AIBU to hope 'Tommy Robinson' finally faces some consequences?

Sadly, mebebecat, the believers are in a cult and many have been indoctrinated beyond reach. Listening and engaging is not really possible. It's very worrying, especially given Trump is busy channeling 1930s fascist dictators to the delight of his fans. They really don't know what they're asking for. We had better all hope that they don't get it.

lol at this post opening with "gosh". Nobody is fooled.

Please don't associate decent people who happen to be poor, disadvantaged or uneducated with Tommy Robinson.

It's pretty obvious that he is not receiving funding from poor people. He represents a very vocal minority who live in an online echo chamber.

Farage wasn't voted for by the great unwashed , he was voted for by ex Tories who don't care about the disadvantaged. If Robinson cared about the disadvantaged he wouldn't be doing time for mercilessly hounding a refugee.

The trouble is listening and engaging doesn’t work. I tried it pre and post the Brexit referendum trying to post reasoned arguments with easily verified sources yet I just got called a sheep.

Gosh. So much hate on this thread towards the poor, the uneducated and the disadvantaged. These people who have a vote in the same way everyone else does. The Tommy Robinson/Nigel Farage/Trump/populist parties are in ascendancy just about everywhere in the western world. Where do you honestly think this is going to end up??
Stop the fuck 'othering' these people. Has shouting at people and writing hurty words on Mumsnet every caused even one of them to change their minds??
You may have to get your hands dirty, and God knows what you think you may catch from them but listen and engage.

Not quite sure why I have been so kindly quoted by someone who seems to agree with me. Admittedly in a slightly different tone.

Or you have someone claiming to have legitimate concerns, including the lump of labour fallacy, or claiming immigrants are mostly low skilled (when the opposite is true vs the native population). Or that they're an economic drain, when young men especially (the ones they tend to focus on) are obviously the opposite. By definition these aren't legitimate concerns, because they're false.

You could possibly argue that immigration puts pressure on housing & services, but that would be alleviated with a wider distribution of immigrants and is a wider problem resulting from decades of policy decisions.

Then we're left with the cultural impact, which although certainly real and contentious, has the discussion driven & exaggerated largely by reactionary politicians, media owners & the far right.

He may even learn how to correctly say and spell his own name.

Stranger things have happened.

18 months😀 maybe he'll come out a convert. Time to refect.

I have a memory that white supremacists incarcerated in US jails were protected by the black population - especially those who had converted to Islam.

Yaxley-Lennons worst nightmare will be that Muslim inmates display their faith and not only not abuse him, but shield him from abuse and treat him with charity.

Imagine if he accidently ended up in a wing with lots of people who weren't white?
Fantasy only unfortunately as I wouldn't want the prision guards to get injured getting in the middle of that

Ah, I hope Stephen enjoys prison

It's the same thing.

On the one hand you will have reasoned views, related to facts and figures that are carefully compiled and put into context to inform the debate.

On the other you have Gazza26 whose mate told him brown people are hiding in pensioners coal sheds.

@SerendipityJane

"Such as the debate over whether the world is flat ?"

No such as the debate on the pros and cons on immigration.

That's a bit harsh- not everyone has the ability to put together well structured, eloquent and logical arguments as this thread has demonstrated.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't valid concerns on both sides of the debate.

Such as the debate over whether the world is flat ?

SinnerBoy · Yesterday 18:44
**
I don't know, to be honest. And neither do I much care

So you know very little of the abhorrent person but you are still posting in his defence?
You’ve proved what a lot of people have said about the intelligence of his supporters.

@SerendipityJane

"You can excuse the less educated when they educate themselves - by whatever ways there are availble to them. Which is commendable.

However, if you are less educated and choose to stay that way, then you are thick."

That's a bit harsh- not everyone has the ability to put together well structured, eloquent and logical arguments as this thread has demonstrated.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't valid concerns on both sides of the debate.

Whether people are 'thick' or not, everyone's vote has the same weight. What I'm concerned about is the discontent within a certain section of society. People can vote whether they choose to educate themselves or not. These people traditionally voted Labour but why do they feel they can't anymore?

To be fair there are "thick people " on both sides of the debate, I also think the term "thick " is a bit unfair and would prefer to describe it as less educated and an inability to form a calm, coherent, logical and fact based opinion.

You can excuse the less educated when they educate themselves - by whatever ways there are availble to them. Which is commendable.

However, if you are less educated and choose to stay that way, then you are thick.

You were the one making the ludicrous claim that immigration was like the slave trade, and by extension anyone not condemning immigration was racist.

Your central premise, that we have enough people who are economically inactive to fill our labour & skills shortage is demonstrably false.

It's simply a lie to claim that any concerns about immigration are dismissed as racist, but when those "concerns" focus only on immigrants of colour, aren't actually related to immigration & in your case are based on a spurious argument set out by Priti Patel. Well, it's hard to think of a justification that's not either based on stupidity or racism.

I know you don't want to engage, you haven't. You've just made the same spurious claims repeatedly.

@Hatfullofwillow

Sorry but I would prefer not engage with you when rather than enter into a rational counter argument on this, you simply shouted "racist" or in my case "a muddy justification" for Tommy Robinson.

These responses are sadly predictable where any concern on immigration, regardless of the manner in which it is expressed, is dismissed as "far right racist thugs" generally because they lack the intellectual capability of putting forward a logical counter argument in favour of immigration.

@1dayatatime

Your main argument seems to be based on Priti Patel's assertion that we have a huge pool of the "economically inactive" to fill gaps in the labour market. We simply don't.

That's true across all levels of the labour market from research professors to care workers.

But that's not what Tommy's army is marching about and it's disingenuous to suggest it is.

Our growing inequality, underfunded public services, crumbling health care system, teetering education system etc are the direct result of an ideologically driven economic decision to implement austerity politics.

Is Tommy out campaigning for more investment in education? Did his followers get out for anti-austerity campaigns against the 80% cut in Higher education, join in the opposition to the Health & Social Care bill, did they join a single grassroots group pushing back against the largest attack on ordinary people in their lifetimes? No, they tried to burn down hotels housing asylum seekers.

You keep complaining about 'the left' not understanding the frustration of Tommy's followers when the opposite is true. It's Tommy's rabble that can't see the root cause of their problems or that the people funding him couldn't care less about their material conditions.