To not want to be the minority where I live?

[Charlottehines]

It really saddens me that in parks and soft plays with my children, that I am in the minority and my children can't play with other children there as they all play together and obviously can't speak English.
I'm in no way racist, my husband is of mixed origin but I do find it incredibly sad that my children are growing up the minority especially when these other groups make no effort to integrate with other mums or the children.
Am I completely unreasonable to feel sad about this?

Dear oh dear oh dear leftwing you really are your own little echo chamber aren't you only not so much in the way you originally imagined when you picked your user name.

How ironic.

You clearly, clearly, cleary either do not understand the evidence that has been - repeatedly - given to you on the issue of immigration and diversity. You also don't have much of a grasp of sociology. Or else you simply want to keep repeating back the same tired nonsense in the hope that it becomes more true by being oft repeated. Hmmm, wonder which it is.

Insisting you haven't been given relevant replies to your points when you have, insisting your arguements haven't been addressed when they have (repeatedly), insisting research doesn't say what it really does - well there's the Echo Chamber in action.

And oddly enough I know that Powell didn't actually use the phrase 'rivers of blood' directly in his speech. I also know it is what the speech is commonly called and where the phrase comes from (and I didn't need to google it to find out). So your little jab there was fairly pointless wasn't it. Didn't really add anything to the debate, did it? I also do not need to delude, deny, lie, misrepresent, edit or censor the information to get my point across. Which, I personally believe, makes my standpoint far more credible than your own. Are you clutching at straws - can't discredit the argument so you try to discredit the poster? Purile.

You are more than welcome to your racist opinion. On the plus side I do not believe, as you assert, that the majority of people agree with your comments on immigration or diversity. I do not believe most people are as racist as you do. I believe that, on the whole, Britian is a friendly, open and welcoming society. I am not so naive as to believe there are no problems - people like you are clearly part of the problem. However given willingness on all sides to have open, honest yet respectful dialogue I believe these problems will be overcome. There will always be racists like you in the world of course. But there are more and more people willing to speak out and speak up against your kind of narrow minded bigotry.

Some echos do fade as time passes. Your voice of bigotry will be one of them.

UKIP are on the rise for a reason.

I have noticed the change in this country and yes the Europeans are on the whole lovely and the ones who speak English do mix (Polish, Lithuania etc) but I know the damage it has in housing shortage, nhs, schools. Where I live 3 new schools have to be built and you cannot say immigration is not a main reason for that.

If it makes me racist to expect restrictions on the EU then call me racist but call everyone in countries outside the EU racist too as they all have restrictions on the amount people who can enter their country.

Rebecca there is a huge difference between putting a cap on immigration and not wanting to hear people speaking languages other than English
Be careful though, UKIP may now be dressing things in terms of a cap on immigration, but Farage has said this year that he agrees with Powell's stance and that Powell is his political hero.

So who votes UKIP and why, and are they 'on the rise'?

UKIP are, on the whole, splitting the Conservative vote in terms of their increase in support in polling predictions for the European parliament vote. 60% of those polled who suggested they would consider voting UKIP in European elections identified themselves at Conservative voters in the 2010 general election. In European elections it is known that small minorities of the LibDem and Labour voters also switch to UKIP - in other words they switch to an anti-EU party in EU elections but not national General Elections. In the 2013 local elections their gain of council seats came primarily from the Tory losses. When asked to identify (up to) 3 main reasons for voting UKIP, 76% of voters cited limiting immigration as a reason for their voting choice. Which isn't any great surprise at all of course. 59% identified Britain leaving the EU as a further reason for their vote with a protest vote against other main parties also being a significant influencing factor(47%). Only 20% stated that UKIP actually reflected their values and beliefs and a rather odd 1% identified 'don't know' as their reason of choice.

Political analysts find it rather difficult to accurately identify the kind of people who vote for UKIP as their polled support is too small to give good statistical analysis. However what data analysis there is shows that demographically they attract more men (57% of their voters) than women and more older people with lower level qualifications. 71% of UKIP voters are aged over 50, compared with the fact 46% of voters in general fall into this age category. Only 13% of UKIP voters are university educated and over half of UKIP voters (53%) have no qualifications above GCSE level. Whilst their vote tends to increase in Euro elections as an anti-EU vote it falls back dramatically in General Elections which suggests many people who have voted UKIP either do not see them as a viable party with viable national politics or simply use the opportunity of the Euro Parliament vote as a chance to register their dislike of the EU.

UKIP polled 3% in the 2010 General Election. Rather disproportionately 26% of UKIP voters read the Daily Mail :) Tories only make up 22% of Mail readership.

UKIP's election slogan 'Love Britain; Vote UKIP' is a rewording of the BNP's 'Love Britain Vote BNP' slogan. The BNP are rather cross their slogan has been stolen. A PR fubar by UKIP or a clear signal they believe they have something to offer BNP supporters and vice versa?

In their favour, if recent press reports accruately reflect the truth of the matter, TeamNigel has embraced the EU gravy train and shown the same skill at fiddling expenses and allowances as everyone else in politics. Clearly they understands how to work in Brussels.

Fortunately whether or not they can claim to be 'on the rise', only time will tell if they making short term or more substantive gains, and they still only reflect a very, very small minority of voters.

Thank the lord for that ...

leftwing says:
And yes, I would rather walk down the streets of England and not hear people who live hear speaking languages other than English. Being a temporary visitor is one thing, but if you live in a land, it is incumbent on you to adopt the language.

I almost laughed aloud with incredulity at the complete idiocy of this remark. Have you ever heard of being bilingual? And on what planet is this not a desirable thing?

In my city people walking down the street speaking languages other than English may well be international scholars who are world experts in their fields. But I guess that kind of immigration is not the sort you object to. Whereas the children in my DS's playground, who switch back and forth effortlessly from English to Urdu, and obtain top marks at my DS's primary school - well, those are the ones you want to put back on the boat, I mean the plane.

My city is Oxford and the city council website has the following info:

Oxford is an ethnically diverse city. 22% of residents were from a black or minority ethnic group in 2011, compared to 13% in England.

An additional 14% of residents are from a white but non-British ethnic background.

Ethnic diversity increased between 2001 and 2011. The number of people from all ethnic groups increased, with the exception of people in the White British and White Irish ethnic groups.

The largest non-white ethnic groups represented in Oxford are Pakistani, Indian, Black African, 'other Asian' and Chinese ethnic groups.

The child population is considerably more ethnically diverse than the older population, which is one reason why the population is expected to become more ethnically diverse in the future.

The problem with living in Oxford is when people have the temerity to walk down the street speaking languages other than English (shock! horror!), you can't always tell from the way they look and from the language they are speaking whether they have PhDs or not. Or whether their parents have PhDs or not. It makes life here so very difficult. sarcasm alert

adoptmama and others have spent far too much time trying to convince you, because frankly, your views are so daft and unenlightened that they're wasting their breath.

And in case it wasn't clear, yes, I was trying to say that diversity increases the SOCIAL CAPITAL and CULTURAL CAPITAL in my city.

I haven't read the whole thread, but yes you are being racist and unreasonable. And having a mixed race DH doesn't make you incapable of racism.

Children don't need to be able to speak the same language to play together - my younger dd plays with an Italian child who doesn't speak much English. It doesn't seem to matter.

Leftwing my point about the Vikings, Saxons et al. is that you would not be "British" without their invasions. I very much doubt that there is anyone in Britain (or the world, for that) that is 100% and "pure" anything.

The culture that you so badly want to defend from the 'horrors' of diversity and integration is a culture that is built upon diversity and integration. The language that you want to defend is a language that has borrowed bits and pieces from other languages. A language that wouldn't even exist without other languages having an input.

How can you be so anti-integration when your own country, one that you act as the gate-keeper for, is a country made up of others and has been for centuries?

Get real.

Without mass immigration your children would never have come into contact with other cultures, leftwing? What poor expectations you have for them, what narrow vision of their future lives. To know as a child that they will never be one of the world experts Marfisa mentions, never travel to give a speech or learn a new medical technique or see a newly discovered species. Feel free to impose your poverty of expectation on your children, but leave the rest of the country out of it.

Very true, FifthSense. After the Norman invasion, for instance, the ruling aristocracy in England spoke French for a couple of hundred years - Anglo-Norman French. They also produced a wonderful body of literature - the legends of King Arthur and so on - in French. Which later writers like Malory drew upon to produce English stories.

Such a shame those French people like Eleanor of Aquitaine and so on didn't just dump French and start speaking only English all the time.

Then we have the Renaissance. National boundaries fluctuate, Latin is the scholarly lingua franca, and people like Thomas More and Erasmus run around entertaining people in a host of different vernacular and ancient languages. Cheeky blokes like Shakespeare introduce lots of words into English that come from different languages and aren't even proper English words.

As FifthSense said, the lovely hermetically sealed 'only-English-spoken-here' version of Britain that Leftwing is talking about never existed. It's a fantasy. And thank god it didn't exist, because it would have been an impoverished and boring place.

Adoptmama, you havent given relevant replies. I asked you for evidence that diversity was anything other than socially divisive.

What you gave me was nothing of the kind. You made reference to sources which showed that immigration benefited academic institutions, that immigration made very small economic contributions (whilst ignoring evidence to the contrary) and that positive interactions lead to higher social capital.

Neither you, nor anyone else, has presented one shred of evidence to indicate that more diversity leads to greater social cohesion.

And having failed to do so you resort to the pathetic but standard tactic of calling me a racist. Well name call all you like, but it wont change the facts. Diversity is bad for social cohesion.

And my "jab" at you over Powell (which I didnt google, I knew beforehand that it was a classical allusion) was because you talked of his prediction (which he didnt actually make) as being literal (it wasnt). So yes, it added to the debate insofar as it corrected your clear misrepresentation of what he actually said.

And maybe you struggle to read, but I never said the majority of people hold my specific views. I claimed that the majority of people are opposed to present levels of immigration, and always have been since we started asking them about mass immigration. That is a simple fact. Mass immigration is not a popular policy and never has been.

@ marfasi, how is it an idiotic remark to not want people resident in this country to have languages other than English as a first language? You dont actually explain how this is desirable. It is obviously socially divisive if residents of the country cant or wont speak the language of the natives in public.

As for bilingual, speaking other languages is fine so long as you are highly fluent in English. That isnt the case for a very significant number of migrants.

There are more British people living abroad than immigrants living here.

Leftwing
You accuse others of being rude and aggressive but post in a rude and aggressive manner.
There is plenty of evidence to show that diversity is not socially divisive, Putnum, Bagshaw et al. I don't really understand why you want to continue this discussion. You have outed yourself as a racist, and that's really all there is to it.
As an aside, I really do think you have a problem. Adopt has clearly demonstrated everything you have asked more than once, and yet you persist in a number of logical fallacies. Strange.

Solomandaisy, without mass immigration, then yes they would have less contact with other cultures. So what? It would mean they would be more likely to encounter people who share their interests, sensibilities and identity. This is a bad thing how exactly?

And why is living alongside other cultures (meaning living alongside people with different and often flatly incompatible values and customs) is a good thing how exactly?

Other people's values and customs are only incompatible if you are an intolerant arse... just saying.

And why is living alongside other cultures (meaning living alongside people with different and often flatly incompatible values and customs) is a good thing how exactly?

That is funny, really, really funny!

(As an aside, my neighbour is Welsh, I learnt how to make Bara Brith, lovley stuff, does that count as a compatible custom)?

Dawn, if there is plenty of evidence to show that diversity is not socially divisive, it is curious that not one of the many people who hold this position have produced a single link to back it up.

And no, Adoptmama hasnt once produced what I asked for: evidence that diversity is good for social cohesion.

And calling me a racist is just name calling. It doesnt mean anything other than "I think you are bad". Now if you want to tell me specifically what it is that I have said that is both informed by racial bias and either morally or factually wrong, go ahead. But calling me racist is about a substantive a remark as me saying you suck.

Did you go to university leftwing?

Oh god, you really are a boor, leftie. Evidence has been provided, and you can sit there being a keyboard warrior until you're blue in the face, it isn't working. I have already highlighted where you made a racist statement, a statement morally wrong and racially biased.

Youthecat, so other people's values and customs are only incompatible if I am intolerant? You cannot think of a single example of immigrants values or practices that might legitimately clash with those of the natives?

On an entirely unrelated note, this story appeared in the news recently:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-26639542

Ok Dawn, if evidence has been provided then it is a simple matter of you copying and pasting a previous post then isnt it. Go ahead.

And what statement that you highlighted was informed by racial bias and was morally or factually wrong? You are very quick to assert, but you seldom substantiate.

My values and customers appear to be entirely incompatible with yours and I suspect we have the same racial background.