To wonder how the hell this country got so racist and narrowminded?

[smokinaces]

There is a photo of a letter going round on FB. Basically showing that Aslyum Seekers are getting their gas and electric paid for over Christmas. My god. The comments people are coming out with.

to quote a few:

"What about ones that come over here and get new cars mobile phones etc and we get fuck all. They wouldn't do the same for us if we was that poor and froze we would have our kids taken off us we wouldn't get help to heat our houses up."

"Yeah but a lot of the asylum seekers r terriosts half of them are working for wants his name"

"every tom dick or Harry are allowed into our country to first take all our jobs for half the pay us English need to be paid to pay for our gas electric and every other bill we get thrown at us, secondly to take our placements from our first choice schools cause they got homed near a school of our choice, homed for free!"

"there are english children in this country that dont even have a warm winter coat to wear coz their parents or parent cant a ford to buy one coz most of their benifits go on tryin to heat damp houses and feed them with at least one hot meal a day even if it is only beans on toast.....ive yet to see an under feed immagrint whether asylum seeeker or not and as for designer clothes that under privalaged english child only dream of owning but u see them on the backs of people that dont deserve them (imagrants asylum seekers)"

"im sick to death of working my tits off 6days aweek when im off sick or unable to work and ask for help all i got was £26 a week what a load of bullshit im english born and bred worked from the age off 17 and pay tax all my live and people walk in to this country and get free this free that f##king crap an 90% of bristish people think this to blood sucks, think of the people that fought for this country all them years ago BORN AND BRED"

Seriously?? How the fucking hell did we get to the point where this is what people think? Honestly?? I dont even know what to say to the last two - I tried arguing constructively earlier in the day, but cant even be bothered to waste my breath on the last two. They called me a "goody two shoes" and seem determined to blame everything on "immigrants".

I'm actually ashamed to live in the same town as some of these people.

AIBU to wonder where this country goes from here when this is what crap they spout? Is it the media's fault? or education?

(the worst bit? at least 1 of these people quoted are a 3rd generation European "immigrant" but thats different of course )

I agree mathanxiety. The small pot idea is also coupled with the idea that we only have an obligation towards those people in our country. I actually find that puzzling. I have never met you- a stranger who lives maybe 100 miles away. Why should I have a moral obligation to make sure that you do not go without the basics in life, but I have no moral obligation to a stranger who lives 1000 miles away? That I can in fact support a system which allows you to benefit at the expense of a human being in another country?

I think a lot of Irish voted on that one (the 900 years) with their feet and their little cardboard suitcases over the decades since the Famine, Creighton. I personally have lots of relatives in Britain and my family on both sides have marched off to empire building and to war in British uniforms; some have returned and immediately donned Irish uniforms, mind you.

The secret of the Good Friday Agreement that followed the Troubles was the idea that there could be a win-win situation where Irish and British interests were concerned, plus crucially the recognition in NI of the fact that NI as a whole had more to lose than to win by continuing hostilities. The idea that there could be a political and policing settlement that would benefit all in NI was the crucial element in forging a path towards the future.

No matter how much the Irish have ever been happy to proclaim fierce anti-Britishness, fight wars of independence, etc., Irish people tend to be very sensible when it comes to money and the vast majority (in the South at least) moved on decades ago, with a bit of a blip in the late 60s and 70s. Joining the EEC in 1973 was the decisive event in the history of Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century imo. The opening of that door to a wider world eclipsed other questions.

I don't think the question of who did what to whom should have much of a place in current immigration policy. It's arguable that colonialisation these days is accomplished by means of international companies operating far more efficiently than the East India Company, etc., ever did. The original western European empires that grew from mercantilism developed from trade and investment and the need to defend trading interests and all that money from the depredations of competitors. As each waned another took its place. Spain faded and was replaced by the USA in the western Hemisphere. Britain faded and was replaced by the US elsewhere too. Russia has had a different sort of imperial history but exploitation of natural resources has been a constant in its eastward expansion. Mercantilism is still a part of Russian engagement with other countries, as it was in Soviet times. The US has been accused of going to war for oil in recent times and that accusation echoes much of the history of the early unplanned dynamic of European empires of the last 500 years. China seems to be concentrating more on economic power than any sort of ideological crusade, with much success. India is playing hard to get.

Meanwhile, the British still think of Britain as a crowded island with little to go round and seem unable to feel the sort of 'world is my oyster' philosophy that has buoyed Ireland up since the 1960s.

Well said

Just on a point of information here -- I'll admit no gas chambers, and walls of inhabitants' skulls might have been hard to find, but extracting taxes and raw materials for centuries, and deliberate starvation/forced emigration/land clearances were all carried out on a small island not a million miles west of Britain.

My condition was millions, but on reading it you are right, it was 1 million.

But overall Britain was crap at doing the Evil Empire thing overall, in fact its colonies cost it more to run than they got out of it (which other Evil Empires thought was rather silly). It was the 19th century equivalent of today's taxing the British people to fund the bankers (industrialists then, who had a captive market).

In a nutshell, it is felt that there is not enough in the pot for everyone and if one group succeeds in getting something then all the rest will go without and there will be nothing left for the deserving. This feeling is responsible for the main political divide in Britain whoever suggested earlier that the issue is class rather than immigrant/native hit the nail on the head. The irrational idée fixée of the limited amount in the pot leaves British people open to manipulation by all kinds of interested parties it's a sort of opium of the people

I could agree with that in the main (though I do think parts of the South East are pretty much "full" looking at pop'n density ), but my main point is that perception is what drives politics, not reality (though in the case of immigration I think the "real" reality in the pot has its lid being sat on, as embarassing bits bubble up every so often) - and this is not a good time to stir up the pot.

I can see the 'She's a racist' brigade are out in force again.

I agree with your views Mrspoc to a point and in as much as we can't bloody afford to pay our own way let alone have visitors overstaying using our stuff.

"Let's talk about immigration?"

"No we wont because it's racist"

Whoever suggested this open border policy is living on planet clueless.

232 posts, and someone claims it is not possible to talk about immigration.

Without someone suggesting someone else is a racist.

That's the point.

These sort of discussions do tend to bring out the racists and xenophobes. It doesn't seem to have stifled the debate though. Racists and xenophobes are entitled to have their say, but they should also expect to be called on it and to have their arguments picked to pieces.

Meanwhile, the British still think of Britain as a crowded island with little to go round and seem unable to feel the sort of 'world is my oyster' philosophy that has buoyed Ireland up since the 1960s.

The problem here with Open Immigration etc is not somuch crowding (except London) but I think some people mistakenly think Britain still has surplus money.

If you think it's a racist opinion to have tighter immigration control?

The boat left last friday with your luggage on it.

Before you get overcome with being offended it's a play on words :)

I don't see the problem with telling someone that they are being racist. If they genuinely are, and are happy with their convictions, then they should stand by them. If they are not racist, then they should welcome the chance to re-examine their views and to investigate why they are coming across that way.

It seems it is impossible to have a debate about immigration for fear of calling someone a racist, which of course is worse than them being a racist in the first place .

dancingmustard I've seen you about on here a few times this week. You've made quite an impression on me, I must say.

That's a ridiculous explanation.

The question is and always has been.

Should we have tighter immigration?

Have I been mentioned in despatches BCCS :)

Whatmeworry - there are plenty of people in the UK who do have large amounts of surplus money. The question as to why we don't require them to redistribute is not answered by stricter immigration controls.

The question as to why we don't require them to redistribute is not answered by stricter immigration controls

Yes, but I also don't think anyone with a surplus is going to want to redistribute it just to bring more immigrants in for them to support. I can think of far more charitable causes beginning at home, like stopping cuts to all sorts of public services and paying off the deficit.

The question is -- if Britain is such a hellhole with not enough to go round, why is anyone still here?

I see this thread is going well .

I don't think this country is racist or intolerant.

And as for immigration I reckon we should kick the Normans out first, then the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Irish. And particularly the Romans, what have they ever done for us?

The question is -- if Britain is such a hellhole with not enough to go round, why is anyone still here?

Isn't the issue more that the people who are here and can't move don't want thinly stretched resources stretched thinner and resent where they see the stretching coming from? And these sorts of chain emails are part of that?

But you bring up another point, ie that those who can't move are the ones who get fleeced the most.

''Isn't the issue more that the people who are here and can't move don't want thinly stretched resources stretched thinner and resent where they see the stretching coming from? And these sorts of chain emails are part of that?''

Another reason for services being overstretched is people in this country, born in this country using the welfare system as a lifestyle choice rather than going out to work and contributing to the wellbeing of the country? The majority of people using services are British people, some of whom have been living longterm on benefits before the economic crisis occurred.

Shock horror.

The majority of poor people in Britain are British.

What the feck did you expect?

So we should all apologies for what our ancestors did? We only got back to the 1880's on our family tree before finding out we had Irish decendents. I have no idea where my ancestors came from before then or if they had enough money ( doubt it) to have played any part in the slave trade, who should I be apologising to on behalf of my ancestors ? Who ever they may be.

dancingmustard, why are you swearing? can't you hold a reasonable discussion without bad language?

the point of my post was that immigrants are not committing wholesale theft of public services from British people, as some posters seem to imagine. According to another thread, the population of this country is 92% white British and Irish. If this is the case, why are white people acting like there are hordes of people just over the hill trying to invade this country?