to wish I could vote ukip loud and proud

[Mumof4worried]

I've nc for this, as I generally have to in life.

I'm voting ukip, I live in Peterborough where we have had massive immigration. The affects have been huge. Enlargement of EU distroyed dh building business overnight. The schools are close to bursting and have to do a school run to two different schools, had a 5 hour wait in a and e. Teenage son struggles to get part time farm work like I did when I was a teenager. House prices are out of control, god knows how any of mine will ever leave home.

I'm not saying all of these are 100% to do with uncontrolled immigration, but it has Made the problems so much worse.

I'm not racist, most of my friends are 2nd gen Asians or homophobic, my brother and his husband visit a lot.

I just want an oz type points immigration system. I don't care that lots are highly skilled, that is often very bad as it leads to a brain drain in other countries and my children will have to compete with the worlds most ambitious and motivated people.

I just want to be able to express these thoughts but I'm shamed into hiding them by the media.

So are you saying the concept of Britishness is unique to each individual?

Because if it is, it's not something we can lose or defend. Which is good, because now you don't need to vote UKIP. Hurrah!

No-one denies that the way of life and culture of the Aborigines and Native Americans was compromised by colonisation. People may argue subtleties over to what extent a culture can be protected when it collides with overwhelming technological superiority and numbers. But there is no one who doesn't express sadness at the fate of those people.

colonisation (mixed in with raids, war and purposeful genocide) is rather different from immigration.

I don't think there is ONE British "way of life". There may be several stereotypical ones, pertaining to the different class systems that still seem to prevail despite supposedly not doing so, but there isn't one overarching one. And stereotypes are just that - some caricature of what one set of people believe another set of people to be like.

And immigrants will have helped define those stereotypes themselves, surely. Immigration has been going on for ages!

UKIP are not and never will be the answer unless you want to go back to a time when the white man was supreme. And if you do, then go and live somewhere else, although good luck finding that somewhere else these days, as most western countries have largely embraced women's rights, unlike UKIP!

Have a read of this if you haven't already (and if it hasn't already been linked, apols for not reading the full thread) leftfootforward.org/2014/05/15-reasons-women-shouldnt-vote-for-ukip/

I want my native British way of life back, dammit! ahem...

PS Arf at ghostyslovesheep

The problem is I think there is more than one 'British way of life'. I don't think we ever had a single view. Where I live now exemplifies my view of British life; thriving independent shops, wide variety of people, laid back, tolerant, quite neighbourly but everyone minds their own business. But it's not what my MIL views as British. Lots of immigrants, no working men's club and everyone minds their own business.

She thinks the world was better in her childhood. Yes we were at war but everyone was white. And straight. I'm happy for that way of life to die away.

The ambivalence is part of the evolution too. There are unpleasant things in the MO archive, absolutely there are, for-example anti-semitism from some writers. There are also reactions to the liberation of the concentration camps and people recording their thoughts about how that really can't happen again.

The groundwork for our current asylum system was laid by Churchill straight after WW2 in response to the holocaust, displaced persons etc. The evolution is there to see. And kippers who talk about 'fair play and cricket' need this pointed out to them.

Still the questions about what is "British", or what is British "way of life"? Despite having explained this several times already?

Identity is constructed of a multiplicity of things. From customs, behaviour, manners, values, affections, pasttimes, law, government, institutions, due process, art, music, literature, architecture, landscape, history.... All of these things and thousands more interplay to define a unique cultural identity to which people feel that they belong.

You don't ask me to explain what Spanish is, or Italian, or Russian, or Nigerian. Every other culture is understood instinctively as having its own characteristics.

Yet you all know this. What you're really after of course is for me to list specific things, which you can then insult or denigrate. "Oh drinking tea! Haha, don't you know that the Chinese drink tea too?!", "Oh a love of animals? Ahahahahaha don't you know that Americans love animals too". Ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

This is one of the most pernicious effects of massive immigration. We are moving us to a post-cultural landscape where people are genuinely adrift and they don't know what they belong to.

If you are a 2nd or 3rd generation immigrant you feel torn between your country of birth and your country of heritage. If you're indigenous, and yes I damn well will use that word, your culture has been so devalued and abused in the name of promoting others that you don't know if you want to belong to it. Hence all the posts on this thread, so many of which are mired in confusion and self-hatred.

To be British is to seek out and explore other cultures and to incorporate the best elements of what we find into our every day lives in order to improve our lives. To be British is to be proud of our democracy and diversity and sense of justice and equality. To be British is to strive to be educated and educate.

Interesting, but how is that substantially different from other European countries, for example?

Have you actually read the UKIP manifesto beyond leaving the EU? Because your posts would suggest otherwise.

If you damn well use the word "indigenous", could you at least attempt to define what you mean by it in terms of British?

You've been asked several times.

British life was more monocultural pre WW2. Denying that is odd.

If we think UK 2015 is better, shouldn't we be articulating why to any floating voters and telling the story of how we got here?

merrymouse Thu 23-Apr-15 13:57:06
They don't know the projections on when European host cultures are predicted to become minorities.

OH FFS.

Hollywood films are seen around the world. Even in places where they are banned.

You can go to the back end of nowhere and people will know who Jeremy Clarkson is.

You can live in Syria and listen to the BBC world service.

You can tweet in Libya.

You can speak English in China and the chances are you'll find someone who understands you.

I just love the idea that culture is destroyed by another rather various cultures merging to form completely new ones. And this isn't just happening in Europe. Its happening all over the world.

It won't become a minority. It will just become different.

"You don't ask me to explain what Spanish is, or Italian, or Russian, or Nigerian. Every other culture is understood instinctively as having its own characteristics."

Er. Are they? Do you mean like Italians shout very loudly and eat pizza??

Seriously, tell us what Britishness is. Oh wait, you can't, because you don't know how to.

What you're really after of course is for me to list specific things.

Well yes, that would be how you would describe a culture, or anything really.

You don't ask me to explain what Spanish is, or Italian, or Russian, or Nigerian.

Actually, if you were arguing that any of those cultures were disappearing you would need to define what that culture was - just ask Plaid Cymru.

Oh, and by 'indigenous', I think we can all be sure she means white.

"You don't ask me to explain what Spanish is, or Italian, or Russian, or Nigerian. Every other culture is understood instinctively as having its own characteristics."

I can assure you that even the Spanish, for example, have a hard time defining what Spanish is, apart from the language, and even so. There are different national identities, languages, and cultures within Spain. Some of which actually want to become independent.

Lweji Thu 23-Apr-15 14:07:04
To be British is to seek out and explore other cultures and to incorporate the best elements of what we find into our every day lives in order to improve our lives. To be British is to be proud of our democracy and diversity and sense of justice and equality. To be British is to strive to be educated and educate.

Interesting, but how is that substantially different from other European countries, for example?

I don't think it is in many respects. But then in lies a point. We are all so busy pointing out how different we are, and don't question how similar we are.

I have many European friends. I think that we have far more in common than we have differences. I have a Dutch friend who I went to school with for a year whilst she was an exchange here. 20 years later we are still friends and still have more in common than other people I went to school with. People I didn't stay in touch with.

Sometimes my European friends ways of life are more close to mine than someone who lives in this country. I can name cultural difference between here and London in the same way as I can find cultural differences between here and the Netherlands.

'Your culture has been so devalued and abused...'

Ummmm. No, it hasn't. I'm white British. White British. I don't hate myself, or the country I've grown up in, or the people in it. I can say and do and think whatever I like.

Again, I ask. What is it that has been 'devalued and abused'?

Exactly, Red.

I certainly share a lot with people from the nation I grew up with, but that is more shared history (tv, music, political events and so on).
After spending 15 years in the UK I share quite a lot with British people too.

I wouldn't think that's a national identity as such, though.

There are many more individual differences, in terms of religion, politics, personal tastes and so on.

I do think it's dangerous, even, to try and define a national identity, which, by definition, is to the exclusion of anything out of the "norm".

Scatter - what do you mean by indigenous British people?

I think I've asked you this before. I just can't see an answer. Unless I've missed it?

You must know what you mean? You can't use a term if you don't understand what you mean by it, can you?

Ah, but what type of white?

I'm white but my ancestors were Greman, Polish, Italian and Spanish. Pretty sure I don't count as indigenous, despite being born in London.

You don't ask me to explain what Spanish is, or Italian, or Russian, or Nigerian. Every other culture is understood instinctively as having its own characteristics.

Spain, as someone has pointed out, contains more than one 'culture' or 'identity'. And historically it's been influenced by settlers from Arab countries among others.

Italy? Again, Arab/Middle Eastern settlers as well as a mix of current influences from the rest of Europe –Germany, Austria, Switzerland.

But please, scatter: if you find the suggestion of drinking tea or loving animals etc unacceptable as a British characteristic, please can you give one, just one, specific example of something you find to be uniquely British that is worth preserving and under threat?

I'm not denying Britishness exists but no one seems to be able to tell me what it is.

No, I think he means fully( almost scarily) integrated and NOT multicultural.

Are you a fan of Tebbit's 'cricket test' Scatter?

I think that no-one has been able to define "Britishness" precisely because there's about 65 million (and counting) versions of it!

I do not have anything in common with nor identify in any way with, say David Cameron because we have nothing in common apart from the fact that we're both British. And F.T.R. I do not like tea.

We're all members of the human family and our different experiences, food, language and colour can only be a positive thing, yes? And anyone can be this nebulous undefinable thing we call British precisely because it's undefinable.

Did anyone see that programme a few weeks back, Kew On A Plate? They had a segment about bicycle riding, stripy jumper and beret wearing French men with strings of onions 'round their necks. That stereotype stuck fast because they plied a huge amount of their trade in Britain, selling onions.

I wonder if non-British people know what "British" is? Well, DH told me that when he first came to this country he was astonished that not all men wore suits and bowler hats, carrying an umbrella and a briefcase on their way to the train to commute and this country didn't grind to a halt at 4pm whilst everyone took afternoon tea. He was young and naïve but that was the cliché of Britishness that existed in his country.