Hate how racist everything has become, and how quickly it’s happened.

[Silverbirchleaf]

I was just looking at facebook, and a ‘Sad face’ newsmaker article came up. Practically all the comments mentioned boats, asylum seekers etc etc. Its really getting me down.

Travelled to the south west last weekend. On the way down no flags on bridges. On the way back, in some areas, every bridge.

Its scary how quickly it’s all happening.

'Right-wingers' or 'left-wingers' is fine, thanks. They're not derogatory.

I just think that people are looking to the future and worried that a small country will have too many people in it and the infrastructure, already ancient, will crumble with little or no resources to sustain a balanced life with resources to go around for everyone. As they say, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Was ever thus, but things are finite and need to be sustained.

I’ve worked with asylum seekers so I know all of this. Of course they are entitled to being on the housing register once their claim is approved but this can take years - some people have been waiting 20 years - it’s not a quick and easy fix. OP was suggesting they get off ‘the boat’ and walk into a council house.

Oh? Is ‘lefties’ derogatory?

They don’t get extra points for being refugees.

Everyone is accessed for housing under the same points system. The under supply of council housing after decades of no investment is causing a problem not refugees.

They walk off the boat to fully funded accommodation, and then if approved are eligible for HB or are often a high priority for a council house, so what was overly incorrect about their statement?

The comments on Facebook posts are awful. I agree that there has been a huge level of unspoken racism that’s now coming out into the open.

I also agree there is manipulation to make everyone think “it’s all shit” and we will end up with reform in charge.

Services have been defunded via austerity for over 15 years now. Not because of asylum seekers. The standard of living in this country is getting worse and people should be angry about this. But that anger needs to be directed at governments.

It's not racist people are fed up - my mum lives near a migrant hotel and she feels unsafe now, stabbings, litter - groups of men hanging around no respect for women

she hates it as do I - neither of us are racist

Most immigrants in the UK are visa over stayers. Perhaps we should ban tourism?

Yes that’s true. @MrsDoubtfire1

The wealth inequality gap is getting wider and wider. It’s the uber wealthy who are sorted and happy. Whilst us plebs scrabble around hoping our food / energy etc bills don’t go up, again.

That doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about the safety of women and girls, and the impact of hundreds of thousands of men entering the UK from countries where women and girls are treated as second class citizens. The sex crime stats support my (and others) concerns.

Wrt sex crimes prelim stats have been published, following a FOI request:
….the [sex crime] rates, based on convictions per 10,000 of the population put Afghans, with 77 convictions, at the top with a rate of 59 per 10,000 – 22.3 times that of Britons.

They were followed by Eritreans, who accounted for 59 convictions at a rate of 53.6 per 10,000 of their population.

Britons accounted for 12,619 sex offence convictions, representing a rate of 2.66 per per 10,000 of their population in England and Wales.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/foreigners-commit-up-to-quarter-of-sex-crimes/

https://archive.md/6AXAy Archive version.

Further more detailed stats are promised.

What bizarre posts there on this thread. Do people actually think it's a good thing to have people give criminal gangs money to bring them here on a dangerous boat trip, people we have no idea of who they are or if they might have criminal backgrounds themselves? And if you disagree with this method of getting to this country you're a racist?
Do these posters think that every other country in Europe is welcoming illegal immigrants with open arms?
I am not someone who would ever fly a flag, am not particularly patriotic and I believe strongly that we need legal immigration and genuine refugees in this country, it's part of what makes our country, but this thing of shutting anyone down as simply racist because they don't want people coming here illegally on boats and being housed in hotels near them is part of what causes dangerous parties like Reform to get bigger and bigger followings. The same as Trumps popularity in the U.S. People feel like they are not being listened to.

Stabbings happen in places where there are no asylym hotels

people are misled with false information

I always think and I still do, that “they” (the ones in power) are much better off when “we” (the working classes) are hating each other. It’s divide and conquer.

Its happened for years, they’ll set a propaganda and “we” will follow and hate each other.

Those in receipt of benefits (shows like Benefits Street fuelled this at the time), encouraging reporting each other during COVID, Muslims, Immigrants… whatever suits their narrative they insight enough hate until we bite and then eventually we are spending so much energy and time hating and fighting with each other that “they” can get away with doing what they like, changing laws, increasing taxes, spending money… and “we” are too distracted to notice. There’s always a bigger motive at play with these things.

Those here on Visas pay to use the NHS.

I have a Sri Lanakan immigrant friend and an American immigrant friend - both pay to use the NHS. They found it rubbish and now both pay for private healthcare.

I live in a town with a hotel that is housing asylum seekers. I personally don’t think it has made any difference to my ease of accessing services. Things were not great before eg no NHS dentist, long a and e waits, but that has been the case for years and certainly way before the asylum seekers moved in to the hotel. The police have confirmed there has been no increase in crime that could be attributed to asylum seekers eg reports of assault or shoplifting.

Say Farage has his way with mass deportations, stricter refusal etc, I am sceptical that we would see the improvements people think they will.

I think part of the problem is that as a country governments haven’t planned properly for an ageing population, and we didn’t invest in services when times were good.

Do you have some data to show that most immigrants in the UK are visa over stayers? If true that would be over 5 million people as there are around 10.5 million immigrants in the UK.

Yes I know, the poster I quoted only wanted people who are born in the UK to use the NHS, so I wanted to know if they believed rhe surcharge should be scrapped and if people born outside of the UK should pay less tax due to not having access to public services.

I think the issue a lot of people have is that the UK is not the nearest safe place to escape to.

The nearest country to the UK is France and nobody is fleeing France due to there being a war in that country.
So, why are they making their way to the UK?
We are not the safest country from their homeland.
This needs addressing.
Let’s not deny it, there are quite obviously benefits to trying to get here, otherwise the asylum seekers would settle in the nearest safe country.
That is the issue.

I believe it is. Why do you disagree? You should come to my area. It’s full of non British people, charity shops, takeaways, vape shops, crime, litter. It’s horrible.

Many asylum seekers have no respect for women and girls because they’ve come from countries where women and girls are treated as second class citizens.

Some facts for you:

Wrt sex crimes prelim stats have been published, following a FOI request:

….the [sex crime] rates, based on convictions per 10,000 of the population put Afghans, with 77 convictions, at the top with a rate of 59 per 10,000 – 22.3 times that of Britons.

They were followed by Eritreans, who accounted for 59 convictions at a rate of 53.6 per 10,000 of their population.

Britons accounted for 12,619 sex offence convictions, representing a rate of 2.66 per per 10,000 of their population in England and Wales.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/foreigners-commit-up-to-quarter-of-sex-crimes/

https://archive.md/6AXAy Archive version

Further more detailed stats are promised.

Actually if you want [relatively] non political statistics go to CHATGPT and ask your question.

Do you know the criteria a country had to fullfil when the term third world country was still used? Clearly not by this post.

How many passports do you inspect in your area? Why do you think number of British people determines if a county is third world or not? Charity shops, take aways, vapes shops and crime levels in the UK do not hit any marker of the criteria used to determine if a country is third world. Vapes weren’t even invented when the term was still used.

Have you actually visited a third world country?
Vape shops and charity shops are not defining characteristics.

People know logically, but keen to appear liberal and full of self loathing for themslves will purposefully argue against the obvious. We saw it with the trans debate as well, women know full well that biological men in women's spaces pose a potential risk, yet the level of denial, deflection and dragging unrelated things in like suggesting people against it were also against LGBT as a whole was rife. Same here, people apposed to people paying £££s to criminals to help them cross the channel must also be against any sort of immigration, must be racist and must blindly believe what they read on social media. Its ironic really that those who claim to be open minded are always the most closed.