AIBU to oppose housing 1,000 undocumented young men near Piddington?

Data centres what's so bad about them? Data and information need to be hosted somewhere. Do we not want a good tech industry?

You clearly did not read and have low comprehension skills. Inconvenient facts indeed. The 92% figure has been debunked a number of times.

Humans cannot survive simply by piling onto land. We need food and land to grow it in. Britain is full. There is no spare land and few resources left here. We are not responsible for the ridiculous over breeding problems in Africa, the Middle East or elsewhere, indeed we tried to give them the contraceptives that we have to use ourselves. We will look after what is left of our environment as other peoples should be looking after theirs, and there is no more room here.

Does that include all empires, or just the western ones?

Belgium is more densely populated. It’s hardly a micro state.

Plus England is near top of the densely populated countries in Europe. 2nd behind the Netherlands (bar micro states).

We are one of the most ecologically degraded countries in the world.
That has precious little to do with immigration. However, it has everything to do with badly managed resources, and badly regulated industries and corporations. And guess what? The nationalist parties who chat shit about the great replacement are also those in the pockets of the most polluting industry out there - the crypto and AI billionaires. And what's going to happen to our ecosystem when they finally get into power and deregulate the hell out of AI, with data centres sprouting like mushrooms in the rain?

Not all of them..but far too many of them.

Facts are so inconvenient, aren’t they? It’s accurate, not ridiculous.

I don’t really care about other countries having the same problems, nor that ridiculous 92% figure. It is meaningless. We need the land in Britain, there is not a square inch that is not used for something. We need it for food, for needed woodland and to support our very damaged ecology. Our soils are degraded and nutrient content in food is falling. We are one of the most ecologically degraded countries in the world.

www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/landmark-report-shows-uk-wildlifes-devastating-decline

The male asylum seekers (many of them who have come on boats) have unfortunately raped and harmed many people.

What, all of them? I somehow doubt that, it’s hardly credible.

Empires, regardless of which ones we're talking about, are primarily about resource extraction, not investment.

You obviously know what I mean. The British empire invested and did a lot of infrastructure development. For example the railways. Law was codified, property rights instituted.

The male asylum seekers (many of them who have come on boats) have unfortunately raped and harmed many people.

Legal immigration has had some positives and some negatives. Rishi Sunak's family are an example of a positive. Hard working, intelligent and well integrated.

However in some parts of the country there have been issues with integration and things not working out.

Amazing how pointing out that a country such as the U.K, which colonised large swathes of the world, is likely to experience more immigration as a result could provoke all that 😆 I never said the U.K deserves anything - it's very telling that 'you're saying we deserve it' seems to be the knee-jerk reaction. I didn't say anyone deserves anything I said it is what it is. It's inevitable. Despite what I or you or anyone thinks, immigration to the U.K. has happened in the way it has happened. That's it. In most cases, the various waves of immigration are intrinsically embedded in U.K. culture and we are all the better for it. In another 50 years, who knows? British people may be desperate to emigrate elsewhere.

I didn’t misunderstand anything, I took YOUR words at face value. If they didn’t properly convey your meaning, you can just correct them, no need for long screeds and made up terms like ‘inverted racism’.

So glad @CatsAreBetterThanMen is speaking on behalf of the majority thread again. Another brilliant post.

Oh, here we go again.

"you can't really accuse people of shutting down reasonable debate by using the racist card, only to the call me a racist in the next breath"

I didn't. I accused Switchnow of trying to shut down debate by calling people using measured language and statistical evidence in a polite debate (in this case me), racists. I also expressed my fears that this tactic, which has been used many times, is dangerous and self-defeating.

"I am not a racist and well you know it."

Well, I didn't actually call you a racist, I asked if you were aware of how racist your previous post sounded, and apparently you are not.

"I suppose sometimes, for some people, projection may be a form of defence - however, it is not racist to state that the populations of British Indians, Pakistanis and Black Africans are very significant in the U.K. and have been for decades."

You can infer that I'm racist, if you like, at this point I'm honestly past caring. I'd much rather you specified what I've written that you believe is racist.

"This is a fact. It's hardly akin to recommending the annihilation of white British people! Come on. That will not be happening any time soon, don't worry."

Actually, that is exactly what is going to happen according to current demographic predictions and extremely quickly when taken in the context of a timeline of British history, and when I pointed this out in actual statistics you replied with, in my opinion, a pretty callous disregard of those statistics and how they might make British people feel and the repercussions of that.

"I'm glad you consider the Indian people who fled Uganda in the 1960s as having made a positive contribution to the UK."

I'm happy to make you happy.

"My husband's mother was part of that wave of immigration. Both of her sons have created thousands of jobs between them in the UK and contributed millions in tax."

Congratulations, however, I'm not sure how this is relevant to anything I said as I already acknowledged the contributions of migrants that come to this country in responsible numbers and assimilate successfully. I have no problem with positive immigration.

"Their father fled political / religious persecution in Iran. Do you blame him? What would you have done at the start of the Iranian revolution if you could have escaped?"

I understand that this debate must be very emotional for you but you seem to be conflating issues and creating a false dichotomy of anti mass immigration = racist. Again, I've already stated that immigration in responsible numbers of people who assimilate into British culture and make a net contribution isn't a problem. That is not the situation we are in now and that is not what is being addressed in this discussion. It's utterly disingenuous for people to try and pretend otherwise.

Immigration on the scale we have seen in Britain for that last thirty years has benefitted the well off and decimated the working classes. Huge numbers of unskilled migrants flooding into poor communities that are already suffering from decades of neglect, overwhelming the labour market, drawing on the welfare and health systems and local amenities that they have never paid into and then sending vast amounts of money back to their families in their country of origin is not a net benefit to those underprivileged communities and it's not racist to say so.

The example you give of your family's net contribution to British society (which is substantial) is unfortunately the exception, not the rule.

"The U.K. forged an Empire, exploiting many countries - far too much to get into here. They partitioned India and obviously the impact of British colonisation is still evident in many counties today. So it can hardly be surprising that if you go out and try to colonise the world, at some point some of that world will end up back on your shores."

Ah, right, we're back to the evil British Empire argument that sounds a bit like "you deserve what you get for your past sins", which is not a particularly moral stance from which to approach this problem. Yes, Britain colonised large parts of the world and did some terrible things - although it can be argued that the British did eventually leave the populations of the countries they colonised in tact (whether partitioned or not) and didn't entirely replace them with their own.
But the terrible Imperialistic British also welcomed immigrants from those former colonies and other places into an environment where, through their hard work and endeavour, they could thrive and build businesses, communities and fortunes - as in the example of your own family.

"Part of my own family is from Spain and look at the impact of the British tourist industry up and down the Spanish coast. Look at all the British people who have moved to Spain - and then voted Brexit. You couldn't make it up."

British citizens make up approximately 0.54% to 0.8% of the total population of Spain. I'm sorry, what is your point here?

"Anyway, as I said populations change. The British, of all people, given their part in the colonisation of indigenous people's in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and our impact on the histories of so many other nations should understand this above all."

British or white South Africans of British descent make up around 3% of the South African population. America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are obviously different. Just to clarify, are you arguing that what happened in those countries was absolutely fine or is your argument more along the lines of revenge, the British deserve what they get?

Whilst many British people emigrated to those colonies and benefitted, a huge amount of the working classes were forcibly shipped to Australia as convicts against their will by the ruling elite. Also, the vast majority of working class Brits didn't individually gain a great deal from those colonies. They were used as canon fodder abroad or exploited by their betters back here in Britain. Lets not forget that British working class children had no real access to education until 1870 and throughout the height of the British Empire were exploited in factories, farms and workhouses (not to mention up chimneys). But I guess, we deserve what we get.

"I agree with you that the debate about immigration has become so polarised as to be rendered largely ridiculous. I suppose I just don't fear demographic change in the way you do. That is the difference."

Perhaps that is because you don't see your communities and culture being denigrated, eroded and vilified.

"I don't agree that immigration has fuelled the relatively low academic achievement of white working class British. I'm sorry, I just don't buy that. If you are born into a country with free schools and literacy standards that are supposedly the envy of the world, you only have yourself to blame for not taking advantage of that. If people can flee poverty and war and still manage to value education above all else and make the absolute most of it, then that is something to be celebrated."

Crikey, with your attitude to the white working classes are you sure you're not white middle class?

Anyway, it's been good to type with you but I must bow out now, things planned for the weekend. Toodlepip and enjoy your weekend.

Britain isn’t full. 92% of UK land mass is undeveloped. The Netherlands and Belgium are far more densely populated than the UK.

So by that token, native Americans and Aboriginal Australians are not native either, and should have just sucked up the atrocities that happened to them? Since, after all, they were all originally African - like you, and every other person on this planet .

All land is ‘originally stolen’. By that logic the Middle East is a free-for-all to invade, as is all of Asia, even the far end at Japan.

Britain is full. We have half the land area of France and a greater population, we cannot feed everyone now and that is only going to get worse, the ecology is destroyed. Go invade somewhere else.

None of that changes the point that I made. All the Anglo-saxon people waving their placards, donning balaclavas and calling themselves indigenous Brits are not indigenous at all. The only people who have any claim to this Island were long since eradicated by our ancestors who stole their land and colonised it, only to gatekeep it centuries later. It's rank hypocrisy and we shouldn't stand for it.

Cheddar man was Mesolithic and probably formed part of the first group of people to recolonise the uk after the ice retreated. Stonehenge is Neolithic.

"You can basically see empire as a form of foreign direct investment"

What does this mean?

What is it about immigrants that terrifies you so much? Try to break it down maybe? The U.K. is not being invaded by an army of 'men of fighting age' (why do they say this?) crazed Islamic rapists in boats - that is just Farage-led propaganda cynically designed to whip up division and hysteria. Undocumented migrants are just 1.5% of all immigrants - it's the media focus on this 1.5% that is wildly disproportionate. So what frightens you about the other 98.5% of immigrants who will be here legally?

I asked why is it that white working class boys (notably those in seaside towns) now have the lowest educational attainment of all demographics in England.
Due to the drug epidemic. Families were moved from the city to seaside towns where there is only seasonal work, heavy prostitution and drug usage. County lines. Large homeless community.
I'm saying that people in these (predominantly white) areas can't blame immigrants because there are virtually none in their areas.
What of course there is immigrants and people over colour living in seaside towns.
There has been a steady flow for a decade, hence the housing shortage and high rents in those areas.
But yet, despite all this, the U.K still has among the highest literacy levels in the entire world (at primary school level).
Because working class white boys are doing better than they were before. They’ve bigger dreams than in the past, the disadvantaged white working class boys aren’t disadvantaged due to being working class, there is often if not always family problems, addiction issues, alcohol and sexual abuse. I live in a working class lower income area and thanks to the grants and wonderful teachers most youths attend 3rd level education or apprenticeship programs, it’s the boys who were not put first by the parents, were hungry, scruffy, needed to be on the street to earn, got involved in violence, stealing, knife crime.
There are clearly many young black boys in this predicament too.
Stealing, dealing and carrying monster knifes, they’re not all studying hard.
Just as there is many black and brown boys from poverty entering 3rd level education.

The 1960s Indian immigration wave were the skilled highly educated immigrants.

Not according to Wikipedia.

Although post-war immigration was continuous, several distinct phases can be identified:

• Workers were recruited to fulfill the labour shortage that resulted from World War II. These included Anglo-Indians who were recruited to work on the railways as they had done in India.
• Workers mainly from the Bengal, Punjab and Gujarat regions arrived from India in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many worked in the foundries of the English Midlands. Large numbers of Gujaratis worked in the textile manufacturing sector in the northwest industrial towns of Blackburn, Dewsbury, Bolton, Lancaster, Manchester and Preston. Sikhs coming to London either migrated to the East to set up businesses where the wholesale, retail and manufacturing elements of the textile industry were located. Many Sikhs also moved to West London and took up employment at Heathrow airport and the associated industries and in the plants and factories of major brands such as Nestle around it.
• During the same period, medical staff from India were recruited for the newly formed National Health Service. These people were targeted as the British had established medical schools in the Indian subcontinent which conformed to the British standards of medical training.
• During the 1960s and 1970s, large numbers of East African Indians, predominantly Gujaratis but also sizeable numbers of Punjabis who already held British passports, entered the UK after they were expelled from Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar. Many of these people had been store-keepers and wholesale retailers in Africa and opened shops when they arrived in the UK. In 2001 East African Indians made up 16% of the total British Indian population.

White British people are not indigenous to tbis land no matter how many people keep saying it. Look at Cheddar man, he would be targeted by Reform for looking too 'foreign' and he was here before all of us. They built stonehenge, they were the original Brits and yes, they were black. They were indigenous and our ancestors displaced them. Forcibly too I might add.

We have no right to complain about people coming here and making a life for themselves.