AIBU to defriend this person, or should I stand up for what I believe, then defriend? WARNING..FACEBOOK AND IMMIGRANTS ISSUE.

[littlemisssarcastic]

Ok, I know there are many people who don't use facebook for whatever reason, but that's not why I am here.
I believe people should stand up for what they believe in, even if it means they might lose friends over it.

I am being bamboozled by a discussion I am having with a friend over their views on FB. I think I am now out of my depth, because I am convinced that this friend has now got someone else to write her replies to what I am saying. (She has never ever written or spoken like this before, in fact in all the time I have known her, she has never been able to have an intelligent conversation).

Before you say 'defriend', I'd like to say that whilst I agree that she will indeed be defriended (obviously depending on whether I am badly wrong or not) I feel I should at least attempt to give my friend 'food for thought' as it were.
It doesn't feel right to me to just walk away from such hatred without at least trying to enlighten her, or maybe it's me who needs enlightening, I don't know.

I am not sure if anyone will want to help me, so I'll post the conversation if anyone would like to see it,and hopefully make some sense of it for me, so I can at least try to clear up a few myths and maybe get this girl to think about what I have said before I defriend.

Warning: The discussion is about immigrants and how much help they should receive from the govt, so if anyone more intelligent than me who understands about immigration can help me, I'd really appreciate it. I can't help thinking that if one person changes their minds about immigrants (and friend is quite young) then I will feel it has been worth having the discussion IYSWIM.

Unfortunately there's always going to be what I call 'racist oppurtunists', like your friend and her bf appears to be. See i bet not one person who puts statuses like that would ever in a million years let their views be heard face to face-would rather hide behind a computer screen . Did you remind your friend of the thousands of british who emigrate every year who effectively become immigrants in another country-but i guess that don't count eh? :/

Sorry LRD I didnt want to offend you its just when you say that people see immigrants as being brown then logic dictates that the people thinking this have to be white even though you didnt actually say the word white and I just wanted to point out that Black and Asian people can be racist as well.
But I take the point thats is not what you yourself meant so I am sorry.

i'm planning to emigrate in the next 2 years (just got my visa etc) and now i'm scared of people being this nasty to me :(

The commonly used phrase 'they're taking jobs from British folk' is, in my opinion incorrect.
I work in a relativly low skilled, minimum wage job - whenever we have to recruit GENERALLY the british applicants (if we have any) are unwilling or unable to work the unsociable hours for £5.93 an hour. They're also pretty shocked that they might actually have to clean a toilet or two

Sorry but my experience is totally different

I live in a place called the Isle of Wight - (go past Portsmouth and dont stop until you reach dry land if you dont know where it is)

We are an unemployment blackspot with the majority of jobs being seasonal or in care homes most jobs are min wage we have very few immigrants here (certainly not as many as some mainland towns and the ones who live here dont seem to live in their own communities but integrate with the Islanders more.

If we take Friday as a typical day for me

Spoke to the dustmen first thing in the morning - all white British,
Got on a bus - Driver white British
Went to the local papershop - owned and run by white British
Went to my local cafe - owned and run by white British
Supermarket run, served by white British
Stopped of at one of the local care homes to donate some books, spoke to the receptionist and one of the care staff - white British.
Went to the beach and had an icecream - cafe owner again white British
Met up with a white Btitish mate who has just landed herself a job in a hotel.

In fact the only nonwhite person I spoke to all day was a Black Briton who owns one of the local electrical shops.

I know that we do have foreign workers in some of our hotels farms and care homes but they are employed along side Islanders not instead of them and to be honest foreign workers are out numbered by Islanders here.

If the Britsh workforce was so lazy or unemployable I would expect to come across many more migrant workers doing every day things here but I dont

BTW the comment about cleaning toilets made me spit my coffeee all over my computer, here on the Island our council has closed a lot of the public toilets, this has already caused our visitors huge problems and with the summer holidays here, a few people (all white British) have banded together to try and keep the toilets open by offering to clean them and you are right they wont do that for min wage, as they are volunteers and actually dont get paid anything at all

This side of the water, ie about 3 miles away, it is very different - there is a significant minority of Phillipino people here, plus a scattering of people from other backgrounds. Dp's parents are Jamaican, my neighbours are Indian (I think, I haven't actually been rude enough to ask because I don't know them that well)

Actually Purple coming as I do from London I rather miss the Ethnic mix of the big city, mind you to some caulkheads us overners are the immigrants coming over here taking their jobs

You traitor you! Don't you know it's you fancypants rich folk that are pricing us out of our homes, stealing our jobs, forcing the Post Offices to close, yadda yadda yadda...

sorry purple

You friend is wrong wrong we do have the right to move nay were is the eu and start claiming benefits right away and the would have to house us and all

Many move to Spain and claim benefits in the low season when theirs no work they cannot speak spanish and have no intrest in mixing with the spanish, and generally send there children to a British school .

island - sorry, I'm really late back to this but no need to apologize. I was just shocked with myself I'd given the wrong impression (looking at my Freudian slips I can see how!). FWIW, I grew up near Leicester where one of the major race issues is the tensions between recently-arrived Somalis and long-established Asians, so I would point out that it's pretty common for people to define 'bad' immigrants by their skin colour and not a prejudice confined to whites.

littlemiss - I'm sorry it got so nasty with your 'friend'/her boyfriend. I think what you did is important though so feel proud of yourself for trying to make them see sense/challenging it.

EU citizen's have the right to reside in any EU providing they meet certain requirements. It is not unconditional. There are 2 requirements:

1. You have to be able to support yourself without recourse to public funds.
2. You have to have medical insurance.

We moved for work so my husband had to show his contract of employment to meet requirement 1 and 2 because as a working tax payer he was insured under the countries national health service.

Some benefits were available from day one, eg child benefit others are not available unless you have worked for at least 2 years. We've been here for 5 years. My husband would now be entitled to unemployment benefit/income support type benefit. If I found myself alone I wouldn't be entitled to either as I haven't worked. He has had to take out life insurance so that I am not destitute and can return to the UK if something happens to him.

ITNK

The test is even simpler than that.

Anyone who arrives in the UK without permission is here illegally.

No litmus required.

I'm not the one who has missed the point.

Pendeen, what is your point? Who ever suggested that people who don't have permission to be in the UK didn't come here illegally? Isn't that why we have the whole asylum system - otherwise anyone who fancied could rock up and we only let people stay if they can prove there's a really good reason why they came in without the proper visas and documentation.

It's the second time you've said that and it just looks like a total red herring to me, unless I'm missing something.

I'm not sure if pendeen even has a point .

Lots of people arrive in the uk without permission to be here, and this is not necessarily illegal. Non-visa nationals can get entry clearance on arrival, for instance.

magicmummy

"The test is even simpler than that.

Anyone who arrives in enters the UK without permission is here illegally.

No litmus required."

Is that clearer?

I am so sad that so many people are so anti immigrants they are all human beings and they are not eligible for benefits for 2 years but surely we all have enough humanity to care for them Here in East Angliia without immigrant workers our food bills would rise. As a farmer quoted the British are not reliable and are not prepared to work for minium wage.