Anti immigration and England being 'racist'

English culture and traditions - Drinking tea, afternoon tea, queuing in an orderly fashion, moaning about the weather too hot or too cold, love of football and cricket, our pubs, Sunday roast, trooping of the colour, changing of the guards, red London buses, black cabs, celebrating Christmas, Boxing Day, Easter, November 5th and Guy Fawkes, to name a few.

I'm sure I've missed out loads of others but these were just off the top of my head.

This and it’s not terribly easy to secure naturalisation as requirements are stringent.

The Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan summed up the English for me when he said ‘ The English have a fierce reputation for conquering the world… invading loads of different countries and then getting upset when those people follow them home’ … amen brother!

The problem is we - British/USA/Western Europeans - helped set the world on fire ( Afghanistan etc) then get pissed off when the people fleeing the consequences of those conflicts flee towards us.

Surely the debate is far more nuanced than being simply a binary anti or pro stance, and this continued attempt to force people to take sides is both disingenuous and dangerous.

i think there are large swathes of people who feel emboldened to display their inherent racism/ xenophobia by piggy backing on the immigration bandwagon - and yes, I think this is the case with the Raise the Colours furore. And I think that grifters like Farage sew discontent and division in order to further their own political and financial ambitions while everyone else is distracted by squabbling among themselves.

I don't understand how anyone can be completely, 100% against any form of immigration and not be racist. Most rational people can see the benefits of immigration in terms of the country's income, but may also question the perceived drawbacks. Nobody is stopping them from engaging in the debate constructively. Equally, on a human level, it is obscene that traffickers predominantly benefit from other people's misery. I don't want to read any more news stories about people drowning in the English Channel - but I firmly believe in their right to legally seek asylum here, and that we need appropriate procedures in place to deal with them quickly and fairly.

This flag waving obsession has nothing to do with national pride and patriotism. And it has very little to do with the nuances of immigration policy because the people painting roundabouts are the people who make no effort to understand the nuances. It is simply an excuse to make people feel excluded and unwelcome - and that can never be right.

I think things have been heading in this direction globally for quite some time now, I remember talking to my other half probably about 10 years ago while watching the news, can't remember what the programme was about but I remember saying to him that if unrest breaks out it won't be East v West or religion it will be right v left and from what I see this is what's happening. Right wing movements around the world are whipping up emotions left right and centre, I suspect there's a lot of money behind this and a lot of ulterior motive

As a non-English person I’d be really interested to know what English customs and culture are. Morris dancing? Maypoles? Colonising other countries??
’Fighting-age’ is an interesting choice of words - are you worried that some of the small boat arrivals are actually enemy soldiers planning a very slow, piecemeal invasion of some kind?

Well this will be a nice thread for some of the people who were so very vocal on the thread that filled up yesterday.

Many people seem to consider it racist not to let anyone who wants to come to your country live there. It is nonsense. Protesting about level of immigrant is any more racist than protesting any other area of economic policy.

"Fighting age men" gives you away.

And pasting English flags on lampposts is doing what exactly to stop people arriving in small boats??

Musk really is a scumbag.

Wanting to preserve your culture and customs is not racist.

Wanting to stop boatloads of fighting age men who’s identity we do not know and who are from a different culture and are not escaping persecution in their homeland, who hold different views about the welfare of women and children coming to the UK illegally and then being given priority treatment over people born here, is also not racist.

Racism is rooted in fear. Fear of losing your identify, but also the drive to survive, competition for resources. In the UK people have their backs against the wall
financially. Costs are spiralling and they feel there’s no control. Thousands of people flooding the country and taking valuable resources. It’s a scenario replayed throughout history. Of course we are now bound by law, but that doesn’t change human nature.

Push anyone far enough into a corner and eventually the line will be crossed.

The protests in Japan seem tiny. The information about them is being spread by a far right account and cheered on by Musk. That tells you a lot.

Musk voices support for anti-immigration rally in Japan - The Japan Times https://share.google/G9GT1JZgQkNBG6XbA

That does seem to be the case…

Er, no. Where’d you get that from??? Do you expect tourists to be fluent in the language of the country that they’re visiting? Cos that would be fairly unhinged, wouldn’t it???

I don't understand @AngryBird6122

Are you saying that because other countries experience problems with racism, we should just accept what is happening in the UK?

I got by with google translate and not a single person spoke time in English at any point
but why should they? It’s their country, they can’t chat in English, I don’t speak Japanese other than a few niceties. You have your experience and I have mine. All good. Nice to see the Japanese still have their culture when it comes to unconscious Salarymen asleep in the street the morning after…