To be fed up of comparisons with 1930s Germany in U.K. politics?

[jessica29054]

Surely a better and far less potentially offensive comparison is the 1980s?

Labour in disarray, therefore weak opposition, and a female PM of course.

Comparisons with the rise of the extreme far right in Germany have little place. The BNP are the equivalent to Hitler and his party and thankfully have little mainstream support.

1930s Germany isn't paranoid at all is it?

This will have to be another one of those agree to disagree things. I don't think posters are saying that we are literallly dragging undesirables into gas chambers as we speak (if they were, you would be entirely justified in calling them paranoid), but alluding to a disturbing change in the national zeitgeist which has parallels with that period in history. You don't feel that's the case and it's all grand, that is totally fine and your feelings are as valid as anyone else's.

Demanding list of foreigners.

If you're referring to the schools thing as has been pointed out multiple

Sorry, pressed too soon.

Demanding list of foreigner
It's been pointed out multiple before the schools survey is only asking for information which has already been taken for years. And the result is going to be extra money to support speakers of English as a foreign language etc. The resistance to it appears to be nothing more than politically motivated scaremongering.

Telling doctors they will be replaced by natives
When exactly did this happen? The news story I read last week said that the government intended to abolish the cap on training only 6,000 medical students per year. It's anticipated that when they qualify (which is years away) there will be less need to recruit doctors from abroad. Nobody has told overseas doctors that their jobs are in danger or that they're going to be replaced. Again - deliberately misleading.

Telling academics they'll be banned from working on certain topics due to security risks.

The only new subject this applies to is advising on Brexit. This is absolutely standard and was well before Brexit. The same will apply to academics working on defence projects or security sensitive topics like the national grid etc. It has long been applied not just to academics but even auxiliary staff like maintenance men or cleaners before they are allowed to work in areas where sensitive information is kept like MOD bases or home office buildings. It's certainly nothing new and doesn't represent some sort of new era of oppression but a continuation of longstanding security procedures. Again - this is a deliberately misleading story and people who've promoted it (like Nick Clegg) would know full well that it was normal procedure. In a nutshell it's another example of scaremongering.

I'll let the Tory propaganda machine dissect and destroy my post.

Considering that your entire post is deliberately misleading scaremongering I think it's a bit rich for you to refer to anybody else's posts as 'propaganda'.

Have a pleasant evening dearie. Xx

Lists of foreigners

The brouhaha regarding Rudd's proposal for making employers list their foreign staff so they (employers) could be named and shamed if there is some notional excessive number must have bypassed you? Also the high approval ratings for this measure as reported by YouGov? Yet a cowardly backpedalling by the government after there was a bit of a fuss, perhaps acknowledging that such a measure is, how shall we say, not quite kosher?

Telling doctors they will be replaced by natives

The quota for medical school places has been restricted by the government for umpteen years for no good reason. They're proposing this now, not they say because they realise we need to train more doctors per se (which would be awesome) but effectively in order to get rid of foreign doctors. (But first, dear foreign doctors, we shall deign to allow you to serve our needs until you're no longer needed then you can bugger off.) (Brackets my subjective interpretation). Also seems like there has been a bit of backtracking there.

Telling academics they'll be banned

It's a wonder that after another fuss, the FCO were not as sanguine as you are and have backtracked and claimed it was all a misunderstanding. I gather they've said they would now welcome said academics back for those particular projects. If it was standard procedure for those projects, I would think they would have been able to airily say so (as you do).

So some of these things that you say are trivial/routine and simply scaremongering by Remoaners seem to be (after a period of reflection) considered rather more, well, unfortunate by the very people who said them - better tell them it was all OK in the first place and to un-backtrack!

That's not true Bill, I've been asked before by the school about my children's 'home language' (which is English, since I've never spoken to them in my own language), but what is asked now is different, it's about place of birth and nationality. I was sent a lone letter in June 2016 asking me for this specifically about DS2, and saying if was the government asking the school.

The other thing about EU citizens not advising the UK you are also wrong on, there's no security involved in that one, see expert legal opinion on this on Twitter (MNers with links might be along... I have too much of a headache after henna experiment gone wrong )

Smirnoffka - do I honestly think immigrants care about being demonised by tabloids? In my experience yes we do. Regardless of country of origin or occupation.

Have you ever asked your builders/neighbours how they feel or do you just assume they think everything's fine because they (probably not unsurprisingly) don't talk to you about it?

The thread is moving fast so apologies if this has been linked already, but Mhairi Black doesn't think the comparison is invalid

www.thenational.scot/comment/mhairi-black-we-must-learn-lessons-from-history-and-speak-out-against-the-tories-ugly-xenophobia.23314

The thread is moving fast so apologies if this has been linked already, but Mhairi Black doesn't think the comparison is invalid

Tbf The National is hardly any unbiased source.

As an aside, I would like to seek consensus from all posters on what constitutes correct posting behaviour. Was it not generally agreed that name-calling, sneering, dismissing, shrieking etc are not very nice and constitute vicious attacks?

I may have incorrectly interpreted somebody's post to me, but it appears I may be guilty of several of the above (I respectfully disagree, apart from proudly admitting that I am often sarcastic - MN really need a font for this, which I would probably be using 75% of the time - and at this juncture sarcasm is not a crime) due to being on one side. Conversely, "dumb", "thick", "paranoid" and so forth are admirable if issued from the other side?

Ah Bil lnice try, but again using the term "majority" when the difference was 3% does that mean that its OK to ignore the fact that this was a small majority vote and to not have any parliamentary debate on the direction it should take? That is rather dictatorial.

I used the term majority because it was accurate. 52% is still a majority. To describe that as 'dictatorial' is absolute nonsense, it's the exact definition of democracy and the opposite of dictatorial. To suggest otherwise suggests that again you don't really understand the meaning of those words.

Removing this right to have their views listened to, and by removing the possibility that parliament would debate how brexit goes ahead does disenfranchise the leave side.

No it doesn't because they actually had the opportunity to vote in the referendum. You have a woolly feeling of dissatisfaction at not getting your own way which you identify as 'disenfranchisement' but is only really that as a figure of speech. But your solution to that is to actually disenfranchise the remain side by completely disregarding their votes. You seem to be confusing disenfranchisement with losing. Losing a vote does not automatically mean that the losers have been disenfranchised.

The EU has said it won't negotiate until Article 50 is invoked. So there is nothing to debate until it's been invoked and when it's invoked we're leaving. So when would you have any terms debated and voted on and what would be the outcome if we said no?

There's also no guarantees that there won't be some sort of either parliamentary or public say on the terms in future. But the government can't promise that now because it would weaken their negotiating position so much.

In reality I don't think anybody seriously expects this to happen and it's widely regarded as a delaying tactic rather than something expected to have merit.

I wasn't talking about the paper but the author. All pieces of journalism will be biased to a degree. I'm not an idiot.

All pieces of journalism will be biased to a degree.

In this case it is more than a degree.

And I haven't said you are an idiot. You linked to an article. I commented.

Oh FFS.

An MP is giving her opinion. It's something I read this evening and thought it would be interesting to share. Sorry.

Oh and they're allowing more schools to have cadet units, which is basically just setting up a recruitment station at schools.

Sorry, but all of those are things I never thought we'd see in 21st century Britain.

Sorry, but you appear to not know what cadets do. Please find out before posting things like that. Cadets do not do recruiting for the armed forces, we are youth organisations that offer a wide range of activities. A very very very small number of cadets actually joined the armed forces. A cadet who joins the forces after being in cadets usually wanted to join before they actually joined cadets. One of my current cadets does want to join the Army, but another wants to be a doctor, one wants to be a nurse, one wants to be a teacher.

"It's been pointed out multiple before the schools survey is only asking for information which has already been taken for years."
No, it hasn't they are asking for place of birth and nationality the first time. Neither provided any sensible information about additional (language) needs.

And the result is going to be extra money to support speakers of English as a foreign language etc.
See above. Bill whats is your source for this? Stop making things up.

The resistance to it appears to be nothing more than politically motivated scaremongering." Ahhh. bill you love to call us all scaremongers. It's getting tedious and really rather empty.

"it has long been applied not just to academics but even auxiliary staff like maintenance men or cleaners"

Of course it has. My parents are foreign-born, and I recall a time when no govt Ministry would allow me to work for them because my parents were not British-born. Maybe it has changed now, but I see nothing wrong with taking security precautions, however draconian it may look. Afterall, although British-born I may cleave to my parents' country of birth more than this one.

Widow Have you ever asked your builders/neighbours .....

Of course I have, we talked lastnight. People from EE, Poland (which is actually Western Europe) and the Baltics are hardy people and they can put their hand to anything. Their attitude is We have heard the talk, we have not had any unpleasant verbal encounters, the work is rolling in and What will be, will be.

but I see nothing wrong with taking security precautions

You mean the Foreign Office were wrong to backtrack and should un-backtrack? I mean, it's routine, security concerns, nothing to see here...

"@PaulBrandITV: Foreign Office have told me story about non-EU academics being barred from advising on Brexit categorically 'not true' and LSE got it wrong."

A Foreign Office spokesman insisted nothing had changed since the pro-Brexit referendum result.

"The FCO regularly works with academic institutions to assist in its policy research, and nothing has changed as a result of the referendum. It has always been the case that anyone working in the FCO may require security clearance depending on the nature and duration of their work.

"Britain is an outward-looking nation and we will continue to take advice from the best and brightest minds, regardless of nationality."

Mr Clegg, now the Lib Dems European Union spokesman, said: "It is utterly baffling the Government is turning down expert, independent advice on Brexit simply because someone is from another country."

Whether there's been a backtrack or not, so what? And as for Clegg, he has now entered showbiz and has no gravitas. Every country, when seeking advice, has a right not to disclose everything to everyone in a particular field. They would be foolish to do so.

Whether there's been a backtrack or not, so what?

Well there clearly weren't pressing security concerns relating to the projects in question now were there? Hence the backtrack. So now you say it suddenly doesn't matter that they had to eat their words...

And as for Clegg, he has now entered showbiz and has no gravitas.

Are we not doing "play the ball not the man" when they're Remainers?

And while we're there, are we or are we not accepting anecdotes?

Perhaps we can have a simple scoring system:

Anecdotes of happy foreign acquaintances who've experienced not a shred of negativity = Definitely true and of maximum importance.

Anecdotes of worried foreign acquaintances who have experienced some form of unpleasantness = Made up and caused by scaremongering from Remainers.

"No it doesn't because they actually had the opportunity to vote in the referendum."

Its funny that you think democracy should only work once when you get the outcome you want.

"52% is still a majority. To describe that as 'dictatorial' is absolute nonsense, it's the exact definition of democracy and the opposite of dictatorial. To suggest otherwise suggests that again you don't really understand the meaning of those words."

"You seem to be confusing disenfranchisement with losing. Losing a vote does not automatically mean that the losers have been disenfranchised."

You seem to equate a small majority win in a one off advisory referendum as validation for your views and defending them using democracy is a fallacious argument. Democracy doesn't start and stop with a one off vote, claiming it does so is far more reminiscent of totalitarian regimes than the critiques you have aimed at remainers. Your argument that people who voted to remain are not being disenfranchised because their voice was heard once is also very along these lines, democracy did not start and finish with the referendum.

"Well there clearly weren't pressing security concerns relating to the projects in question now were there? Hence the backtrack. So now you say it suddenly doesn't matter that they had to eat their words... "

I do not know if foreign academics were excluded in the first place, and who can be sure they have been de-excluded. It's words, we will never know whether they will ever be consulted. All govts choose their own protocols in this type of situation for various reasons. In business for example, industrial espionage still continues and that is one reason why not every person, even senior ones, need to know everything.

I think many Remainers have moved on and are trusting the process to some extent. Some obviously haven't and I gauge genuine torment in some of these posts

Maybe it's a question of personality type sometimes - some people are more resistant to change and find it harder to adjust or adapt .. and stay stuck.The move out of the EU is a significant change. and requires a certain amount of courage and faith, that it is possible to build new foundations and do things differently.

In my eyes the Union was failing on many levels and I wanted out. I still do. We were putting up and shutting up about many issues that were not satisfactory. A bit like a marriage - sometimes you have to get out and that's your first focus. What you do next - you figure out as you go along. It take guts and imagination. That's what's required here.

As long as its English born guts and imagination, eh!!

Inkanta - on this I agree with you, "The Union was failing on so many counts and I wanted out" and "What you do next - you figure out as you go along. It take guts and imagination"

The Union has indeed failed. That's why I want out of the UK.