to think we're all being manipulated

I agree.

I think some people are understandably terrified of being seen as eg "listening to racists", but I think we have to accept that risk. If you listen to 50 people maybe some will turn out to be simple racists, but for a some it will be much more complex. The risk is that if no one ever listens to any of those people then they will all end up voting with the racists because no one else is listening to them.

Do you think we should get rid of passports, visas etc?

Yes, someone posted it upthread.

Except that was in 2004 respectively 2007 and Cameron was not PM at the time. He only became PM in 2010.

There’s a revised version of this going round 2025 version where murdoch has a massive pile of cookies

They do have a right to leave yes, but they certainly don't have a right to decide exactly where they'd like to live instead. You can't just pitch up to any country of your choice and announce that you will live there. Unless they are a citizen of an EU member state moving to another member state, and even then there are certain caveats and requirements that you should be adhering to. In theory at least.

No country, and especially not one the size of the UK, can or should just open its doors to everyone who would like to come, just because it would be the nice 'tolerant' thing to do. National borders exist for very good reason. One month in a world without them is all it would take to have WW3 and an armageddon on our hands of the sort that we will never socially or economically recover from. I think it would be the beginning of the end of the world, frankly.

Work visas exist for a reason. Controlled Immigration should be every bit as much about what a country needs from potential immigrants as it is about what immigrants wish to gain by moving there.

God knows we do not need ONE SINGLE MORE Uber Eats driver on an electric bike.

I think you're missing the point. The point is that if you are prepared to listen you might find that manipulation isn't after all the only reason for someone's views, that maybe it's more than that, and that even if it is sometimes, things like different life circumstances and experiences are more relevant than stupidity when it comes to making someone vulnerable to manipulation.

If you've decided in advance that everything is the result of the manipulation of stupid people, then you'll miss the things that aren't and you'll also fail to fight the manipulation because you won't understand the circumstances that make people vulnerable to it.

There’s no reason the UK should accept any more economic migrants. None. We do not need them. If you were born elsewhere in the world and don’t particularly like it, that’s a shame, but that not the UK’s problem, nor its responsibility to fix.

Glasgow has the highest number of illegal immigrants in the UK!

I popped into Dunfermline the other day - the high street was FULL of them.

No idea why you think we haven't got the same problem up here.

Also, I'm not sure they are only placed in poorer areas. Have a look at The Royal Court hotel in Coventry. It is in one of the most affluent areas - the Tamworth Road, where you cannot get a house for under £1M - you guessed it, it's a migrant hotel.

Toeing. Not towing. You're not pulling it anywhere!

Exactly. When Poland and Romania became part of the EU, it would have been perfectly legal for the UK to place more limits on immigration, but David Cameron and co chose not to. Their thinking was probably to maintain a supply of cheap labour, masking the structural problems and lack of investment caused by Tory austerity policies.

But I could just as easily argue that you are the one who has been easily manipulated. You have been manipulated by ' your side' into thinking everyone who you disagree with must have been manipulated into that position. But where does thinking like that about each other get us?

My entire point is that instead of stopping to think all those people with concerns about immigration have been 'manipulated' why not stop and find out what their concerns and experiences have been?

You are starting off with a premise without even testing whether that premise is sound.

If you want to know what really heals division, its curiosity. Genuine, real curiosity. About what people you think you disagree with, really think and feel and why and the evidence behind it. Real genuine curiosity about whether what 'your side' are saying really stacks up and is rooted in evidenced reality.

Absolutely true

I do have a son, yes. I'd be beside myself with fear and worry, like every mother of a young conscripted soldier before me. But what happens in a war or an invasion when no men are prepared to stay behind and fight to protect their country, preferring to give in and just run away? Where would Ukraine be now if all Ukrainian men had done that? Ukraine would be under Russian rule again and Russia would now be breathing down the necks of several other Ukrainian border countries.

Besides, there are relatively few wars going on right now and very few of these men seem to be from the countries where those wars are happening anyway.

Asylum is not supposed to be for economic migrants. Make no mistake, whatever the stories of these young men, in almost all cases they will be primarily fleeing poverty or lack of opportunity, seeing better opportunities to make good money in richer, more highly developed countries elsewhere. They are economic migrants plain and simple, in the vast majority of cases.

So how do you explain why they are easily manipulated?

I would be happy to be flamed by a Reform voter, the I could tell them what shits they are, and point out that the Nazis were defeated eighty years and we don’t want them back again.

This is absolutely the case. Just think about the misinformation about Brexit and the 'simple' messages targeting disaffected voters. It convinced people that the root of Britain's problems was being part of the EU and once we came out we would thrive economically, pump money into the health service, control migration etc. etc. I heard the other day that Cummings is involved in Reform campaigning and wouldn't be surprised as he sees himself as being a disruptor of mainstream politics and has a grudge against the Tories after Boris sacked him (as he felt he was the architect of the Tories electoral success and even held his own press conference from the rose garden in No 10!)

There's a really interesting snippet on 'The Rest is Politics' at the mo where they say that they created a few SM accounts in Germany and just let them run and most got populated with far right posts meaning the far right are either generating far more content than other political sites or that the algorithm is suggesting them more. Moderate politicians are going to have to engage with SM more to challenge this.

It's all a bit frightening. Who would have thought I would be rooting for the Tory party to pull themselves together into some sort of credible opposition!

noparklife

Thank you for your posts. I think you are perfectly articulating where the division occurs; one side enjoys the benefits of immigration and thinks the problems are invented to justify racism whilst the other side is experiencing real hardship.

Social housing is a very scarce resource in very high demand in this country.

People living in insecure housing and overpriced private rental are not going to feel more favourably to immigrants when they see them getting priority for the secure social housing that British citizens are themselves unable to access.

I don't think its this.

Its lack of curiosity. People have a disturbing lack of curiosity about what the 'other side' thinks and why they think it.

Much easier to write off the 'other side' as believing lies and not able to tell reality from fantasy, than it is to take the time to really look into what their experiences are and why they think like they do.

I've had many discussions people, including withmany friends, who are very pro-immigration and NONE of them have ever, ever looked into the reasons why some communities are raising concerns about immigration in their area. They may have decided why these communities have concerns, but they have not bothered to listen to what these communities themselves say these concerns are.

This was well described by a previous MN poster who said immigration was brilliant as she got lovely food from the local food market now from immigrants and the cost of trades people had gone down, and what a wonderful world this was. So this poster with her high disposable income to buy artisan foreign food from her local food market, had not stopped to think, not even for one second, that maybe this world was not feeling so wonderful for the tradespeople who had their income and ability to support their families seriously undercut. They probably had quite a different view of the wonderfulness of immigration than her. You cannot expect the people who are adversely affected by immigration to be enthusiastic about immigration. If middle class professionals had their salary cut by half due to immigration they would also be very anti immigration.

But that poster had never stopped to consider that.

And that's lack of curiosity.

Interesting viewpoint @HeadDeskHeadDesk… do you have any sons? How would you feel about them being conscripted to “fight the aggressors”? That feels like a really privileged point of view where you know it could never happen to you and yours.

Me too, on that we agree. I think it's this sort of discourse which is getting lost on the battleground of left vs right, but can offer a palatable solution where neither group feels dismissed or ignored or belittled. The poorest in society can't be expected to carry the load alone anymore.

Yanbu

We’re being fucked every way, by bots/ruskies/bad actors and we’re being manipulated into turning on each other.

One example, newspapers describing immigrants as 'fighting age men'. 'Fighting' is not an age. Young men could also be fit, healthy, and able to work and contribute. They say 'fighting age' to scaremonger and promote anti immigrant rhetoric, and it works as people parrot the line.

You have completely misunderstood what is meant by 'fighting age men'. It refers to their claims for asylum. Traditionally, most asylum seekers are (or at least should be) fleeing war. They are most commonly expected to be women, children and the elderly and vulnerable. Not young men who are fit enough to be conscripted into the army. Who is fighting for their country if all the men of army conscription age are running away to seek asylum? Men who are young and fit and healthy enough to join the armed forces are expected to stay and do what they can to protect their country and fight against the aggressors. Not be the first ones to climb on a dinghy to Kent, leaving their women and children and elderly behind in an apparently dangerous war zone.

'Fighting age' does have an age actually, where conscription in times of war is concerned.

I think it'll come off as thinking I'm smarter than everyone

Trust me, no-one is thinking that for a minute.