To not like this Idea of a new multicultural Britain

[monkeyfarm]

I suspect this probably won't go down too well but I'm just being honest as I'm interested to see if I'm the only one who feels this way?
I hate how things are changing, how I can be in a store feel like I'm in eastern europe, why are we one of the only countries that do this? why can't we take a leaf out of the book of Australia and open our doors to people who have something to contribute and not just all and sundry?
Am I on my own in feeling this way?

British owned shops? If they are floated on the stockmarket, how do you control who owns the shares? If AXA buy a chunk of Sainsbo's shares to put in their funds does that mean that Sainsbo's is part French owned?

Pointy your husband's nationality is irrelevant. If your child is British or has ILR then a parent can claim child benefit, regardless of the parent's immigration status. And the Home Office disregard it as a benefit when stating that visas are dependent on people not claiming benefits.

i am confused about british owned shops, many of the kebab houses, indian restaurants etc are british owned, what do you do demand to see peoples passports before you buy from their shops?

or do you just assume that because it is someone with brown skin that owns the corner shop that they couldnt possibly be British, that would be racism.

I first came to this country with friends on our summer break 12 years ago. After we run out of money we casually strolled onto first farm we saw and asked if we can help. The owner said that he has 6 months suspended sentence for hiring illegal workers, so if we're caught on his field he's going straight behind bars. But he has either risk it or close the whole business down as absolutely no one else will work for him. Yes, he paid minimum wage, but hardly turned profit anyway. People like to buy their strawberries for a £1.

Also every other restaurant in town had a sign 'closed due to staff shortage' or 'hours reduced due to staff shortage'. If not for immigrants this country would be in serious trouble right now.

And to second what pointysettia said. Both myself and my husband work in professional positions now. Every job we got was by competing with local people on equal playing field and we work for exactly the same money as everyone else (wouldn't it be a major Employment Tribunal case otherwise?). And we have our poor English, impossible names and 'forrin' culture working to our disadvantage. I guess our employers must have badly needed our skills.

'Things used to be different', 'It's changing for the worse', 'What is this world turning into?' are the most common complaints of ageing (sorry) people everywhere in the world. Immigrants are an easy target to vent those sentiments. And while government doesn't communicate the benefits well, Daily Mail puts all real and imagined 'threats' across loud and clear.

And it's really putting us down. Most of my friends who lived here moved back home or to other countries because of that. We are seriously considering joining them. There, a happy ending for some of you.

Race is one thing, culture is another. If people want to come to Britain, integrate with society then that's great, I don't care what they look like, that is of absolutely no relevance. But they should learn the language and expect that they will have to adapt to our way of life, rather than the other way around. I say that as an immigrant myself. In the same way, I think it's wrong when British people go to Spain and don't learn the language or attempt to fit in. I think you should respect the culture of the place you choose to live in. Spanish culture is worth celebrating and preserving, so is Indian culture, so is British culture.

Yes things change and change isn't always bad but often good. I think for some folk in certain areas though, they have seen a lot of change in the past say 10 years or so. The two primary schools on my doorstep have went from mostly white British to one about 70% Indian and the other 90odd% mixed Asian background. they are not bad schools at all but hat is a very visual change and leads to asian families choosing those schools and the white families avoiding them.

But then other cultures coming in isn't necessarily a bad thing and is a natural progression. We all enjoy some of the benefits of other cultures that have come to the UK. Some aspects of these cultures are not so good. People just worry about the balance.

Rhianna there are NOT "very few Doctors with English as their first language".

The majority of Doctors in this country are British. But some are not. What a ridiculous statement.

Medicine degrees are massively over-subscribed. Many many many people want to train to be Doctors. The Universities are in the very fortunate position to pick the best and brightest (in their opinion) to study their courses in medicine. I don't get why you think no white British people have those aspirations...

delphine what about people like me and my friends who are born and bred British and decide to wear hijab? even though in a lot of cases our parents who were not born British dont wear it? Do we still need to prove our Britishness by following the culture of the majority, are we no longer British enough by putting a scarf on my head?

we dont feel the need to adapt to the british way of life as we feel inherently british, it is a fact we are british like it is a fact we are female, we can not be anything else apart from british.

I have a friend 2 weeks ago she didnt wear hijab, now she does, so all of a sudden is she not adapting to the culture she is in?

Deep breath. Here in Australia, we decided that we would not let anyone who arrived by boat seeking asylum to actually stay in Australia or anywhere near it while waiting for their claim to be processed. No, we ship people, including children as young as 10, some unaccompanied, to remote islands, and leave them there for up to 5 years where they languish/go mad/kill themselves. Oh, and they can't work and must survive on benefits which are lower than those for Australians. We also call such people "illegals" although they have done nothing illegal, just what they are entitled to do by international laws on refugees which Australia is signatory to, namely, to claim asylum. We just make this policy up as we go along and it earns us a reputation as a bunch of nasty, redneck, racist, cruel, intolerant bigots, which is only partially true and not a good look in the eyes of the rest of the world. Oh yes, and it is morally wrong and hateful to treat human beings fleeing war torn countries in such a way. But that's what we do.
Do you really think that is a good thing for Britain to copy, OP?

that programme border control or whatever it is called is really disgusting sometimes!

nailak Sadly, you have hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what many people think. I expect the lovely man in the corner shop who always says hello to my children pays more taxes, proportionately to income, than Philip Green does. But he also speaks a lot of different languages, so he probably makes racists feel intellectually inferior.

I came accross this, it is interesting www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20713380

16 December 2012 Last updated at 01:06 Share this pageEmailPrint
Census: Maps show migration trends
Trends in migration are changing. Once, migrants from the same country tended to cluster in areas where they had relatives or friends.
But new maps of England and Wales, reveal that for more recent migrants this is no longer the case.

Wow. I was talking about Tower Hamlets in previous posts. What do the right-on ('multi-culti is wonderful! The EU is here to help us! We are eternally grateful!') useful idiots think of this?

By Andrew Gilligan:

Sir Robin Wales, the Labour mayor of Newham, is one of many mainstream politicians who will not deal with Lutfur Rahman (above), the extremist-linked independent mayor of neighbouring Tower Hamlets. In a piece I did for Saturday's paper, Wales says:
?Lutfur is following policies that will not benefit anyone in the future. I?m extremely worried that you create an enclave, and whenever you have segregation it is an unmitigated disaster.?
Both boroughs have relatively low "white British" populations. The proportion in Tower Hamlets (31 per cent white British, 44 per cent total white) is much higher than in Newham (16.7 per cent white British, 29 per cent total white). But the two boroughs have taken completely different paths on the issues of integration and community cohesion. As I put it:
Mr Rahman?s ruling council cabinet is 100 per cent Bengali, in a borough where Bengalis make up only about a third of the population. While Newham will not fund projects aimed at just one community, Tower Hamlets pours enormous sums into Bengali-only drugs projects, arts projects, youth projects and lunch clubs ? many of them run by front organisations of the IFE [Lutfur's extremist allies]. Other groups are funded too, though less generously, but again more often in racial and faith silos than on any kind of general, community-wide basis.
While Newham pays for recent immigrants to learn English, Tower Hamlets, incredibly, pays enormous sums for British-born children, who have grown up speaking English, to learn Bengali. Since his election two years ago, Mr Rahman has sought to ?Islamicise? Tower Hamlets, clamping down on strip clubs and a gay pub. And he has just launched a ?community faith buildings support scheme? to pour further millions into religious organisations ? substantially, though not exclusively, mosques.
The most interesting thing for me about Newham's approach was the support I found for it among local people, of all races, and the relative lack of push-back when the council decided to, for instance, remove ethnic-language newspapers from libraries and end grants aimed only at one community group (there was some opposition, naturally, but it was overcome.) The politics of racial separation is of course self-fulfilling: by funding on a racial and faith basis, you create client groups who can be relied on to emphasise race and faith differences, because their funding depends on it. By funding only on a general, community-wide basis, you will in the long term deprive such sectarianism of oxygen.
The domination of Tower Hamlets by Rahman's clique is even more surprising given that this is a genuinely diverse borough in which, for instance, the Bengali population (32 per cent) continues to be substantially outnumbered by the the white one. There are also sizeable numbers of black and mixed-race people. The proportion of the population which is Bengali has in fact declined slightly (from 33.4 per cent) since the last census as more eastern Europeans and white hipsters have moved in. And of course, there are thousands of Tower Hamlets Bengalis who despise Lutfur Rahman, and what he represents, just as strongly as anyone else.
Read the full piece here. More soon on how Lutfur and his allies are trying to handle Tower Hamlets' increasingly adverse demographics.

what do i think?

I think first why is there a differentiation between "white British" and any other British?

I think these ethnicity boxes are a load of rubbish and people pick whatever they want to tick. I don't believe in the concept of ethnicity that seems to be out there, it is very subjective.

I think that private organisations within Newham, such as the Christian based Aston Mansfield fund many religious based community groups, such as I attended a youth and community course for Muslim women there and they have other such schemes.

I am part of groups funded by tower hamlets that cross ethnic divides such as the maternity services liason committee, however the woman running it is desperate to find mothers who are not Bengali and Somali to be involved from Tower Hamlets.#

Newham wont fund things for one community, however there are ways around that, such as I got funding for an eid party in a community centre, it was open for all, we had speakers from islamic charities as well as community representatives such as childrens centre, dentist, fire safety etc.

ELM and LMC are major points of interest for Tower Hamlets and generate thousands of visitors each week to the area.

so basically does it matter if the council are white british or asian british, if you measure the figures another way and put all colours of british together then what happens? the council is 100% British and the population isnt?

Trazzle it's not as simple as that for us as DH works on a US air base, for the US government. He pays only US taxes and has what is called a 'componency stamp' which allows him to work here for the US government, entirely separately from the UK economy (other than what he and I buy here, of course). He is paid in $. We have checked, we are not entitled to child benefit. There is an upside - the US government pays our council tax for us so we are not complaining!

But thanks for thinking of us .

I worry about definitions of integration. I'd hate to go back to the late 1970s, when my family first spent time in the UK. It was very difficult to buy foreign food unless you were very wealthy or living in London - supermarkets just didn't stock ingredients from around the world. (Not talking veg with air miles here, more things like spice mixes, coconut milk etc.) How British do we have to be to integrate? Do I have to support the England football team just because I have chosen to live here? Other than speaking the language, who is the arbiter of integration?

I sincerely hope that it will never be UKIP...

HoneyMurcot

I don't know whether the OP thinks this would be a good thing for Britain to copy, but I certainly do.
It's well known that many illegals arriving in the UK have NOT sought asylum in the first safe country they arrive in - no, they continue their journey until they reach the UK. And a large percentage of so-called 'asylum seekers' have always been economic migrants. Either way, they don't benefit the UK in any way and are a massive drain on the system.
Maybe the same applies to Australia?

i know a family of somalians who came as asylum seekers, one of the children is now a dr, one is a police man, one is training to be a lawyer,

I mentioned them in my previous post,
are you saying drs and police men dont benefit the UK?

Eliza

You do know that the UK is 6th in the EU for the number of asylum applications not first, not second not even in the top 5!

"The number of asylum applicants and their relative importance (for example, their number in relation to the total population of the country where the application is lodged) varies considerably between EU Member States. The highest numbers of asylum seekers in 2011 were reported by France and Germany ? each of these receiving more than 50 000 applicants (see Table 2). This was considerably higher than in any of the other EU Member State; Italy, Belgium, Sweden and the United Kingdom followed with between 34 000 and 26 000 applicants. The total number of persons seeking asylum in these six Member States accounted for more than three quarters (77 %) of the EU-27 total in 2011. "

From
epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics

We are not unduly burdened by asylum seekers nor unreasonably sought out. Other countries are carrying a heavier share than us even in Europe.

Tch. Have you noticed the number of schools that hire French teachers to teach French to children who have grown up speaking English? They even import language assistants, sometimes!

It doesn't stop there. Our British children are being taught German, Spanish, and sometimes even Italian and Chinese Mandarin! In a small minority of schools/sixth forms, Latin and Classical Greek are available.
So, why is it a problem if Bengali courses are available? Is it that you like children having to go on foreign exchange trips to practise speaking?

nailak
"i know a family of somalians who came as asylum seekers, one of the children is now a dr, one is a police man, one is training to be a lawyer,
I mentioned them in my previous post,
are you saying drs and police men dont benefit the UK?"

One family out of the thousands who are claiming benefits and accomodation? During the course of my work I've come across thousands who have committed crimes. Yes, no doubt there are those who seek to contribute positively, but few and far between I'd imagine.

And presumably they'd have had their accomodation, training and degrees paid for by the state? Unlike many young people of my acquaintance, who would love to go to university, but they or their parents are unable to afford it.

nailak, what part of this do you not get. Please refer to the title of the thread, because 'this' is not British:

Mr Rahman?s ruling council cabinet is 100 per cent Bengali, in a borough where Bengalis make up only about a third of the population. While Newham will not fund projects aimed at just one community, Tower Hamlets pours enormous sums into Bengali-only drugs projects, arts projects, youth projects and lunch clubs ? many of them run by front organisations of the IFE [Lutfur's extremist allies]. Other groups are funded too, though less generously, but again more often in racial and faith silos than on any kind of general, community-wide basis.
While Newham pays for recent immigrants to learn English, Tower Hamlets, incredibly, pays enormous sums for British-born children, who have grown up speaking English, to learn Bengali. Since his election two years ago, Mr Rahman has sought to ?Islamicise? Tower Hamlets, clamping down on strip clubs and a gay pub. And he has just launched a ?community faith buildings support scheme? to pour further millions into religious organisations ? substantially, though not exclusively, mosques.
The most interesting thing for me about Newham's approach was the support I found for it among local people, of all races, and the relative lack of push-back when the council decided to, for instance, remove ethnic-language newspapers from libraries and end grants aimed only at one community group (there was some opposition, naturally, but it was overcome.) The politics of racial separation is of course self-fulfilling: by funding on a racial and faith basis, you create client groups who can be relied on to emphasise race and faith differences, because their funding depends on it.

Well, of course you can't see anything wrong with it Nailak - it's in your race and faith interest. Sectarianism is a terrible thing and is the shadow side of 'multiculturalism' that the useful idiots haven't thought through properly.

Course, I could be biased by logic here. I love languages, and I've been thinking recently that European languages are far more expensive to learn. I don't know anyone apart from professional teachers who speak the ones I'm learning now, but I chat to bilingual/trilingual Britons all them time who probably wouldn't charge £15-25 to talk to me for an hour in one. And obviously, I wouldn't have to go on expensive plane rides.

Eliza600 "Unlike many young people of my acquaintance, who would love to go to university, but they or their parents are unable to afford it. "

You just summed up the same lame excuse people in Britain use. I used to live in a not so very rich country yet people work so hard to save all their money to send their kids to good universities so they can therefore end up with a good job in the future.There is no help from the gov or council if they end up on the streets. SO the incentive to study and get the best education is very high. I hardly knew anyone who used to have holidays abroad or any of the extras like Brits do because they save their money to send their kids to uni. So that excuse of "I have no money to go to uni" is no excuse. Unlike where I used to live, THE UK offers student finance and student loan and grants ready available for those who want. The only excuse for no education is laziness.

Do not blame asylum seekers.

It is down to the Home office to weed out the non genuine ones from the genuine asylum cases. You seriously cant be jealous of an asylum seeker's life. You don't want to live through the eyes of asylum seeker's eyes and live what they have been through.