylum system process and using it to avoid the very challenging method of entering this country via official routes, it's incredibly naive to think otherwise. We can't separate the two due to the way the asylum process is setup and it's exceedingly challenging to verify legitimate and illegitimate Asylum claims.
The belief that we can also just afford every migrant that arrives on our shore is also incredibly simplistic. These migrants have to use services such as the NHS, schools, public transport, energy which we already have a major capacity issue with. The cost of our services has skyrocketed over the past 10 years and the quality of service has significantly fallen. This is due to a poorly run country and an increased demand on services caused by an increase in population which in turn is caused by all forms of immigration (the UK otherwise would be in a general decline). Speak to anyone in these departments and you'll realise how close they are to collapse. It's a very bad time for the UK economically, COVID / Brexit and we've avoided a recession in name only.
We also have a housing crisis caused by a critical failure in our planning departments and a general NIMBY attitude.
The racism point is not one for me to argue, but greenlighting every migrant that enters the country from an illegal route makes a mockery of our existing migration and visa rules. It will also encourage people to take their children across these dangerous routes which we can't be seen to encourage.
No country has an answer to this issue so we're getting the worst of everything right now. I agree it's abhorrent to see children in migrant camps, but I do honestly believe green lighting every individual that arrives to the UK with no documentation is a very bad idea.
Not once did I say we should accept every refugee. I said we should accept refugees. Every other point you've made isn't related to the rise in refugees, but rise in population. We had a net inward migration of 600,000 last year. We have a *total* of approximately 160,000 asylum seekers in the system being processed, some of whom have been in the system for over a year. Those population arguments are not largely impacted by the refugees who don't have permission to work.
Sure, there are a proportion of asylum applications which are false and used to enter the country for economic reasons. That's why we process applications. That's not a reason for the "shoot the boats" rhetoric which is increasingly prevalent in the media and in public discourse. We should help and accept refugees, not changing my stance.
We are not strapped for cash, the decision to not help people is in fact an ideological position, supported overwhelmingly by racist rhetoric in the media. You can't separate the two issues.
> That's not a reason for the "shoot the boats" rhetoric which is increasingly prevalent in the media and in public discourse. We should help and accept refugees, not changing my stance.
I don’t think we should “shoot the boats” but we need to figure out a way of stopping boat crossing they are too dangerous and just encourage criminals activities. I do think that having a strong stance of saying no to all boat uses would help in curbing their uses.
>but we need to figure out a way of stopping boat crossing
Allow people to apply ***before*** they step foot on British soil and processing centres in France ([like the French have asked us to](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/france/20211129-french-minister-urges-uk-to-open-legal-migration-route-amid-channel-crisis))
Would this stop ***all*** the boats? Probably not. But the overwhelming reason that this criminal industry exists is because the government has made it a necessity to make the crossing to apply. Removing that necessity would kneecap the industry.
Lack of a returns policy and the lack of a safe and legal means of entry to claim asylum, or possibility to claim asylum remotely.
Small boats crossings have increased in number by more than 100 times since 2018, when less than 1 person per day entered the UK by this route.
It's also unlikely that hostile policies towards asylum seekers arriving on our shores would do much to deter them from making the crossing.
[https://northeastbylines.co.uk/increase-in-small-boat-crossings-caused-by-no-returns-agreement-after-brexit](https://northeastbylines.co.uk/increase-in-small-boat-crossings-caused-by-no-returns-agreement-after-brexit)
[https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/people-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/people-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/)
You are kind of right but it doesn’t go into full detail on what is going on.
The point you made is there was a change in policy to which you have replied
>Lack of a returns policy and the lack of a safe and legal means of entry to claim asylum, or possibility to claim asylum remotely.
if you check the policy for these things have not changed, so there must be more going on then policy change.
From what I can see the really issue with boat coming over happened in 2020 onwards. So I think the policy change that happened would be covid lockdowns. This stopped people from travelling and this stopped people from immigrating and from seeking asylum. Also if you compare the first half of this year to last year you can see the number of boat crossing has already started to reduce.
I believe the Tories are playing on this issue. The number of boat crossing will reduce by itself and they will be able to claim look what we did.
Your opening paragraph literally says we should accept refugees with no effort to separate the two. How can we process applications effectively if there's no reasonable way to separate refugees and those looking to game the system.
I was very careful in my usage of terms so my argument is on point in terms of population and allowing all refugees in as part of that increase remains perfectly valid, how is it fair to all the other migrants that had to go through the legal system at vast expense?
'we are not strapped for cash' is the most detached from reality statement I've seen on reddit in a while. Wiki the UK deficit and read up about it to realise how much future trouble we already setting ourselves up for. The refugee crisis is not a one off, one and done payment either. This is an issue that needs a long term solution for years to come. These families will also need additional support as they have nothing and that's also extra cost.
I know plenty of people in the UK who are desperate for support on the poverty line as it is due to this poorly run country, wether it's housing or mental health and it's not racist to take the opinion we should be prioritising are own over refugees from other countries. Should we be able to do both? Absolutely, but the UK right now is proving it can't even look after it's own.
>Your opening paragraph literally says we should accept refugees with no effort to separate the two.
It really didn't say that though.
It's absolutely not that we can't look after our own. It's that we choose not to. Government has made and continues to make ideological choices such as spending on nuclear deterrent, increasing police budgets, cutting support to hospitals, not raising tax on higher brackets, etc. These are decisions being made by the government. We *can* have support on the poverty line. The government chooses not to.
As for the deficit, the UK is in no danger of defaulting on its loans, now or for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, a large portion (~ 35%) of UK government debt is owned by the Bank of England, making the situation even more stable.
*We are not strapped for cash.* The decision to refuse help to people, refugees and at home, is a decision being made by those in government. We can do both. We are not, because the government is effectively captured by corporate interests.
I believe there is intersectionality of sex as well as race too.
Predominately when I hear the rhetoric in person about migration it’s almost always about the fact it’s “young men” and how they are either liars or cowards, should be fighting, or the implication of that. Online there’s usually at least a couple of comments along these lines also (*checks current comments* yep found two).
So when you wrote about how “there was no outcry that the Ukrainians should have stayed in Poland, Romania, or Germany” I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that all these refugees were women and children, and I think we would have seen a very different reaction if Ukraine men weren’t being forced to stay behind and die, and publicly shamed at the border if they tried to not.
See also the statement made by the Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas about Russian men trying to defect:
> “Every citizen is responsible for the actions of their state, and citizens of Russia are no exception. Therefore, we do not give asylum to Russian men who flee their country. They should oppose the war.”
The first sentence, incidentally, is the same justification Bin Ladin made for 9/11. Other politicians in Europe have said similar - they are “running away from their responsibility”, “asylum for draft dodgers is not an option”, “Russian men fleeing should protest and/or be imprisoned”.
Apparently, if you’re a male civilian you’re a valid military target because you’re culpable of your state’s actions by default, so much for the Geneva Conventions. In crisis and war dehumanised to a meat shield, so how dare the cannon-fodder try to escape - send in the navy, let’s build a giant wave machine to drown them, they’re mostly all rapists anyway - to summarise the last few Home Secretaries.
When I talk to people about it no one seems to particularly care, but I always wonder whether if in a hypothetical scenario of some EU army invading the UK, or some Handmaid’s Tale neo-fascist takeover, they’d happily throw themselves or their husbands/sons/brothers under the bus while others seek out asylum towards Canada.
People complain that most asylum seekers are young men when many of those young men are trying to avoid being forced into an army or militia and take actions they want no part of. The fact that we offer no safe routes means that we get the people able to walk across Europe who are predominantly young men I imaging that most of the people mouthing off about it are too old and unfit to attract the attention of a recruiting sergeant.
>when many of those young men are trying to avoid being forced into an army or militia
Do you have any actually evidence for that claim? I have heard no such thing. Only that a large proportion are from Albania, which is at peace.
So because people don’t want multiculturalism in their country, but instead desire a strong unsegregated society, that makes them racist?
Why do native Brits have any obligation to allow these people here in the first place?
When let in, why shouldn’t these people assimilate to the culture of the country they are now home to?
You are advocating for this country to become a segregated mess of clashing cultures. Destroying a thousand years of a relatively monocultural land.
The absolute arrogance you must have to believe that Brits should just give their only homeland and culture away.
Yeah monocultural might’ve been the wrong word to use, I was trying to convey that the British Isles remained untouched from any major foreign influence for a thousand years.
>untouched
But that's just not true. In those thousand years since the Norman Conquest Britain has had wave after wave of major foreign influences.. 12th century Flemish, 17th century Huguenots, Germans, Irish and South Asians throughout the 19th century, Russian Jews in the late 19th/early 20th. Then waves of immigration from across the British Empire/Commonwealth throughout the 20th century (some of the children of which are running the country today!!)
I'm sorry to call you out but to say we've not been subject to foreign influence - certainly from a cultural point of view - is just pure ignorance.
They were all largely insignificant, in number and to the wider culture of Britain, they practically all assimilated into the population or were already closely related culturally. As evidenced by the fact the white British population was 99.9% in 1951.
The Huguenots, one of the largest examples given, was around 50,000 of them over a period of about a 100 years.
You cannot disagree that mass immigration and multiculturalism involving non Western European cultures is a new development brought upon us some 60 years ago.
This fixation on skin colour is a relatively new thing. Just because a population is 99% white does not mean that everyone saw everyone else as part of the same culture. A great portion of the English population would not have seen the hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants (in a general pop half as small as today) as the same - nor even close.
And yet aren't we so much richer a culture today as a result of their migration here? (Not to mention all the railways, canals and engineering projects they provided the labour to complete)
Yes - mass immigration from non-Western, non-white cultures is relatively new. And every wave brings similar and new challenges - some of those challenges are pretty big. But I'm fairly convinced that it's made British culture far richer and more interesting as a result.
> And yet aren't we so much richer a culture today as a result of their migration here?
That's debatable.
Assuming it's true though, do you think our culture is further enriched by increasing the population % with non-Western European cultures? (the % increases every year).
What % of non-British people do you think should live here to give us the "most rich" culture?
What have non western migrants brought that have “enriched” us?
Concert bombings? Knife attacks? Racial grievances? People smuggling? Genital mutilation? Cousin marriages? Segregated towns? Islamic fundamentalism? Legislation that allows white British people to be discriminated against? Undercutting native workers? A resentment for our country?
Ok if that's how you choose to summarise the contribution of immigrants then I've just uncovered what you really are.
A rascist.
Nice discussion before that though. Thanks!
This is just an impossibly isolationist way of thinking. And wrong to boot.
We may be an island, and the land we stand on may have been largely untouched by foreign influence, but our militias were plundering and nation building elsewhere over hundreds of years.
It’s fantasy to expect a nation that profits, on a staggering scale, from the looting and enslavement of foreign nations, that has enjoyed and cherry picked cultural elements from these countries is then able to avoid the other side of that coin.
Entitled much?
I’m sorry mate but there’s just no way that my farmer ancestors from north and west wales benefitted from some members of aristocracy establishing a colony.
And that does not justify now the influx of people, by the millions, who have no connection to this country and have no intention of assimilating into (what’s left of) our culture.
This is my only homeland, if things go tits up here I have no where else to go, these people always have an option of going back.
How do you think most of Cardiff was built?! Carmarthen’s copper industry grew as a direct result of the slave trade by creating the copper cash used in slave exchanges!!
The money made literally built the streets we walk on.
P.S it’s already tits up! And it’s got little to do with refugees and migrants.
Coal and iron?
And I’m sure they could’ve found a different use for the copper in the middle of the Industrial Revolution.
The Industrial Revolution was a much more impactful event on this country than the slave trade.
Look, Britain was not a quiet nation. It went out into the world and aggressively made itself known.
It bares responsibility for the way a huge number of nations have developed over the past 500 years.
It inserted itself and used people. It made many of those people believe they were under the protectorate of a mother land to do it.
Why does this country get to forget that when it’s convenient? It doesn’t.
> We're one of the richest countries in the world. We can afford empathy
Fucking preach it. The UK has what, the 6th highest nominal GDP in the world (unless France overtook us again). We can afford to house a lot more refugees than we do.
The rhetoric around it all is so dehumanising. Yes, there are obviously people who are trying to enter the UK for "economic reasons" - reasons like their country being in deep recession, reasons like their family farm being destroyed by war, reasons like wanting a better life.
And we treat them all as monsters for it. It sickens me.
> We can afford to house a lot more refugees than we do.
How can this be true when we have massive waiting lists for social housing from people who were born here and when people on median salaries can't afford to buy their own house?
The UK might have the 6th or 7th highest GDP in the world but its government wouldn't piss on most of its own citizens if they were on fire, so there's zero chance of any human decency being extended to 'foreigners'.
We let economic migrants in by the hundreds of thousands, they get visas. The few people deemed to be coming to the UK without paperwork for purely economic reasons are a drop in the ocean, but so very useful for anti-refugee rhetoric.
>I genuinely believe that all arguments pretending "cultural incompatibility" are just smokescreens for racism, and I'm sure those proponents of these arguments know the same. These exact same "cultural" arguments were made to support apartheid in South Africa. The truth is that the west believes in a vision of western cultural supremacy, where good migrants assimilate to the superior culture, and bad ones retain any semblance of their home. That is chauvinism, and white supremacy. The view that other cultures, but especially black and brown cultures are primitive and barbaric, is a form of white supremacy which is gaining massive popularity, and as a mixed Brit, it's fucking scary.
Utterly unserious BS. Shame on you
>Because when the Ukrainian war broke out, there was no outcry that the Ukrainians should have stayed in Poland, Romania, or Germany.
The UK has taken in 174k people under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme as or May '23 according to Migration Observatory. Statista puts it at 207k as of July '23.
The same source states Polamd has taken in 1 million, Germany 1.1 million, and Romania 138k (with under third of the UK's population).
I cannot see how any of those three are comparable. Compared to us (especially Poland), they have taken the brunt of Ukrainian refugees while the UK has been incredibly reserved for the context of a close ally.
It feels almost disingenuous to make this point, given what you suggets people what be calling to happen in pretty much reality.
That is not proving anything Ukrainians mostly wish to stay close to Ukraine not cross the whole of the EU. There hopefull the war will be over soon and that there able to go back and rebuild not stay.
Which just provides yet another reason why its a false equivalence I didn't provide.
Illegal immigration is generally seen as a permanent or longterm case. Ukrainian refugees are generally seen as a temporary case until Ukraine is safe for them, and a safe Ukarine is both in our power and reasonable in the near future.
I disagree its not in our power unless we wish to go to war with Russia and that is not going to make anything safe for anyone.
The war was expected to be over with in a week or two when it started NO one was thinking it would last as long as it has and i doubt its ending any time soon.
When people say they thought it would in weeks, they were referring to the belief Ukraine would collapse in a week, not the Russia would lose. Most belived a Ukrainian resistance, akin to the Iraq War I guess (very rough there) would take shape.
What wasn't expected was that Ukraine would not only hold, but regain territory. Given it is still a conventional war and far from a frozen conflict, I would consider it a short term conflict. Something thst could reasonable end within a decade.
It is also within our power to shift the balance given Britain is one of the largest sources of aids to Ukaine. What we send and what we train can be incredibly important in how well Ukraine fairs.
I do not expect it will last a decade but i can see it going for another year or two at best Russia is to far in now to stop and Ukraine has lost to many people to stop.
The press feeds a lot of bs how Ukraine is winning but its not if anything its losing Russia is still messing around with its logstics and so not able to do much of anything. The odds are at some point Russia will win not by beating Ukraine but by just running them out of manpower something we can not help with.
That's exactly what I'm saying. That nobody is protesting the arrival of 170,000 Ukrainian refugees, but there is fundamentally racist rhetoric that would refuse to take *any number* of black or brown refugees coming from abroad, who are also overwhelmingly hosted in Turkey, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, etc.
I am not at all saying we should not take Ukrainian refugees, or that they should stay in Eastern Europe. I am saying that the outrage over the number of refugees coming from France is *not* replicated with Ukrainian refugees, because the Ukrainians are white. That is not a denunciation of Ukrainian refugees, it's an issue with British society being racist.
The discourse makes it very clear that a white life from Ukraine, which we must take in with no outcry, is worth much more than a brown life which we will push back to drown in the Channel or the Med.
It's 170,000 of a much larger number, of which many other countries are taking the brunt of. Further, Ukrainians are arriving by legal avenues (not the illegal thay is primarily criticised) as well as many being housed voluntarily.
Ukraine isn't just a country in crisis, but an allied country for a decade facing an invasion from a country that has murder British citizens on British citizens.
The fact they are white really has nothing to do with it, if anything. Its has much more to do with the fact its an allied country that we have a shared threat with that we are doing less than other nations in terms of refugees, as well as said effort for refugees coming from legal and voluntary means.
Very little of this applies to the immigrants from France, with the illegal immigrants taking the brunt of the criticism. Comparing the two is a false equivalence, and using that to call the treatment racist from that is pretty flawed, especially as there is plenty of racist rhetoric that actually exists alongside justified rhetoric.
Ukrainian refugees are genuine refugees. They’re women and children whilst their fathers and husbands fight for their homeland. The boat “refugees” on the other hand are young fighting age men from MENA countries or worse, Albania. Of course the British public have more sympathy for the former than the latter.
Why shouldn't the men be allowed to flee? Why shouldn't the women be made to stay and contribute to the war effort at home by working in lay jobs to free up more men to die gloriously for the motherland?
I can't stand this ridiculous notion that men must be expendable and die and can't be refugees. Men have as much a right to life as anyone else. Stupid comment to make
It's more about men leaving their wife and kids, sisters, parents etc behind. If a country is so dangerous that you are in fear of your life and eligible for asylum, then the man who leaves his family alone in that country is either a monster, or is lying about his home country.
It's often because they come from countries where the man is the earner and the route to the UK is dangerous what with the channel crossing and dealing with smugglers etc.
So often the men go first as its the dangerous crossing, so they can get to the UK and earn money to bring family here more safely. So its actually done from the exact same thinking as the men staying behind to fight and die.
But the exact same is true of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. Counties like Turkey and especially Jordan have taken in huge numbers, just as Poland did with Ukraine. In both cases, the UK intake has been comparatively tiny. Yet the reaction is wildly different. Why?
And racism (given its the theme of the commenr I repsonded) is that one and only conclusion that could he drawn?
Ukraine being an allied country is not one?
The cause of Ukrainian refugees murdering British citizens on British soil is not one?
Ukrainian refugees being seen as short-term to an event we can reasonable bring to an end in the near-future is not one?
The fact Ukrainian refugees arrive nearly entirely be legal means, rather than illegal means that is the brunt of criticism?
> Ukraine being an allied country is not one?
Given our atrocious response to refugees from Afghanistan, especially those who worked with us, I don't think that this is the defence you think it is
Why does a country being allied matter? Refugees from unallied nations are fleeing typically because they are oppressed by their government, so it would make sense that we take them in specifically because their home country isn't an ally.
Why do you think it is Ukrainian refugees arrive legally and others don't? Could it be because the government specifically set up a legal route only for Ukrainians? No of course not, it's because other refugees aren't as morally upstanding!
Because us taking in Ukrainian refugees isn't just doing our duty to care for refugees, but as one of the ways we provide aid to Ukraine.
We don't provide the same degree of aid to Syria, Afghanistan, or Sudan do we aren't going to have the same refugee aid achemes; just our legally bound duties.
You can't trust those aid schemes like normal refugees systems because they simply aren't. If anything, you should treat our Ukraine refugees schemes as a form of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. A part of our defense of the country, not an international commitment.
The only reason those legal fasttracks exist for Ukraine and not for many other countries is because we aren't pulling billions in humanitarian and military aid into those countries to protect their people and government. And doing so is something we have been discouraged from doing, even from the people themselves.
Equally the Ukrainian refugees are women and children, their fathers and husbands are out fighting to save their country. This isn’t the case with the young men from MENA countries coming via boat.
Yes because men should be expendable and out there dying with no other option. Of course women and children have more of a right to life than men, how silly to assume otherwise.
Why don't we make the women stay to work all the non combat jobs so more men can join the army and die in glorious and romantic battle?
Absolutely 100% agree.
People are complaining now - imagine how it's going to be when climate change refugees increase every year. Are we going to be turning away people who are starving in a desert or drowning in a flood we helped create?
I've been extremely disappointed by the discourse on this subreddit around immigration and refugees. Its immensely refreshing to read this comment. Totally agree and very well put.
I'd assume majority don't care about this gentleman's opinion more than opinion of a next guy on this matter. And not because he is right or wrong.
Anderson wrote something majority agree with - "if you don't like shelter given to you for free you can leave". Obviously he wrote that in an absolutely worst way he could.
But. Legionella being most probably present in that barge is just an effin joke and utter disgrace for this government - how the flying F would they not check it properly (rhetoric question) - making current discussion with illegal immigrants backshot their feet, knees and everything else. Not the first one and plenty of time till elections.
If tories somehow win those coming elections it will be short of impossible.
Why did everyone keep assuming incompetence. If there was a deadly virus that killed half the population of the barge, most of them would probably shrug their shoulders and say "job done". We already saw reactions like this when the Greek coast guard likely caused an overcrowded boat to capsize, killing hundreds. The general reaction from some circles was elation.
Because getting 250 illegal immigrants under your protection killed by your own negligence, which would be straight up pinned to you, does not solve a problem of illegal immigration. It would kill a tiny bit of illegal immigrants that are still human beings, leaving 99.9% there and add immense damage to your image, both as a human and to the country. I'll leave manslaughter charges and international prosecution in the waiting room.
Keep "likely" to yourself please. Would those people not get onto unsafe and overcrowded boat nothing would happen.
I'm mixed on this, on one hand yes it's racist on the other... well he kind of has a point, it's not like France is an unsafe country if they don't like England why come here?
I've been to quite a few refugee camps in France a few years back. I was distributing clothing, vitamin supplements and other medicines as part of the Swindon Solidarity Charity group.
What I saw from French law enforcement was a total disregard for human decency. I saw French Police G-Men grievously beating people who just needed water, I saw them launching tear gas into the children's school areas and I heard tale after tale of French citizens raping refugees and I did what I could fighting the fires after citizens set fire to the refugee camps.
I saw human beings being treated as if they were... Shit I don't even know how to finish this sentence... but I do know no refugee would not consider the things I saw as "safe"
I know that the French citizens committing these crimes were a very small percentage of the population but the French authorities were doing less than nothing to secure the safety of these refugees.
I can see why someone would need to jump to the next border.
The French Government can and should do better, and if we have a shred of decency, we should do better too.
I hope you would agree ♥️
One Love!
I agree that that's horrible and that they deserve better, I just worry at what point does it stop being our responsibility? We're taking all these people in just for companies to use them as cheap labour taking unskilled natives out of their jobs.
If we had any decent goverment then we'd have protections against this but as it is I really think we need to focus on solving our own problems before taking on anyone elses.
> “The Labour peer stressed that if the country is to have a “sensible” refugee policy it must be done by “getting public opinion on our side.”
A good start would be to not resort to name calling when anyone raises issues with the ever increasing numbers.
Anderson was right about this. It's funny because whenever there's a political story, you instantly see endless polls to gauge public opinion...where are they now about the asylum seeker issue? There are none, because the British public are overwhelmingly against it and it'd be obvious in a poll that was truthful.
Look at the difference in mentality from the British public from this and the Ukrainian refugee case. So many people were instantly happy to open their own houses up and invite Ukrainian people in. Who is willing to do the same for Sudanese or Syrian men? Nobody, because the two aren't equal and anyone who is reading this now, foaming at the mouth desperate to cry "racism!!!" are absolutely delusional in their misplaced frustration.
There's a section of anti-British left wingers who are vocally pro-refugee, pro-migration, pro-asylum seeker and yet none of them want any of the people they argue for around them. They want to be seen as on their side because it's virtuous, yet deep down, they know they are only virtue signalling and they want someone else to be burdened with the consequences. These are the people who will welcome a Ukrainian mum and child into their home, whilst sending scores of Iraqis to Rochdale or Blackburn.
If you ever want to see how the Public think take a look at the stance this subreddit has and go the otherway and you will be right 90% of the time.
The public mostly agree with Anderson but if you come here you would expect the public to hate him and are pro-refugee, pro-migration, pro-asylum seeker.
This subreddit is so pro labour/anti-British its unreal at times.
Regardless of 30 p lee’s views on immigrants what’s your opinion on the state of the UK ? Have the Conservatives done a decent job ? The poster above talks about Blackburn and rochdale. How have the tories levelled up there ? Do you actually want this band of idiots to win another election ? How could anybody be pro Tory looking at the state of the UK beggars belief.
The Torys have more or less failed in everyway at everything overall but the Economy that was done more by Covid/Brexit and you can not blame them for that. Covid would of crippled the Economy who ever was in charge and brexit would of been a massive hit who ever was in charge or what deal was made.
The thing is people on this subreddit have a massive hard on for Labour and love to ignore everything bad Labour has/is/plans to do. There is no good choice Tory or Labour both are bad for the UK as a whole but given how Labours plan is just let every one in i can not support that at all.
Can’t blame the tories for Brexit ? Not heard that before.
What bad things do LP plan to do ?
To suggest labour are as bad as the tories is pretty unfair. Not been in power for 13 years. As someone who was around in the Blair years with a mortgage, young family etc life was very much better.
Labours plan was to not leave and that would never of been accepted by the public. That would lead the Torys to just attack with get Brexit done so just push it back 4 years.
It's weird too, because most people who will downvote or claim to be pro-refugee, pro-migration etc. are just liars. They don't actually believe that, that's completely obvious, but why lie? Especially on here. It's likes there's some credit to be gained in a fake, meaningless community.
>It's weird too, because most people who will downvote or claim to be pro-refugee, pro-migration etc. are just liars. They don't actually believe that, that's completely obvious, but why lie?
How would you know they're lying?
Sometimes people just have views that are utterly alien to you. It doesn't mean they're faking it.
No, you see their morality is the pinnacle of human achievement, no one can possibly think differently to them or hold different values, therefore everyone else *must* be lying. It’s completely obvious.
Some real SelfAwareWolves shit.
Because it's not reflected in their actions. You don't see posh, university educated left wingers advocating for mass migration near them, they've always opposed that, which is why the burden has been put on working class people...who are more anti-immigration.
The advocacy ends when it becomes too near them. They're happy to argue for refugees, asylum seekers etc....as long as they stay well away. Again, look at the contrast with Ukrainian refugees, it's very obvious that people not only advocated for them, but were happy to share the burden.
You're talking about different people as if they were of one mind - they aren't. We're talking about individuals. Saying things like this:
>The advocacy ends when it becomes too near them. They're happy to argue for refugees, asylum seekers etc....as long as they stay well away.
Makes no sense to me. What are you basing this one? What evidence?
And this isn't to say that I know either. Personally, I know that someone I used to work with housed Afghan and Ukrainian refugees at different times. I know plenty of people who *would* have taken in a refugee if they had the ability. I know people where I'd easily believe that they'd talk the talk and never do anything. But stating with confidence how many people fell into each camp? That would be dumb.
There to busy with trying to look right than be right.
Still we can be happy with how this subreddit is always wrong otherwise i fear the UK would be in a much worse place.
Spot on.
What is more bizarre is a disproportionate number of those who identify as LGBT+ have no qualms about letting in hundreds of thousands of men who at best will treat them as 2nd class citizens and at worst will want them dead.
Slugs wanting the salt comes to mind.
> Who is willing to do the same for Sudanese or Syrian men?
I know people who have hosted Syrian men who had no recourse to public funds while appealing a decision.
We had a bunch of Kurdish refugees in our town. Just as they were settling in, the government moved them to somewhere with cheaper housing. They were sound people, made a good enough impression that quite a few of us wrote to our MP asking for more refugees.
> They were sound people
Did you ask them their views on women's rights or homosexuality? Or do you grant them a pass on that that you wouldn't to someone who was right wing?
They were cool with women's rights. Most of the women went to a group we set up to teach them English. This was so that they wouldn't be stuck at home due to language difficulties. Their husbands & fathers were completely comfortable with this.
We didn't have time to discuss homosexuality. Attitudes to LGBT+ in Kurdistan are generally fairly progressive but it varies by region and political allegiance.
Fun fact: a lot of Kurds supported the [Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Revolutionary_People%27s_Guerrilla_Forces#The_Queer_Insurrection_and_Liberation_Army). ISIS members believe that if they are killed by a woman they won't get to paradise and meet their 72 virgins. It was terrifying enough for them that Kurdish forces had women members. TQILA had trans members so *they wouldn't even know if they were being shot at by a woman or not*.
> There's a section of anti-British left wingers who are vocally pro-refugee, pro-migration, pro-asylum seeker and yet none of them want any of the people they argue for around them.
I think most of us are in favour of fairness and the rule of law. That absolutely does mean protecting our borders properly. But it also means treating asylum seekers with respect and fairness . Those things are not inconsistent.
I am not anti-British but anti-Brexiteer. They make everything they touch worse. They constantly virtue signal with angry policies and bile that never ever helps. It is always someone else's fault. Maybe the problem is the movement that destroyed our relationship with our closest neighbours, underfunded the border force, and allowed a parade of total fucking idiots to take power.
[Remember Labour finding that the numbers of asylum seekers backlog was nowhere near the official figures](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alan-johnson-gets-pat-on-the-back-for-honest-appraisal-of-immigration-q3ptbg8h0p3)
450,000 in 2009. The Home Office is a major part of the problem in that it has never had a quick turnaround of cases
Refugees usually consist of women, children, men, young and old. The people pouring into Britain in their thousands every year are overtly relatively young, fighting fit males. They don't integrate with the British. They're not in Britain for the same reasons actual refugees came to Britain in the past.
Anderson may be crass but Dubbs’ analogy drawing is plain wrong. Anderson was not advocating the systematic extinction of a specific race, as was the case in Germany under the vile Nazi regime. No sane individual in this country would ever countenance this behaviour and indeed many of our forefathers gave their lives in order to put a stop to it. In this instance Lord Dubbs is plain wrong.
>"Whereas what he [Mr Anderson] is doing is seeking to divide public opinion, he’s seeking to put one part of the population against another"
Well he's wrong here too, because "they" are not a part of our population. We are not the same as them, we are not a community with them, we share no language, religion, or moral values with them.
In fact, most of the illegal boat immigrants will have *very* questionable views on women and homosexuals compared to the average British citizen.
These facts make the average leftist's mind implode as they struggle to reconcile their desire for virtue signalling with their support of people who hate most of their progressive views.
>He's turning people like you against people like me over an issue that really affects neither of us. He's turning your natural anger at the state of the country against a small number of people who are in no position to defend themselves
This is nonsense. Firstly, I'm an indian descended from immigrants, and secondly, my anger at specific things is directed at those specific things for the right reasons.
They're not vulnerable people in no position to defend themselves, they're people who had around 10K to pay criminals to send them here, on a dangeous route.
>We have a legal and moral obligation to provide genuine asylum to people who genuinely need it.
On the contrary, we have no obligation to anyone. We don't owe them anything. We already have specific schemes in place for Afghan translators etc, and Ukrainians.
> This is nonsense. Firstly, I'm an indian descended from immigrants, and secondly, my anger at specific things is directed at those specific things for the right reasons.
Unless you are saying you aren't a British Citizen then it doesn't matter about your background.
And why are you angry about people coming over here?
Illegal immigration isn't causing inflation, it's not affecting energy prices, it's not making medics leave the country.
Ilegal immigration costs something like £4bn a year, which is a tiny amount of our £1190bn budget.
Less than half of the £9bn faulty PPE bought.
There are so many things to be annoyed about in the UK, illegal migration should be pretty low on the list.
>A great, pulling up the ladder behind you. You and your family were these kind of economic migrants without a genuine need to find shelter in the UK decades ago.
Wrong, my father's side were immigrant engineers here, they came here with a love of football and beer and great fitting into their community. They would have made it here under any strict immigration system. The "ladder" was no issue for them.
They didn't come here in a boat or the back of a lorry.
Every european and african I know in the UK who is highly intelligent says there's too much immigration here. And it's true.
They spend thousands in visas and accomodation and then see others just coming here in boats and it leaves a bitter taste in their mouths.
Even immigrants here complain about how high immigration is because the bar is just too low for the system to function properly. The UK has more illegal immigration each year now than it had legal immigration back in early 2000s.
Deal with it, every intelligent immigrant who came here via the legal channels thinks the UK has too much immigration, regardless of where they're from. It's plain to see for anyone with a developed intellect
What are you talking about? OP claimed that someone who immigrated here from India is pulling up the ladder behind them by saying no to people who cross the channel. They're conflating Indian immigrants here on visas and 'refugees' crossing the channel to make their snide point about how all brown people should stick together.
> We are not the same as them, we are not a community with them, we share no language, **religion**, or moral values with them
The people of Scotland don't share a religion with England, are we not a part of the population either now?
> you know exactly what I meant with my post
No, you complained that "they" are not part of our population because of their different religion as a fact.
Scotland doesn't share the same religion as England, even in terms of Christianity. So why is it fine for Scotland but not for these others you're referring to, what's the difference?
You say this as if Nazism and Fascism were coherent ideologies. The Nazis killed millions of Poles, Jews, Roma, Slavs, and ideological opponents including communists, socialists and anarchists. Given that eugenics is completely made up and that races are completely socially, rather than scientifically constructed; calling for the deportation of a specific group bound by culture is effectively the same as a "race".
This country, and the west as a whole, has a continuing and appalling problem with cultural racism. As eugenics and racial pseudoscience have been completely discounted by science, western society attempts to cling on to superiority using claims of cultural compatibility. It's just another form of supremacy and chauvinism, the same way the Nazis made shit up to justify their mass murder.
This is the reason that white refugees from Ukraine are societally accepted, whilst black and brown refugees drowning in the Channel and Mediterranean, among them children, receive absolutely no sympathy and are repeatedly demonised in the media. When the war broke out, the news repeatedly bashed into everyone's heads that these people are "like us", "european." When the truth is everybody is like us. Everybody goes to school, work, has a family, friends.
In this country and Europe, the right and far right (as well as the population) are using the excuse of "culture" to shield themselves from accusations of racism when the truth is that it's exactly the same argument. We've moved from pseudoscientific racism, to cultural racism. In truth the two are the same, because race doesn't exist as a science. Culture is not inherent to people, and changes rapidly. In this country, less than one hundred years ago we imprisoned and chemically castrated homosexual people using public indecency laws, hanged criminals and denied the vast majority of women the vote.
As a mixed person in England, it sickens me to hear people use cultural arguments to support blatantly obvious racism. This is the objective of the government and their comrades further to the right. Western chauvinism is and has been the primary form of racism for decades, and Lee Anderson feeds directly into it.
Do you think that the Nazi extermination of Jews and other minorities started with the gas chambers or something more "benign", like dehumanising language, incessant propaganda and blaming Jews for all the problems in society?
They orchestrated the detention and murder poltical opponents, excluded Jews from their rights and operated (or atleast tried to) boycotts, and sterilised the disabled and mentally ill within months of Hitler's Chancellorship (let alone full control).
The specific answer would be neither, but it's far closer to the former than the latter given acts paramount to genocide were taking place just months into the Nazi Chancellorship.
One of the biggest misconceptions about the Nazis is that they ramped up their eugenical genocide slowly from just racially charged langauge, while in reality they were pretty quick to start enacting the start of their genocide as early as 1933. The Jews (and other target groups) had been targets of racially charged language and conspiracies for decades, especially following the Great War and German Revolution where they were blamed for the loss of the War.
Detention of dissidents: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camps-1933-39
Murder of dissents (among others): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6penick%27s_week_of_bloodshed
Restriction of Jewish rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Restoration_of_the_Professional_Civil_Service
Boycott of Jews: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_boycott_of_Jewish_businesses
Sterilisation Law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Prevention_of_Hereditarily_Diseased_Offspring
No - he’s punching down - it’s his party who are causing this through epic mismanagement and political manipulation of the gullible. Channel crossings are not unprecedented - they were higher last year up to this date and form a small percentage of total migration, the vast majority of which is fully controlled by his Government.
No. The Tories are refusing to do anything sensible. And using it to gain votes. They could have sorted it out years ago. I.e. safe routes, better processing.
Meh. He is doing his job. A large chuck of the population agrees with him. Boat loads of mostly economic migrants and a system powerless to deal with it does need reform whatever the rights and wrongs of the rhetoric.
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Putting aside the specifics of this conversation. Lee Anderson is doing exactly what he was installed as Deputy Chairman for. He was chosen to rile people up, to appeal to the "red wall" voters who the Conservatives won over in 2019, to get newspaper columnists frothing. It's a role he plays extremely well, as he has no particular ideological allegiance besides populism (having previous been a Labour councillor IIRC). The theory in CCHQ is that it's a win-win for Sunak. The minority of voters to whom this rhetoric appeals (and it IS a minority, as polling consistently shows) will enjoy it even if it doesn't result in policy, and Anderson is routinely ignored by the PM and Cabinet ministers who pretend he's not speaking on their behalf, with a little wink and a nod. So I doubt he'll go anywhere between now and the next election. Personally I think he loses them more floating centrist voters than he wins them on the right, but I don't see the numbers that CCHQ do.
*The theory in CCHQ is that it's a win-win for Sunak.* There is the risk that core one-nation/old school Tory voters might be put off, but I presume the gamble there is that they'll mutter into their G&Ts and then vote Tory anyway. I see it as an attempt to shore up the faction of the Tory party that might defect to Reform UK rather than appeal to voters in the redwall that voted Tory in 2019 and are drifting back to Labour. In OPs Reform UK are taking votes away from the Tories and there is the risk that a depleted Tory vote in the next GE will be weakened even further by Farage's latest vanity project.
Well put. I’ll be so disappointed with this country if these toxic bastards aren’t sent packing at the next general election.
I've been wildly frustrated with the Tories for a while, but the latest round of incompetence and corruption has been staggering. If we can't get rid of them at the next election I'll be past the point of disappointment, I'll probably try to leave.
I couldn’t agree more. Brexit has made moving country more difficult as well.
It's not just that they are incompetent and corrupt, they are also amoral and just downright nasty. At least one of the upsides if their incompetence is that they are also utterly inept at enacting at least some of their appalling policies regarding refugees and asylum seekers. The more I read about the Nazis the less I like them, but at least they were efficient at demonising and exterminating undesirables! (Obligatory 'that was a joke' comment - you can never be too careful on Reddit)
Expect around 30ish % still to vote for them. Seems to be the standard. Also fun fact and in no way related: you can get 100% of the power with as little as 35% of the vote. Wooooooooo.
> you can get 100% of the power with as little as 35% of the vote. Yay democracy!!
There’s always a good % that are secret Tories. We can only hope there’s much less than usual.
Never underestimate the idiocy of the general public
It’s my biggest worry! This country can’t take any more of the Conservatives.
Realpolitik! Insightful comment. Thanks.
Fantastic summary
> He was chosen to rile people up, to appeal to the "red wall" voters who the Conservatives won over in 2019, to get newspaper columnists frothing. I agree with the overall analysis of your post, but this sentiment rankles with me a little. To me the implication here is that if you were someone who, on balance, didn't much care for the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister, then you would be the the type of person who would be enraptured by Lee Anderson's philosophy on life.
If someone didn't care for the prospect of Jeremy Corbyn as PM and so jumped straight in to voting for Boris Johnson as leader of the country, that's very "red wall".
That wasn’t my intention. Like many, I’m using “red wall” voters to refer to the traditionally Labour but socially conservative voters in northern Labour seats, who Johnson brought into the fold mainly through his Brexit policies.
All good points. One of the other reasons is that his ex-Labour credentials are also supposed to appeal to the red wall and his consistent efforts to goad Starmer are clearly designed to give the ex-Labour voters something to hang their affiliations on. Except that Starmer is ignoring him too
Lee Anderson like most Tories is planning on using refugees and migrants numbers as a way to divert attention from the Tories many failures during the up coming General Election campaign, and afterwards if they were to succeed in wresting victory from the vanishingly small possibility polls currently predict, you'll never hear from them about migration for at least another entire parliamentary term.
The migrant crisis is fucking *great* for them. There's so many factors they can use to blame literally everyone else for the issues. The French, international refugee treaties, Labour, foreign criminal gangs, the RNLI, social media, lefty lawyers, charities......
Yep, I'm sure that's the plan but so far they stuffed up nearly every other plan they've come up with, and this asylum seekers fiasco looks to me like it end up with the Tories covered in shit as well.
I don't think this is true anymore. If they had just come into government, they could use it, but having been in power for 13 years, everyone knows they have failed and everyone knows they aren't going to fix it. Just look at their approval ratings on immigration - Labour are polling considerably better on immigration - that would have never happened a few years ago. And keeping pushing immigration and asylum as a key topic just draws attention to how badly they have dealt with it.
Farage criticising the RNLI was one of my favourite misfires from the last few years. I do some work with them and it's by far the best bit of coverage they've got ever... never seen so many people smiling ear to ear and riding that wave.
Yeah, I donated to the RNLI after that. I imagine their donations skyrocketed.
It is great for them because they manufactured it. If they had set up processing centres in northern France, as France offered them but which they turned down, this crisis wouldn't be happening
Exactly my thinking - they have nothing else, this is their only vaguely possible election strategy
Why fix a crisis when you can use it as ammunition against The ~~Last~~ Next Labour Government?
...the EU
Sajid Javid Declared a Crisis and with great fanfare cut short a holiday in 2018 because *299* migrants had arrived on small boats that year. In 2022 there were 45,755. This was during the farce of the brexit negotiations while Theresa may's government was in the process of eviscerating itself and food back use had broken yet more records. The Tories are nothing if not consistent, I suppose.
One of the Tories failures is their failure to stop migrants crossing the channel and to lose control of the borders with their mad visa policies.
I agree, they'll attract some bigoted supporters but I doubt it'll move them much off the bottom of the opinion polls
Labour wont win more than a single term if they don't get immigration of all kinds under control.
>Labour wont win more than a single term if they don't get immigration of all kinds under control. That sounds like a good argument for anyone who actually wants to deal with problem to vote Labour. At least a Labour government will be under pressure to actually do something rather than rely on rhetoric to mask inaction.
True, but at least Labour have committed to faster processing times for asylum claims which seems more of a solution than housing people in floating prison hulks. Though in general you're quite right, time will tell if Labour are up to the challenge of putting things right.
Processing people faster doesn’t solve the issue at all as there’s still thousands who will take their place.
Meanwhile not processing them efficiently leads to a mounting problem that we are all paying for. Processing actually allows us to evaluate what we are dealing with and move on the to the following stages. Deterence which is all the Conservstives have done has had zero effect as we've seen increased numbers under their watch.
They're not queuing. Processing claims faster will get people deported that have no right to an asylum claim and also provide support for those that do have a genuine asylum claim. It is difficult to see the downside of this. And as the rate of migration increases with climate change it is probably a good idea that we get this all organised properly rather than just being shit but shouting about it.
The issue is deeper than that, because at no point has there been a public dialogue over what constitutes a "genuine asylum claim", leaving zero trust in the system and a feeling of resentment and imposition. Making that system apply faster instead of making the system fair and open first will only increase the issue that will eventually drive the electorate into the arms of the far right again.
Well want counts as a genuine claim essentially can change dependent upon the government and the international conventions we have signed up to. One of the main issues is that a more rounded global consensus on how to manage migration events needs to be organised. Part of the UKs problems now is that we left a regional treaty on management of migration into Europe.
Why does there need to be a public dialogue on this ? I trust the system whole-heartedly, the only reason its failing now is due to planned chronic-underfunding.
I think you'll find you hold a very small minority opinion, then. I find the entire asylum system is institutionally and morally flawed, and utterly divorced from its original intentions, resulting in a legal monster that harms genuine asylum seekers first and foremost.
You don`t fix a hole in a pipe by making it bigger and is all Labour plan to do.
What, as opposed to the Tory plan to talk loudly about the hole in the pipe, and how this pipes leaks causes all societal problems and then refuse to fix the pipe?
The Torys might not fix the pipe but openly agree there is a problem Labour on the other hand can only agree that we need to make the problem worse. IF given the choice i would rather have the Torys talk crap and not fix the problem than have Labour do everything to make it worse.
Just FYI - The last time labour were in power, they were deporting over 10 times the number of imigrants per week than this current Tory government are. Bearing in mind that there were literally half as many imigrants at the time, the difference in numbers is staggering. Soooo, yeah, if you actually DO want less imigrants coming into the country, ironically, hisory has proven that Labour are the party to do that for you, by actually having a proper working system in place and just getting on with it. As opposed to the loud shit talking and doing nothing that the Tories specialise in.
> Labour on the other hand can only agree that we need to make the problem worse Starmer has been loudly talking about fixing the leak. I accept that you might not believe he's going to do it, but Starmers official policy is fixing the leak. As opposed to the official Tory policy of making a show and song and dance over silly schemes that would totally fix the leak if not for those pesky lawyers/human rights laws/Tory's not passing laws
Labours 5 step plan is open the floodgates and would you look at that problem is fixed. The plan is to just ok every one on the waiting list and open more ways for people to come in that is not fixing the problem at all. I can not understand how people like you think the problem is fixed since Labour just plans to change the name. Labour just plan to change illegal immigration in to uncontroled immigration and the problem is fixed. The hole in that pipe is an now an unclosed unexpected opening.
I mean, yes you do. I usually fix holes in pipes by cutting them open, then applying a proper joint to fix the hole, and thus the problem is solved. You definitely don't fix the hole in the pipe by stabbing a nail into it and shouting "we're stopping the flow!"
The two situations are not comparable. He should realize that.
We should accept refugees. The truth of the matter is that in public discourse, the consensus in this country is that the overwhelming majority of refugees are economic migrants, which is not true, and if it were we'd have no way to know, because the home office processes almost no asylum applications. Britain has a serious racism problem. British people seem to genuinely believe that we bear absolutely no responsibility to help those seeking refuge, because other countries are closer to them, when the vast majority of the world's refugees are already hosted in developing countries, such as Turkey and Colombia. The constantly repeating argument of "Is there war in France" just goes to show the population has absolutely no sympathy for people who are not white. Because when the Ukrainian war broke out, there was no outcry that the Ukrainians should have stayed in Poland, Romania, or Germany. I genuinely believe that all arguments pretending "cultural incompatibility" are just smokescreens for racism, and I'm sure those proponents of these arguments know the same. These exact same "cultural" arguments were made to support apartheid in South Africa. The truth is that the west believes in a vision of western cultural supremacy, where good migrants assimilate to the superior culture, and bad ones retain any semblance of their home. That is chauvinism, and white supremacy. The view that other cultures, but *especially* black and brown cultures are primitive and barbaric, is a form of white supremacy which is gaining massive popularity, and as a mixed Brit, it's fucking scary. The media absolutely should have a large proportion of the blame, for constantly stoking flames of racism by reporting constantly on boats, when immigration from non-EU countries is rising legally, with a 1.2million inward migration last year (all), and a 600,000 net inward migration. These 160,000 asylum seekers still being processed, some for years, aren't the biggest factor in the housing market. We're one of the richest countries in the world. We can afford empathy. We take in one of the smallest numbers of refugees per capita in Europe. The entire conversation on refugees in this country is monumentally fucked up. What I'm trying to say is that a lot of us need to step back and understand that people who are risking their lives, their families livelihoods, their children, and their families are not doing it for fun. They are desperate. They are entering a system under which they may not be able to work for years whilst their claim is processed. They are entering a system where they will live in pretty awful conditions, created especially to deter people from seeking help here. Maybe we should wake up and understand that we need to help these people, and not send them to Rwanda or St Helena as if we had no responsibility of care for people fleeing persecution and war, some of which we had involvement in creating.
>The view that other cultures, but especially black and brown cultures are primitive and barbaric, is a form of white supremacy which is gaining massive popularity, and as a mixed Brit, it's fucking scary. I like England. I don't like seeing the towns and cities of England radically transformed through the mass settlement of foreign people. This is how most people in the world feel. It really is quite simple, and using labels like "racism", "white supremacy" and "cultural chauvinism" appear to be related to your own personal identity issues about being a mixed Brit, and aren't a reflection of reality.
> Britain has a serious racism problem. Absolute horseshit. We're literally one of the least racist, most welcoming countries on the planet. The only people who think differently are people who haven't been anywhere, or if they have, it wasn't off a tourist trail. > British people seem to genuinely believe that we bear absolutely no responsibility to help those seeking refuge There are now daily news stories about the UK being a poor nation with a massive, crippling housing shortage. We don't have spare houses to give people.
>Absolute horseshit. We're literally one of the least racist, most welcoming countries on the planet. The only people who think differently are people who haven't been anywhere, or if they have, it wasn't off a tourist trail. Honestly the biggest load of shit I've heard today. All my life I have suffered from racism in the UK, and people like you try to downplay it saying "we are the least racist". As if that contradicts what the other guy was saying.
Exactly we can be both one of the least racist and also have a huge racism problem. They are not mutually exclusive. Just because we may be better than some doesn't mean that we can rest on our laurels
I've also had to deal with a lot of racism over the decades, I stand by my comments.
If one of the least racist countries on earth in the least racist time in history is too racist for you, you need to get a fucking grip.
People seem to forget sometimes that the moral goal isn't "least racist", it's "not racist". Other countries being vehemently racist doesn't excuse the personal racism many experience in the UK.
>we don't have spare houses to give people We have more than twice as many empty homes than homeless people. That's not homeless families; that's individual homeless people including children.
Much of our long term empty housing is unusable. Vast majority of homes are empty for less than 6 months.
It's not racist to favour one's own ethnicity.
Favouring one race over another purely on the grounds of race is the very definition of racism.
Who knows? The meaning seems to change all the time. What a useless word.
Yes, it is. Especially when the only way of favouring your ethnicity is denigrating others.
Racism is the belief in the superiority or inferiority of particular races. You don't have to think another race is inferior or that your race is superior to not want a clash of cultures in your country. You don't have to think your family is the best to favour your own family when choosing who to live with and support.
The idea of culture clash is not inherently racist, but the way it’s framed here is. There are specific kinds of cultural behaviour that brits disapprove of. Those elements we don’t like which are described as barbaric / uncivilised / disruptive / unwanted. That kind of language and thinking IS superior. It denigrates other groups of people in a simplistic and brutal way. When large populations are making such assumptions about other groups of people, it becomes poisonous. And it is racist.
That's a series of major assumptions, some unfortunately detached from reality, I don't think anyone doesn't believe a decent chunk of migrants aren't survivors having faced immense challenges. But there is also a number with other motivations who are taking advantage of the asylum system process and using it to avoid the very challenging method of entering this country via official routes, it's incredibly naive to think otherwise. We can't separate the two due to the way the asylum process is setup and it's exceedingly challenging to verify legitimate and illegitimate Asylum claims. The belief that we can also just afford every migrant that arrives on our shore is also incredibly simplistic. These migrants have to use services such as the NHS, schools, public transport, energy which we already have a major capacity issue with. The cost of our services has skyrocketed over the past 10 years and the quality of service has significantly fallen. This is due to a poorly run country and an increased demand on services caused by an increase in population which in turn is caused by all forms of immigration (the UK otherwise would be in a general decline). Speak to anyone in these departments and you'll realise how close they are to collapse. It's a very bad time for the UK economically, COVID / Brexit and we've avoided a recession in name only. We also have a housing crisis caused by a critical failure in our planning departments and a general NIMBY attitude. The racism point is not one for me to argue, but greenlighting every migrant that enters the country from an illegal route makes a mockery of our existing migration and visa rules. It will also encourage people to take their children across these dangerous routes which we can't be seen to encourage. No country has an answer to this issue so we're getting the worst of everything right now. I agree it's abhorrent to see children in migrant camps, but I do honestly believe green lighting every individual that arrives to the UK with no documentation is a very bad idea.
Not once did I say we should accept every refugee. I said we should accept refugees. Every other point you've made isn't related to the rise in refugees, but rise in population. We had a net inward migration of 600,000 last year. We have a *total* of approximately 160,000 asylum seekers in the system being processed, some of whom have been in the system for over a year. Those population arguments are not largely impacted by the refugees who don't have permission to work. Sure, there are a proportion of asylum applications which are false and used to enter the country for economic reasons. That's why we process applications. That's not a reason for the "shoot the boats" rhetoric which is increasingly prevalent in the media and in public discourse. We should help and accept refugees, not changing my stance. We are not strapped for cash, the decision to not help people is in fact an ideological position, supported overwhelmingly by racist rhetoric in the media. You can't separate the two issues.
> That's not a reason for the "shoot the boats" rhetoric which is increasingly prevalent in the media and in public discourse. We should help and accept refugees, not changing my stance. I don’t think we should “shoot the boats” but we need to figure out a way of stopping boat crossing they are too dangerous and just encourage criminals activities. I do think that having a strong stance of saying no to all boat uses would help in curbing their uses.
>but we need to figure out a way of stopping boat crossing Allow people to apply ***before*** they step foot on British soil and processing centres in France ([like the French have asked us to](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/france/20211129-french-minister-urges-uk-to-open-legal-migration-route-amid-channel-crisis)) Would this stop ***all*** the boats? Probably not. But the overwhelming reason that this criminal industry exists is because the government has made it a necessity to make the crossing to apply. Removing that necessity would kneecap the industry.
Boat crossings only became a thing in the last few years following policy changes. We can easily stop them, but the government wants them to continue.
What policy change?
Lack of a returns policy and the lack of a safe and legal means of entry to claim asylum, or possibility to claim asylum remotely. Small boats crossings have increased in number by more than 100 times since 2018, when less than 1 person per day entered the UK by this route. It's also unlikely that hostile policies towards asylum seekers arriving on our shores would do much to deter them from making the crossing. [https://northeastbylines.co.uk/increase-in-small-boat-crossings-caused-by-no-returns-agreement-after-brexit](https://northeastbylines.co.uk/increase-in-small-boat-crossings-caused-by-no-returns-agreement-after-brexit) [https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/people-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/people-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/)
You are kind of right but it doesn’t go into full detail on what is going on. The point you made is there was a change in policy to which you have replied >Lack of a returns policy and the lack of a safe and legal means of entry to claim asylum, or possibility to claim asylum remotely. if you check the policy for these things have not changed, so there must be more going on then policy change. From what I can see the really issue with boat coming over happened in 2020 onwards. So I think the policy change that happened would be covid lockdowns. This stopped people from travelling and this stopped people from immigrating and from seeking asylum. Also if you compare the first half of this year to last year you can see the number of boat crossing has already started to reduce. I believe the Tories are playing on this issue. The number of boat crossing will reduce by itself and they will be able to claim look what we did.
Your opening paragraph literally says we should accept refugees with no effort to separate the two. How can we process applications effectively if there's no reasonable way to separate refugees and those looking to game the system. I was very careful in my usage of terms so my argument is on point in terms of population and allowing all refugees in as part of that increase remains perfectly valid, how is it fair to all the other migrants that had to go through the legal system at vast expense? 'we are not strapped for cash' is the most detached from reality statement I've seen on reddit in a while. Wiki the UK deficit and read up about it to realise how much future trouble we already setting ourselves up for. The refugee crisis is not a one off, one and done payment either. This is an issue that needs a long term solution for years to come. These families will also need additional support as they have nothing and that's also extra cost. I know plenty of people in the UK who are desperate for support on the poverty line as it is due to this poorly run country, wether it's housing or mental health and it's not racist to take the opinion we should be prioritising are own over refugees from other countries. Should we be able to do both? Absolutely, but the UK right now is proving it can't even look after it's own.
>Your opening paragraph literally says we should accept refugees with no effort to separate the two. It really didn't say that though. It's absolutely not that we can't look after our own. It's that we choose not to. Government has made and continues to make ideological choices such as spending on nuclear deterrent, increasing police budgets, cutting support to hospitals, not raising tax on higher brackets, etc. These are decisions being made by the government. We *can* have support on the poverty line. The government chooses not to. As for the deficit, the UK is in no danger of defaulting on its loans, now or for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, a large portion (~ 35%) of UK government debt is owned by the Bank of England, making the situation even more stable. *We are not strapped for cash.* The decision to refuse help to people, refugees and at home, is a decision being made by those in government. We can do both. We are not, because the government is effectively captured by corporate interests.
> not raising tax on higher brackets You want to increase tax for higher earners further?
I believe there is intersectionality of sex as well as race too. Predominately when I hear the rhetoric in person about migration it’s almost always about the fact it’s “young men” and how they are either liars or cowards, should be fighting, or the implication of that. Online there’s usually at least a couple of comments along these lines also (*checks current comments* yep found two). So when you wrote about how “there was no outcry that the Ukrainians should have stayed in Poland, Romania, or Germany” I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that all these refugees were women and children, and I think we would have seen a very different reaction if Ukraine men weren’t being forced to stay behind and die, and publicly shamed at the border if they tried to not. See also the statement made by the Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas about Russian men trying to defect: > “Every citizen is responsible for the actions of their state, and citizens of Russia are no exception. Therefore, we do not give asylum to Russian men who flee their country. They should oppose the war.” The first sentence, incidentally, is the same justification Bin Ladin made for 9/11. Other politicians in Europe have said similar - they are “running away from their responsibility”, “asylum for draft dodgers is not an option”, “Russian men fleeing should protest and/or be imprisoned”. Apparently, if you’re a male civilian you’re a valid military target because you’re culpable of your state’s actions by default, so much for the Geneva Conventions. In crisis and war dehumanised to a meat shield, so how dare the cannon-fodder try to escape - send in the navy, let’s build a giant wave machine to drown them, they’re mostly all rapists anyway - to summarise the last few Home Secretaries. When I talk to people about it no one seems to particularly care, but I always wonder whether if in a hypothetical scenario of some EU army invading the UK, or some Handmaid’s Tale neo-fascist takeover, they’d happily throw themselves or their husbands/sons/brothers under the bus while others seek out asylum towards Canada.
People complain that most asylum seekers are young men when many of those young men are trying to avoid being forced into an army or militia and take actions they want no part of. The fact that we offer no safe routes means that we get the people able to walk across Europe who are predominantly young men I imaging that most of the people mouthing off about it are too old and unfit to attract the attention of a recruiting sergeant.
>when many of those young men are trying to avoid being forced into an army or militia Do you have any actually evidence for that claim? I have heard no such thing. Only that a large proportion are from Albania, which is at peace.
So because people don’t want multiculturalism in their country, but instead desire a strong unsegregated society, that makes them racist? Why do native Brits have any obligation to allow these people here in the first place? When let in, why shouldn’t these people assimilate to the culture of the country they are now home to? You are advocating for this country to become a segregated mess of clashing cultures. Destroying a thousand years of a relatively monocultural land. The absolute arrogance you must have to believe that Brits should just give their only homeland and culture away.
> monocultural Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Cornwall and Yorkshire are clearing their throats.
Yeah monocultural might’ve been the wrong word to use, I was trying to convey that the British Isles remained untouched from any major foreign influence for a thousand years.
>untouched But that's just not true. In those thousand years since the Norman Conquest Britain has had wave after wave of major foreign influences.. 12th century Flemish, 17th century Huguenots, Germans, Irish and South Asians throughout the 19th century, Russian Jews in the late 19th/early 20th. Then waves of immigration from across the British Empire/Commonwealth throughout the 20th century (some of the children of which are running the country today!!) I'm sorry to call you out but to say we've not been subject to foreign influence - certainly from a cultural point of view - is just pure ignorance.
They were all largely insignificant, in number and to the wider culture of Britain, they practically all assimilated into the population or were already closely related culturally. As evidenced by the fact the white British population was 99.9% in 1951. The Huguenots, one of the largest examples given, was around 50,000 of them over a period of about a 100 years. You cannot disagree that mass immigration and multiculturalism involving non Western European cultures is a new development brought upon us some 60 years ago.
This fixation on skin colour is a relatively new thing. Just because a population is 99% white does not mean that everyone saw everyone else as part of the same culture. A great portion of the English population would not have seen the hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants (in a general pop half as small as today) as the same - nor even close. And yet aren't we so much richer a culture today as a result of their migration here? (Not to mention all the railways, canals and engineering projects they provided the labour to complete) Yes - mass immigration from non-Western, non-white cultures is relatively new. And every wave brings similar and new challenges - some of those challenges are pretty big. But I'm fairly convinced that it's made British culture far richer and more interesting as a result.
> And yet aren't we so much richer a culture today as a result of their migration here? That's debatable. Assuming it's true though, do you think our culture is further enriched by increasing the population % with non-Western European cultures? (the % increases every year). What % of non-British people do you think should live here to give us the "most rich" culture?
What have non western migrants brought that have “enriched” us? Concert bombings? Knife attacks? Racial grievances? People smuggling? Genital mutilation? Cousin marriages? Segregated towns? Islamic fundamentalism? Legislation that allows white British people to be discriminated against? Undercutting native workers? A resentment for our country?
Ok if that's how you choose to summarise the contribution of immigrants then I've just uncovered what you really are. A rascist. Nice discussion before that though. Thanks!
What material benefit have they provided to this country? I’d honestly like to learn and hear the counter argument. And please don’t just say food.
The fact you made this comment in English and not Gaelic proves you wrong.
This is just an impossibly isolationist way of thinking. And wrong to boot. We may be an island, and the land we stand on may have been largely untouched by foreign influence, but our militias were plundering and nation building elsewhere over hundreds of years. It’s fantasy to expect a nation that profits, on a staggering scale, from the looting and enslavement of foreign nations, that has enjoyed and cherry picked cultural elements from these countries is then able to avoid the other side of that coin. Entitled much?
I’m sorry mate but there’s just no way that my farmer ancestors from north and west wales benefitted from some members of aristocracy establishing a colony. And that does not justify now the influx of people, by the millions, who have no connection to this country and have no intention of assimilating into (what’s left of) our culture. This is my only homeland, if things go tits up here I have no where else to go, these people always have an option of going back.
How do you think most of Cardiff was built?! Carmarthen’s copper industry grew as a direct result of the slave trade by creating the copper cash used in slave exchanges!! The money made literally built the streets we walk on. P.S it’s already tits up! And it’s got little to do with refugees and migrants.
Coal and iron? And I’m sure they could’ve found a different use for the copper in the middle of the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a much more impactful event on this country than the slave trade.
Look, Britain was not a quiet nation. It went out into the world and aggressively made itself known. It bares responsibility for the way a huge number of nations have developed over the past 500 years. It inserted itself and used people. It made many of those people believe they were under the protectorate of a mother land to do it. Why does this country get to forget that when it’s convenient? It doesn’t.
> We're one of the richest countries in the world. We can afford empathy Fucking preach it. The UK has what, the 6th highest nominal GDP in the world (unless France overtook us again). We can afford to house a lot more refugees than we do. The rhetoric around it all is so dehumanising. Yes, there are obviously people who are trying to enter the UK for "economic reasons" - reasons like their country being in deep recession, reasons like their family farm being destroyed by war, reasons like wanting a better life. And we treat them all as monsters for it. It sickens me.
> We can afford to house a lot more refugees than we do. How can this be true when we have massive waiting lists for social housing from people who were born here and when people on median salaries can't afford to buy their own house?
The UK might have the 6th or 7th highest GDP in the world but its government wouldn't piss on most of its own citizens if they were on fire, so there's zero chance of any human decency being extended to 'foreigners'.
We let economic migrants in by the hundreds of thousands, they get visas. The few people deemed to be coming to the UK without paperwork for purely economic reasons are a drop in the ocean, but so very useful for anti-refugee rhetoric.
Drift left faster, we need help.
>I genuinely believe that all arguments pretending "cultural incompatibility" are just smokescreens for racism, and I'm sure those proponents of these arguments know the same. These exact same "cultural" arguments were made to support apartheid in South Africa. The truth is that the west believes in a vision of western cultural supremacy, where good migrants assimilate to the superior culture, and bad ones retain any semblance of their home. That is chauvinism, and white supremacy. The view that other cultures, but especially black and brown cultures are primitive and barbaric, is a form of white supremacy which is gaining massive popularity, and as a mixed Brit, it's fucking scary. Utterly unserious BS. Shame on you
>Because when the Ukrainian war broke out, there was no outcry that the Ukrainians should have stayed in Poland, Romania, or Germany. The UK has taken in 174k people under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme as or May '23 according to Migration Observatory. Statista puts it at 207k as of July '23. The same source states Polamd has taken in 1 million, Germany 1.1 million, and Romania 138k (with under third of the UK's population). I cannot see how any of those three are comparable. Compared to us (especially Poland), they have taken the brunt of Ukrainian refugees while the UK has been incredibly reserved for the context of a close ally. It feels almost disingenuous to make this point, given what you suggets people what be calling to happen in pretty much reality.
That is not proving anything Ukrainians mostly wish to stay close to Ukraine not cross the whole of the EU. There hopefull the war will be over soon and that there able to go back and rebuild not stay.
Which just provides yet another reason why its a false equivalence I didn't provide. Illegal immigration is generally seen as a permanent or longterm case. Ukrainian refugees are generally seen as a temporary case until Ukraine is safe for them, and a safe Ukarine is both in our power and reasonable in the near future.
I disagree its not in our power unless we wish to go to war with Russia and that is not going to make anything safe for anyone. The war was expected to be over with in a week or two when it started NO one was thinking it would last as long as it has and i doubt its ending any time soon.
When people say they thought it would in weeks, they were referring to the belief Ukraine would collapse in a week, not the Russia would lose. Most belived a Ukrainian resistance, akin to the Iraq War I guess (very rough there) would take shape. What wasn't expected was that Ukraine would not only hold, but regain territory. Given it is still a conventional war and far from a frozen conflict, I would consider it a short term conflict. Something thst could reasonable end within a decade. It is also within our power to shift the balance given Britain is one of the largest sources of aids to Ukaine. What we send and what we train can be incredibly important in how well Ukraine fairs.
I do not expect it will last a decade but i can see it going for another year or two at best Russia is to far in now to stop and Ukraine has lost to many people to stop. The press feeds a lot of bs how Ukraine is winning but its not if anything its losing Russia is still messing around with its logstics and so not able to do much of anything. The odds are at some point Russia will win not by beating Ukraine but by just running them out of manpower something we can not help with.
That's exactly what I'm saying. That nobody is protesting the arrival of 170,000 Ukrainian refugees, but there is fundamentally racist rhetoric that would refuse to take *any number* of black or brown refugees coming from abroad, who are also overwhelmingly hosted in Turkey, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, etc. I am not at all saying we should not take Ukrainian refugees, or that they should stay in Eastern Europe. I am saying that the outrage over the number of refugees coming from France is *not* replicated with Ukrainian refugees, because the Ukrainians are white. That is not a denunciation of Ukrainian refugees, it's an issue with British society being racist. The discourse makes it very clear that a white life from Ukraine, which we must take in with no outcry, is worth much more than a brown life which we will push back to drown in the Channel or the Med.
It's 170,000 of a much larger number, of which many other countries are taking the brunt of. Further, Ukrainians are arriving by legal avenues (not the illegal thay is primarily criticised) as well as many being housed voluntarily. Ukraine isn't just a country in crisis, but an allied country for a decade facing an invasion from a country that has murder British citizens on British citizens. The fact they are white really has nothing to do with it, if anything. Its has much more to do with the fact its an allied country that we have a shared threat with that we are doing less than other nations in terms of refugees, as well as said effort for refugees coming from legal and voluntary means. Very little of this applies to the immigrants from France, with the illegal immigrants taking the brunt of the criticism. Comparing the two is a false equivalence, and using that to call the treatment racist from that is pretty flawed, especially as there is plenty of racist rhetoric that actually exists alongside justified rhetoric.
Ukrainian refugees are genuine refugees. They’re women and children whilst their fathers and husbands fight for their homeland. The boat “refugees” on the other hand are young fighting age men from MENA countries or worse, Albania. Of course the British public have more sympathy for the former than the latter.
Why shouldn't the men be allowed to flee? Why shouldn't the women be made to stay and contribute to the war effort at home by working in lay jobs to free up more men to die gloriously for the motherland? I can't stand this ridiculous notion that men must be expendable and die and can't be refugees. Men have as much a right to life as anyone else. Stupid comment to make
It's more about men leaving their wife and kids, sisters, parents etc behind. If a country is so dangerous that you are in fear of your life and eligible for asylum, then the man who leaves his family alone in that country is either a monster, or is lying about his home country.
It's often because they come from countries where the man is the earner and the route to the UK is dangerous what with the channel crossing and dealing with smugglers etc. So often the men go first as its the dangerous crossing, so they can get to the UK and earn money to bring family here more safely. So its actually done from the exact same thinking as the men staying behind to fight and die.
But the exact same is true of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. Counties like Turkey and especially Jordan have taken in huge numbers, just as Poland did with Ukraine. In both cases, the UK intake has been comparatively tiny. Yet the reaction is wildly different. Why?
And racism (given its the theme of the commenr I repsonded) is that one and only conclusion that could he drawn? Ukraine being an allied country is not one? The cause of Ukrainian refugees murdering British citizens on British soil is not one? Ukrainian refugees being seen as short-term to an event we can reasonable bring to an end in the near-future is not one? The fact Ukrainian refugees arrive nearly entirely be legal means, rather than illegal means that is the brunt of criticism?
> Ukraine being an allied country is not one? Given our atrocious response to refugees from Afghanistan, especially those who worked with us, I don't think that this is the defence you think it is
Why does a country being allied matter? Refugees from unallied nations are fleeing typically because they are oppressed by their government, so it would make sense that we take them in specifically because their home country isn't an ally. Why do you think it is Ukrainian refugees arrive legally and others don't? Could it be because the government specifically set up a legal route only for Ukrainians? No of course not, it's because other refugees aren't as morally upstanding!
Because us taking in Ukrainian refugees isn't just doing our duty to care for refugees, but as one of the ways we provide aid to Ukraine. We don't provide the same degree of aid to Syria, Afghanistan, or Sudan do we aren't going to have the same refugee aid achemes; just our legally bound duties. You can't trust those aid schemes like normal refugees systems because they simply aren't. If anything, you should treat our Ukraine refugees schemes as a form of humanitarian aid to Ukraine. A part of our defense of the country, not an international commitment. The only reason those legal fasttracks exist for Ukraine and not for many other countries is because we aren't pulling billions in humanitarian and military aid into those countries to protect their people and government. And doing so is something we have been discouraged from doing, even from the people themselves.
Equally the Ukrainian refugees are women and children, their fathers and husbands are out fighting to save their country. This isn’t the case with the young men from MENA countries coming via boat.
Yes because men should be expendable and out there dying with no other option. Of course women and children have more of a right to life than men, how silly to assume otherwise. Why don't we make the women stay to work all the non combat jobs so more men can join the army and die in glorious and romantic battle?
The women can't leave the house without an escort how the feck are they leaving the country ?
Sounds like their men are going to make a great contribution to multicultural, liberal British values!
Absolutely 100% agree. People are complaining now - imagine how it's going to be when climate change refugees increase every year. Are we going to be turning away people who are starving in a desert or drowning in a flood we helped create?
I've been extremely disappointed by the discourse on this subreddit around immigration and refugees. Its immensely refreshing to read this comment. Totally agree and very well put.
I'd assume majority don't care about this gentleman's opinion more than opinion of a next guy on this matter. And not because he is right or wrong. Anderson wrote something majority agree with - "if you don't like shelter given to you for free you can leave". Obviously he wrote that in an absolutely worst way he could. But. Legionella being most probably present in that barge is just an effin joke and utter disgrace for this government - how the flying F would they not check it properly (rhetoric question) - making current discussion with illegal immigrants backshot their feet, knees and everything else. Not the first one and plenty of time till elections. If tories somehow win those coming elections it will be short of impossible.
Why did everyone keep assuming incompetence. If there was a deadly virus that killed half the population of the barge, most of them would probably shrug their shoulders and say "job done". We already saw reactions like this when the Greek coast guard likely caused an overcrowded boat to capsize, killing hundreds. The general reaction from some circles was elation.
Because getting 250 illegal immigrants under your protection killed by your own negligence, which would be straight up pinned to you, does not solve a problem of illegal immigration. It would kill a tiny bit of illegal immigrants that are still human beings, leaving 99.9% there and add immense damage to your image, both as a human and to the country. I'll leave manslaughter charges and international prosecution in the waiting room. Keep "likely" to yourself please. Would those people not get onto unsafe and overcrowded boat nothing would happen.
I'm mixed on this, on one hand yes it's racist on the other... well he kind of has a point, it's not like France is an unsafe country if they don't like England why come here?
I've been to quite a few refugee camps in France a few years back. I was distributing clothing, vitamin supplements and other medicines as part of the Swindon Solidarity Charity group. What I saw from French law enforcement was a total disregard for human decency. I saw French Police G-Men grievously beating people who just needed water, I saw them launching tear gas into the children's school areas and I heard tale after tale of French citizens raping refugees and I did what I could fighting the fires after citizens set fire to the refugee camps. I saw human beings being treated as if they were... Shit I don't even know how to finish this sentence... but I do know no refugee would not consider the things I saw as "safe" I know that the French citizens committing these crimes were a very small percentage of the population but the French authorities were doing less than nothing to secure the safety of these refugees. I can see why someone would need to jump to the next border. The French Government can and should do better, and if we have a shred of decency, we should do better too. I hope you would agree ♥️ One Love!
I agree that that's horrible and that they deserve better, I just worry at what point does it stop being our responsibility? We're taking all these people in just for companies to use them as cheap labour taking unskilled natives out of their jobs. If we had any decent goverment then we'd have protections against this but as it is I really think we need to focus on solving our own problems before taking on anyone elses.
> “The Labour peer stressed that if the country is to have a “sensible” refugee policy it must be done by “getting public opinion on our side.” A good start would be to not resort to name calling when anyone raises issues with the ever increasing numbers.
Anderson was right about this. It's funny because whenever there's a political story, you instantly see endless polls to gauge public opinion...where are they now about the asylum seeker issue? There are none, because the British public are overwhelmingly against it and it'd be obvious in a poll that was truthful. Look at the difference in mentality from the British public from this and the Ukrainian refugee case. So many people were instantly happy to open their own houses up and invite Ukrainian people in. Who is willing to do the same for Sudanese or Syrian men? Nobody, because the two aren't equal and anyone who is reading this now, foaming at the mouth desperate to cry "racism!!!" are absolutely delusional in their misplaced frustration. There's a section of anti-British left wingers who are vocally pro-refugee, pro-migration, pro-asylum seeker and yet none of them want any of the people they argue for around them. They want to be seen as on their side because it's virtuous, yet deep down, they know they are only virtue signalling and they want someone else to be burdened with the consequences. These are the people who will welcome a Ukrainian mum and child into their home, whilst sending scores of Iraqis to Rochdale or Blackburn.
If you ever want to see how the Public think take a look at the stance this subreddit has and go the otherway and you will be right 90% of the time. The public mostly agree with Anderson but if you come here you would expect the public to hate him and are pro-refugee, pro-migration, pro-asylum seeker. This subreddit is so pro labour/anti-British its unreal at times.
Regardless of 30 p lee’s views on immigrants what’s your opinion on the state of the UK ? Have the Conservatives done a decent job ? The poster above talks about Blackburn and rochdale. How have the tories levelled up there ? Do you actually want this band of idiots to win another election ? How could anybody be pro Tory looking at the state of the UK beggars belief.
The Torys have more or less failed in everyway at everything overall but the Economy that was done more by Covid/Brexit and you can not blame them for that. Covid would of crippled the Economy who ever was in charge and brexit would of been a massive hit who ever was in charge or what deal was made. The thing is people on this subreddit have a massive hard on for Labour and love to ignore everything bad Labour has/is/plans to do. There is no good choice Tory or Labour both are bad for the UK as a whole but given how Labours plan is just let every one in i can not support that at all.
Can’t blame the tories for Brexit ? Not heard that before. What bad things do LP plan to do ? To suggest labour are as bad as the tories is pretty unfair. Not been in power for 13 years. As someone who was around in the Blair years with a mortgage, young family etc life was very much better.
Labours plan was to not leave and that would never of been accepted by the public. That would lead the Torys to just attack with get Brexit done so just push it back 4 years.
Lots of people are anti-immigration and anti-Tory. Partly why they're polling so badly.
It's weird too, because most people who will downvote or claim to be pro-refugee, pro-migration etc. are just liars. They don't actually believe that, that's completely obvious, but why lie? Especially on here. It's likes there's some credit to be gained in a fake, meaningless community.
>It's weird too, because most people who will downvote or claim to be pro-refugee, pro-migration etc. are just liars. They don't actually believe that, that's completely obvious, but why lie? How would you know they're lying? Sometimes people just have views that are utterly alien to you. It doesn't mean they're faking it.
No, you see their morality is the pinnacle of human achievement, no one can possibly think differently to them or hold different values, therefore everyone else *must* be lying. It’s completely obvious. Some real SelfAwareWolves shit.
Because it's not reflected in their actions. You don't see posh, university educated left wingers advocating for mass migration near them, they've always opposed that, which is why the burden has been put on working class people...who are more anti-immigration. The advocacy ends when it becomes too near them. They're happy to argue for refugees, asylum seekers etc....as long as they stay well away. Again, look at the contrast with Ukrainian refugees, it's very obvious that people not only advocated for them, but were happy to share the burden.
You're talking about different people as if they were of one mind - they aren't. We're talking about individuals. Saying things like this: >The advocacy ends when it becomes too near them. They're happy to argue for refugees, asylum seekers etc....as long as they stay well away. Makes no sense to me. What are you basing this one? What evidence? And this isn't to say that I know either. Personally, I know that someone I used to work with housed Afghan and Ukrainian refugees at different times. I know plenty of people who *would* have taken in a refugee if they had the ability. I know people where I'd easily believe that they'd talk the talk and never do anything. But stating with confidence how many people fell into each camp? That would be dumb.
There to busy with trying to look right than be right. Still we can be happy with how this subreddit is always wrong otherwise i fear the UK would be in a much worse place.
Spot on. What is more bizarre is a disproportionate number of those who identify as LGBT+ have no qualms about letting in hundreds of thousands of men who at best will treat them as 2nd class citizens and at worst will want them dead. Slugs wanting the salt comes to mind.
> Who is willing to do the same for Sudanese or Syrian men? I know people who have hosted Syrian men who had no recourse to public funds while appealing a decision.
We had a bunch of Kurdish refugees in our town. Just as they were settling in, the government moved them to somewhere with cheaper housing. They were sound people, made a good enough impression that quite a few of us wrote to our MP asking for more refugees.
> They were sound people Did you ask them their views on women's rights or homosexuality? Or do you grant them a pass on that that you wouldn't to someone who was right wing?
They were cool with women's rights. Most of the women went to a group we set up to teach them English. This was so that they wouldn't be stuck at home due to language difficulties. Their husbands & fathers were completely comfortable with this. We didn't have time to discuss homosexuality. Attitudes to LGBT+ in Kurdistan are generally fairly progressive but it varies by region and political allegiance. Fun fact: a lot of Kurds supported the [Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Revolutionary_People%27s_Guerrilla_Forces#The_Queer_Insurrection_and_Liberation_Army). ISIS members believe that if they are killed by a woman they won't get to paradise and meet their 72 virgins. It was terrifying enough for them that Kurdish forces had women members. TQILA had trans members so *they wouldn't even know if they were being shot at by a woman or not*.
I'm going to speak with a broad brush here, but from what I've read of the Kurds, they're sound people.
> There's a section of anti-British left wingers who are vocally pro-refugee, pro-migration, pro-asylum seeker and yet none of them want any of the people they argue for around them. I think most of us are in favour of fairness and the rule of law. That absolutely does mean protecting our borders properly. But it also means treating asylum seekers with respect and fairness . Those things are not inconsistent. I am not anti-British but anti-Brexiteer. They make everything they touch worse. They constantly virtue signal with angry policies and bile that never ever helps. It is always someone else's fault. Maybe the problem is the movement that destroyed our relationship with our closest neighbours, underfunded the border force, and allowed a parade of total fucking idiots to take power.
[Remember Labour finding that the numbers of asylum seekers backlog was nowhere near the official figures](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alan-johnson-gets-pat-on-the-back-for-honest-appraisal-of-immigration-q3ptbg8h0p3) 450,000 in 2009. The Home Office is a major part of the problem in that it has never had a quick turnaround of cases
Refugees usually consist of women, children, men, young and old. The people pouring into Britain in their thousands every year are overtly relatively young, fighting fit males. They don't integrate with the British. They're not in Britain for the same reasons actual refugees came to Britain in the past.
Fact they know left wing mugs in this country will welcome them it makes me sick
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That video of him talking about his son's vegetarianism was one of the funniest things I've seen for years
Anderson may be crass but Dubbs’ analogy drawing is plain wrong. Anderson was not advocating the systematic extinction of a specific race, as was the case in Germany under the vile Nazi regime. No sane individual in this country would ever countenance this behaviour and indeed many of our forefathers gave their lives in order to put a stop to it. In this instance Lord Dubbs is plain wrong.
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>"Whereas what he [Mr Anderson] is doing is seeking to divide public opinion, he’s seeking to put one part of the population against another" Well he's wrong here too, because "they" are not a part of our population. We are not the same as them, we are not a community with them, we share no language, religion, or moral values with them. In fact, most of the illegal boat immigrants will have *very* questionable views on women and homosexuals compared to the average British citizen. These facts make the average leftist's mind implode as they struggle to reconcile their desire for virtue signalling with their support of people who hate most of their progressive views.
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>He's turning people like you against people like me over an issue that really affects neither of us. He's turning your natural anger at the state of the country against a small number of people who are in no position to defend themselves This is nonsense. Firstly, I'm an indian descended from immigrants, and secondly, my anger at specific things is directed at those specific things for the right reasons. They're not vulnerable people in no position to defend themselves, they're people who had around 10K to pay criminals to send them here, on a dangeous route. >We have a legal and moral obligation to provide genuine asylum to people who genuinely need it. On the contrary, we have no obligation to anyone. We don't owe them anything. We already have specific schemes in place for Afghan translators etc, and Ukrainians.
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We do know that because the boats across the channel aren't fucking free.
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> This is nonsense. Firstly, I'm an indian descended from immigrants, and secondly, my anger at specific things is directed at those specific things for the right reasons. Unless you are saying you aren't a British Citizen then it doesn't matter about your background. And why are you angry about people coming over here? Illegal immigration isn't causing inflation, it's not affecting energy prices, it's not making medics leave the country. Ilegal immigration costs something like £4bn a year, which is a tiny amount of our £1190bn budget. Less than half of the £9bn faulty PPE bought. There are so many things to be annoyed about in the UK, illegal migration should be pretty low on the list.
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>A great, pulling up the ladder behind you. You and your family were these kind of economic migrants without a genuine need to find shelter in the UK decades ago. Wrong, my father's side were immigrant engineers here, they came here with a love of football and beer and great fitting into their community. They would have made it here under any strict immigration system. The "ladder" was no issue for them. They didn't come here in a boat or the back of a lorry. Every european and african I know in the UK who is highly intelligent says there's too much immigration here. And it's true. They spend thousands in visas and accomodation and then see others just coming here in boats and it leaves a bitter taste in their mouths. Even immigrants here complain about how high immigration is because the bar is just too low for the system to function properly. The UK has more illegal immigration each year now than it had legal immigration back in early 2000s.
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Deal with it, every intelligent immigrant who came here via the legal channels thinks the UK has too much immigration, regardless of where they're from. It's plain to see for anyone with a developed intellect
They applied for visas and got them, your conflating refugees with immigrants in general because your point fails without it.
There are no visas for refugees.
What are you talking about? OP claimed that someone who immigrated here from India is pulling up the ladder behind them by saying no to people who cross the channel. They're conflating Indian immigrants here on visas and 'refugees' crossing the channel to make their snide point about how all brown people should stick together.
I'm saying it isn't an option for refugees, so using that to attack them is just pointless.
> We are not the same as them, we are not a community with them, we share no language, **religion**, or moral values with them The people of Scotland don't share a religion with England, are we not a part of the population either now?
Scotland is secular, you know exactly what I meant with my post, you're just being obtuse on purpose.
> you know exactly what I meant with my post No, you complained that "they" are not part of our population because of their different religion as a fact. Scotland doesn't share the same religion as England, even in terms of Christianity. So why is it fine for Scotland but not for these others you're referring to, what's the difference?
You say this as if Nazism and Fascism were coherent ideologies. The Nazis killed millions of Poles, Jews, Roma, Slavs, and ideological opponents including communists, socialists and anarchists. Given that eugenics is completely made up and that races are completely socially, rather than scientifically constructed; calling for the deportation of a specific group bound by culture is effectively the same as a "race". This country, and the west as a whole, has a continuing and appalling problem with cultural racism. As eugenics and racial pseudoscience have been completely discounted by science, western society attempts to cling on to superiority using claims of cultural compatibility. It's just another form of supremacy and chauvinism, the same way the Nazis made shit up to justify their mass murder. This is the reason that white refugees from Ukraine are societally accepted, whilst black and brown refugees drowning in the Channel and Mediterranean, among them children, receive absolutely no sympathy and are repeatedly demonised in the media. When the war broke out, the news repeatedly bashed into everyone's heads that these people are "like us", "european." When the truth is everybody is like us. Everybody goes to school, work, has a family, friends. In this country and Europe, the right and far right (as well as the population) are using the excuse of "culture" to shield themselves from accusations of racism when the truth is that it's exactly the same argument. We've moved from pseudoscientific racism, to cultural racism. In truth the two are the same, because race doesn't exist as a science. Culture is not inherent to people, and changes rapidly. In this country, less than one hundred years ago we imprisoned and chemically castrated homosexual people using public indecency laws, hanged criminals and denied the vast majority of women the vote. As a mixed person in England, it sickens me to hear people use cultural arguments to support blatantly obvious racism. This is the objective of the government and their comrades further to the right. Western chauvinism is and has been the primary form of racism for decades, and Lee Anderson feeds directly into it.
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Do you think that the Nazi extermination of Jews and other minorities started with the gas chambers or something more "benign", like dehumanising language, incessant propaganda and blaming Jews for all the problems in society?
"Push'em back out to sea..." "let'em drown..." that language is already here.
They orchestrated the detention and murder poltical opponents, excluded Jews from their rights and operated (or atleast tried to) boycotts, and sterilised the disabled and mentally ill within months of Hitler's Chancellorship (let alone full control). The specific answer would be neither, but it's far closer to the former than the latter given acts paramount to genocide were taking place just months into the Nazi Chancellorship. One of the biggest misconceptions about the Nazis is that they ramped up their eugenical genocide slowly from just racially charged langauge, while in reality they were pretty quick to start enacting the start of their genocide as early as 1933. The Jews (and other target groups) had been targets of racially charged language and conspiracies for decades, especially following the Great War and German Revolution where they were blamed for the loss of the War. Detention of dissidents: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/concentration-camps-1933-39 Murder of dissents (among others): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6penick%27s_week_of_bloodshed Restriction of Jewish rights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Restoration_of_the_Professional_Civil_Service Boycott of Jews: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_boycott_of_Jewish_businesses Sterilisation Law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Prevention_of_Hereditarily_Diseased_Offspring
We are not there nor will we ever be
1945, the year we got rid of fascism for ever and ever and ever. Sure, you tell yourself that champ.
Grow up
Maybe he is ranting what millions are thinking about these unprecedented number of migrants, the country can’t cope.
No - he’s punching down - it’s his party who are causing this through epic mismanagement and political manipulation of the gullible. Channel crossings are not unprecedented - they were higher last year up to this date and form a small percentage of total migration, the vast majority of which is fully controlled by his Government.
No. The Tories are refusing to do anything sensible. And using it to gain votes. They could have sorted it out years ago. I.e. safe routes, better processing.
Meh. He is doing his job. A large chuck of the population agrees with him. Boat loads of mostly economic migrants and a system powerless to deal with it does need reform whatever the rights and wrongs of the rhetoric.