No British - No Women

[MrSpoc]

I have just come across this article:

www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Huntingdon-St-Ives-St-Neots/Playgroup...

am i being unreasonable to be disgusted at how this can be legal.

MIFLAW....whilst MN is popular I'm not sure it includes all 60 million people that live here.

If you come to the UK to live then you either fund your own group for whatever community you feel part of or you join in, the latter would be better. This is Britain, you take the rough with the smooth...if you don't like it there's a big world out there. If you don't like British culture and people, live elsewhere.

"This type of story also fuels the racist opinions of the likes of the BNP."

I think you'll find it's racists that fuel the racist opinions of the likes of the BNP.

Where does it say that these women don't like British people and culture? Really, you are not helping your cause here, Posie.

Psammead....you have no idea, just like you have no idea if the non Brits were welcome elsewhere. For all you know this may have been a couple of lonely mothers going to their first playgroup....

"This is Britain, you take the rough with the smooth...if you don't like it there's a big world out there."

You sound like Ross Kemp.

Posie, I find it more likely that these women intergrate in other areas of their life than the idea that this playgroup was the only option for those two mothers. Really, you are running with this?

FranSanDisco - A "whites-only" toddler group would be illegal. However a "British-only" or "Latvian-only" or "Catholic-only" group would not be.

MIFLAW - I'm not sure why you brought up the point about graduate associations - these are perfectly fine as no-one has ever argued that educational attainment is protected. Similarly I could run a shop that refuses to serve people with red hair, or set up a club only for people with income of more than £100k. These things aren't protected.

Seriously, what IS this cobblers?

"If you come to the UK to live then you either fund your own group for whatever community you feel part of or you join in, the latter would be better." This just sounds like some massive, sinister hokey cokey.

"This is Britain, you take the rough with the smooth...if you don't like it there's a big world out there." This could be the spoken intro to a heavy metal track and is of similar relevance to social and cultural politics.

"If you don't like British culture and people, live elsewhere." Really? So if a French person (for instance) smuggles a Sartre novel or Johnny Halliday record into the country they are some sort of dangerous activist and need to be ousted before they bring the whole system down? Why is it so important that everyone living in Britain loves the British, unquestioningly, uncritically and all the time? What will actually happen if they don't? Is there a danger that we will suddenly realise that the Empire is gone and we are, frankly, no longer anything special?

'Similarly I could run a shop that refuses to serve people with red hair'

could you? That is amazing.

I don't have a problem with it.

I am British. I have non-British parents.

I would love a group like this. The problem with a standard toddler group is that most mothers there will have a common childhood experience - shared songs, stories and experiences that they will assume others know, as well as possibly some ideas about what is 'normal' when bringing up a child.

The mothers in this group will not have that. It would be OK to have one or two mothers who are white British, but it would be an even more controversial policy than having none.

The problem with allowing any Brits who want to join to do so is that there are so many more of them than anyone else that soon it would be like any other toddler group - with the problems described above.

You could call it a 'toddler group for mothers who weren't brought up with [insert random things here]' but that would just be a complication.

Hogsback

You highlight perfectly the twin nature of this thread.

If the question is, "is this illegal?" If so, that must be stopped because the law is sacred and inviolable" then, mad and impractical as I find that, then yes, I agree - here is a clear case of various rules being infringed.

If the question is what some people seem to be saying which is "how dare these foreigners not think the sun shines out of Britain's arse?" then the comparison suddenly becomes a lot more relevant and the views expressed a lot more questionable.

Nope MIFLAW..perfectly reasonable hard working people that feel, maybe wrongly, that they are being pushed to the sidelines. these are some of the people that support the BNP.

Posie - maybe they worried that someone like you would come along to put them right about British ways and such stuff.

Perfectly reasonable people do not support the BNP.

The merest glance at the BNP's policies will tell you that they are not a reasonable party.

Racists and fascists support the BNP. That they are also hard-working is to their credit but does not make them in any way reasonable.

Sorry, I don't know who Tommy Cannon is.

"You are a saint. How long did you live in each of these countries and how integrated were you into the communities?"

What's it to you? Gosh, you are hard to have a reasonable discussion with.

claig - sure I could. I could also refuse to serve people wearing pyjamas, or who have beards.

I CAN'T refuse to provide a service on grounds of race, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, religion unless it is within some narrow criteria, which exclude skin colour in any case.

"If the question is what some people seem to be saying which is "how dare these foreigners not think the sun shines out of Britain's arse?" then the comparison suddenly becomes a lot more relevant and the views expressed a lot more questionable."

What a strange comment. No one has said anything of the kind. It seems to be ,most people fell it goes against the spirit of integration and is disrespectful to British parents (which it is).
But read into it what you will

ecobatty - you put it so much more eloquently then me.

I agree with Scurryfunge (I have to stop saying that). I think it is very different to exclude the white British majority than other groups. If lots and lots of white British people attended this would undermine the purpose of the group which is to allow women in minority groups to make friends and then hopefully go on to integrate into the community. It is true that white British people have lots of other opportunities where they would be in a majority if they attended.

As for this not happening in America this is not true. The only toddler group at my friend's US university was for 'Women of Color'. She was not able to attend even though her daughter is mixed race and one of the issues they worked on as a group was raising 'children of color'. It was sad for my friend she couldn't attend just as it was for the nice seeming young women in the article but the group has to consider it's wider purposes.

MIFLAW - agreed on your last point. Sometimes I get a bit obsessive about the Law, I'm afraid. There is an argument (which I think you would make) that the Equality Act goes too far.

This is not a hangover from the Empire, this is a country which is fast losing any National Pride, in fact those words are even trotted out now only by the far right. Why is that? Why can't we be proud to be British and offended if people want to live here but hate the British?

What's wrong with wanting people that benefit from this country, it's freedoms and free systems to actually like British people?

Noone said that everyone has to like anyone the whole time, but don't expect govt. funds to support you when you exclude the host population.

I happen to think that Britain is a horrible place to live at the moment and feel a bit bemused that so many people chose to come and live here.
It must be because we are so inclusive.

There is no suggestion that this group hates the British.

MiFLAW... you're wrong. Totally wrong. These are not evil people, many of them feel that the BNP is the only party putting them first. Perhaps they're not educated, perhaps they swallow every tabloid lie, but they are not racist. To believe that they all are is patently stupid and ignorant.

Surely you can't think that the whole of the pre war Germany was full of evil people. It only takes the right amount of poverty and negligence to produce a whole party of followers to the far right.

ooh, this is getting a bit heavy now isn't it.