Do you really want us to leave...

[guest2013]

I'm European.
Last night I stupidly allowed myself to rise to someone telling me to go back to where I came from.. it ended up with about 6 people arguing with me and they were adamant that foreigners are to blame for the country's problems.
It's absolutely shook me to my core.. I feel very strange today, I've never, in my 8 years here had any negative comments. Lucky I suppose.
Are people who think this way unreasonable? Are there any exceptions where immigrants are a negative thing?
Do any of you think this way?
I'm not looking to carry on arguing but this is a safe way to discuss and I would respect your opinion.
Thanks

MimiSunshine,

Your point is so spot-on. Unbelievable levels of hypocrisy are sadly widespread...

"Before the vote I was watching the news and British ex pats on the Spanish Costas were being interviewed on their views.

They had already said how much they loved living there, that it was a lovely little bit of England in the sun (all English pubs serving full English breakfast and Sunday roasts) loads of other retired Brits to hang out with (so they weren't bothered about social integration) but that they were voting 'leave' as they thought there were too many immigrants abusing our welfare system who didn't bother to learn the language and not enough jobs for young people.

I was spluttering into my tea and getting a right old rage on their utter idiocy when to the credit of the news reporter he basically pointed out all of the parallels and that local communities here (Spain) may feel similarly. The look of confusion / disbelief on her face made it all worth it."

OP,

You are most certainly welcome in this country by me

When all the immigrants are gone, who will you blame next for all the countries problems? Will it be us lefty subversives? The slacker benefit scroungers?

I'm glad you're happy.

As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

Personally i voted leave because i was persuaded by how things run in switzerland, not an EU country but has good education, healthcare, trading deals etc, i had a rose tinted view we could end up like them in the long run. Stupidly believed the £350 million to the NHS though, but i still would have voted the same regardless.

I'm happy as I say

Well that's alright then, as long as you're ok it doesn't matter if the rest of us (immigrants or not) are fucked. and people wonder why this country is really in a state?

Brexit people's nasty options are coming to the surface.

Please could you consider not pushing all the ordinary, thoughtful, reasonable Brexiters (including several who've commented on this thread) into the same group as people with nasty opinions?

People voted leave for various reasons, not least the principle of UK laws and decisions being made in the UK. Yes, this includes decisions about border control. But that doesn't mean building a wall, Trump-style. It simply means managing migration in the way many other non-EU countries do. We can continue to welcome as many medical staff, agricultural workers and other workers as is good for Britain, but we'll no longer be obliged to admit unlimited numbers of migrants. That's a perfectly reasonable and respectable system followed by many other countries.

I don't believe our government has any intention of telling people to leave. However, they do have an equal duty to UK citizens living in other EU countries, and therefore they aren't going to make that guarantee to the EU until the EU makes a two-way agreement. I know that has been interpreted by some as using people as "bargaining chips" but the alternative is to completely ignore the rights of the people on the other side of the coin. I'm not sure what other suggestions people have to resolve this.

Britain has a very strange perception of immigrants. If your British and move abroad your an expat if anyone else comes here they are an immigrant. I remember bitter arguments in my family because my grandad doesn't like immigrants yet his daughter, my mum, lives in America. His response is "oh that's not the same" Why? because shes white and middle class?

Stupidly believed the £350 million to the NHS though

There's no reason it can't still happen, once we actually leave... the sooner the better IMO.

Itinery couldn't agree more - its a very goady op in my opinion. In my immediate and wider family I think we are made up of more immigrants than natives to be honest, some been here for 20 years plus others moved in last decade or so and all other variables. None of them take Brexit personally, all of them agree flooding the country in such a way as Blair did was far too much for hospitals and schools and all enjoy and are perfectly happy to live here.

TBH if any of them ran into some fuck wits after living here happily for so long then suddenly deciding the country was hostile it would say more about them. My own dc are only half British. My MIl is foreign, my sil is foreign my bil is - and rest of family has similar pattern and some members are from E Europe.

No, OP. A lot of us are horrified by the blatant xenophobia and racism recently. And I agree that a lot of people who express these views are ignorant at best. I had to have an operation a year or so ago, and there wasn't a single English accent from anyone there. From the German surgeon to the orderlies and nurses. They were all lively and everything went fine, but when I looked up the hospital on the Nhs site later there were a LOT of complaints about not hearing a single English accent or similar. What on earth do they want? Not to have a surgeon? Or not to get their sheets changed? If we're not going to train our own (and the govt has shown no interest in supporting local nurses and doctors) then we have to import or go without medical care. It's crazy.

*lovely although I guess they were lively too!

sorry that is sil and bil on my side - as well as mil and her family on dh side.

I don't want you to leave.
However if I was European I'd probably consider it :(
3/5 of the Europeans I know have gone home or plan to do so by the time A50 is invoked.
I witnessed one of my closest friends being told to fuck off back to Poland (hilarious because she's french) spat at, called a terrorist and a drain on the system. She has now left the UK and returned to her hometown in France, incredibly sad considering she had been here since she was 19 and is now 28. And contributed thousands to the system. And the NHS by being a registered nurse working in a hospital.
Im sorry. You are welcome here. However if you choose to leave I'd probably say that's a good thing.
I no longer feel "British" or like I'm proud of what's left of my country.
I'm leaving next year with my young DD. the irony is that I'm not European. I am welsh. British. And I don't want to be here anymore

miss Victoria, Switzerland has a tiny population (around 8 million) compared to the UK, so would be nigh on impossible to have a comparable system.

That's horrible. Sorry that's happened. I can understand that leaving you feeling shocked and a bit sick. There's just no accounting for what the ignorant and the stupid will say, especially if there is a herd of them. Hope you reported this to the police? The problem is mouthy morons currently think they have a "platform". The political current climate means that stupid people think that the vocalisation of these thoughts is now socially acceptable. But hey- it's been like this before- back as late as the sixties landlords COULD still have "No Blacks, no Irish" on their vacancies advertisements, and racism is everywhere. What I love is when racists have the genetic identity done by DNA testing and find out who they really are. As posters have already said there's no such thing as pure English, or "pure" any other group.

Missvictoria Switzerland hmmmmm really?
Yes the economy which didn't have to recover from WW2 and made rather a lot of money from Nazi gold.
Yep - let's be just like Switzerland.

IMO the only good thing about coming out of the EU is those who voted OUT won't be able to keep blaming immigration for all of our problems.

Of course they'll keep blaming immigrants.

And when the medicine doesn't work, they'll just widen the definition of "immigrant".

At least, that's what usually happens.

My fear is that a lot of British people are going to discover other people have decided that they're not British at all. At least, not "proper" British - for whatever the Friends of Farage decide that is.

"Stupidly believed the £350 million to the NHS though"

There's no reason it can't still happen, once we actually leave... the sooner the better IMO.

It was a figure plucked from the air by a campaign that did not expect to win. Within a couple of days of the referendum they were attempting to remove all trace of having said it. Fortunately they didn't succeed. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-vote-leave-wipes-nhs-350m-claim-and-rest-of-its-website-after-eu-referendum-a7105546.html

Let's not forget also that on the day after the referendum the council in Cornwall and the government in Wales were saying 'But what about our EU funding? That will still carry on, won't it?' in spite of the fact that the people of those areas had voted overwhelmingly for leaving the EU.

We're blundering along without a plan and god knows how it will all turn out. It should have never been put to a referendum in the first place. The issues were too complex to be reduced to a simple Yes/No vote, especially as the government didn't have the simple good sense to put in the usual safeguard that applies in a referendum, namely that the Yes campaign would need to get well above 50% of the votes cast to win the day. I blame David Cameron for this.

OP, I am disgusted by how you were spoken to last night. Please stay. Having said that, I don't blame any non-UK national now thinking about moving on. What a car crash. I was born in Scotland to Scottish parents. I've lived in England most of my life but if Scotland votes for independence, I will apply for a Scottish passport as soon as I can, and I will encourage my children to do the same. At least that would give us an escape route.

You are absolutely welcome here. The arseholes you were speaking to... they should piss off

I'm English. I'm also European. Why do we always get left out. We are leaving the EU, not Europe

I'm sorry those people said those things to you OP.

I don't want you to leave, although I understand the temptation, I have similar.

What would be better is if the racists and fuckwits left. I'd even crowdfund their tickets.

BTW, my comment is about the people who scapegoat "immigrants", not people who merely voted Leave.

don't want adhere to laws made by unelected government
I guess you're currently campaigning to get rid of the House of Lords then?

Those people were totally wrong to speak to you in such a confrontational way OP, as wanting the door closed on further immigration does not equal being racists or bigoted, which is what the particular group who you met were. But I do agree we need controlled immigration and should be a bit more selective about who we allow to come and settle here. I dont agree with throwing out people who are already living here, and contributing to the economy, but then again I really don't believe that will happen. Nor has the Government ever suggested that this will happen. It's really just scaremongering tactics by the media and Remainers. People on these threads condoning open door immigration, are the same people complaining about poor education, a failing NHS, and reducing welfare handouts, not understanding that it's all linked to allowing in too many immigrants which obviously has a knock on effect on services which just cannot cope.

'Please could you consider not pushing all the ordinary, thoughtful, reasonable Brexiters (including several who've commented on this thread) into the same group as people with nasty opinion'

Perhaps, before the vote, these 'thoughtful, reasonable people' could have looked at the kind of people voting with them and wondered if it was really such a good idea.