To think friend is BU to think all Brexiteers are racist?

[Soodoenim]

Have NC as this is outing. We both voted remain. Friend, who was previously not particularly engaged with politics (neither was I), became v passionate about the EU debate.

Ever since, she is really scathing about anyone who voted leave. She thinks they're all racist and possibly of low intelligence. I've tried to explain to her that yes, there probably are some people who voted for racist " get rid of the bloody immigrants" reasons but there are many others who I'm sure had very valid reasons for voting leave. She just won't have it and says even if they didn't primarily vote for racist reasons, they're "obviously ok with the anti-immigrant stance of the leave campaign". I said that actually some might be really uncomfortable with that but still felt conpelled to vote leave for other reasons that were important to them that over-rode that.I suggested to her that leavers might think she's an idiot for voting the way she did but she things there's no valid reason they could think that. I've also said it's like her voting Labour and thinking that anyone who votes for another party is stupid but she thinks it's not the same.

Obviously I disagree with the leave decision but I do respect other people's right to a different opinion than mine. TBH she's getting on my nerves. She now judges EVERYONE based on how they voted in the referendum and where possible will avoid mixing with any leavers.

How can I make her see that she's being unreasonable?

Ffs. All those bandying around the word racist are demeaning those who have genuinely struggled with genuine racist issues.

Wanting control of immigration does not a fucking racist make.

Your friend sounds thick op I can't tolerate thick so good for you for sticking with her

I think you should listen to yourselves.

I have thought long and hard about all the name-calling and nastiness around the referendum. I have tried to be understanding of the shock, anger and grieving that people have faced. I have tried to understand what is going on politically, emotionally & psychologically.

I have come to the conclusion that if someone's politics or worldview relies on or lead them to demonise, stereotype and denigrate people they don't agree with, rather than try to understand things from their point of view, then their politics are deeply, deeply flawed.

I think this is becoming more and more apparent to a lot of people.

And yes. Her sweeping generalisations which put a whole swathe of people in an inferior position to her makes her the bigot. X

So that's the 70-80% of the population who believe these lies and are idiots them.

Yes. Lets start with the basic one. How many foreigners are here:

Ipsos Mori poll: How many people are immigrants. UK answer 31%. Actual answer 13%

Or the housing thing:
Daily Mail headline from 2012 read: “Revealed: How HALF of all social housing in England goes to people born abroad”. The actual figure at the time was 8.6%: it now stands at 9%. Around 91% [pdf] of all new social tenancies are taken up by UK-born citizens.

Jobs:
What about the claim that they are depressing wages, particularly for the low-paid?

The most recent research from the centre for economic performance at the London School of Economics says “the areas of the UK with large increases in EU immigration did not suffer greater falls in the jobs and pay of UK-born workers. The big falls in wages after 2008 are due to the global financial crisis and a weak economic recovery, not to immigration.”

Several studies have shown a small negative effect of migration on the wages of low-skilled workers in certain sectors in certain parts of the country, particularly care workers, shop assistants, and restaurant and bar workers. The effect has been measured at less than 1% over a period of eight years.

The LSE’s Jonathan Wadsworth said: “The bottom line, which may surprise many people, is that EU immigration has not harmed the pay, jobs or public services enjoyed by Britons. In fact, for the most part it has likely made us better off. So, far from EU immigration being a “necessary evil” that we pay to get access to the greater trade and foreign investment generated by the EU single market, immigration is at worse neutral, and at best, another economic benefit.”

Wanting control of immigration does not a fucking racist make.

Wanting to control it based on a person's ethnicity rather than their potential contribution is though, wouldn't you say?

TheJammyDodger I agree with you actually. I'm a pro-immigration leave voter, although my reasons for eventually deciding to vote leave were many and varied, as they will have been for lots of other people too.

Sounds an oxymoron but I am actually hugely supportive of immigration - but as we move into a truly globalised future, I would prefer immigration to be on a globally balanced scale, not artificially skewed towards (mainly white) Western Europe as it currently stands.

Imagine that we were a tolerant nation. No worries about "the Muslims", "immigrants", "foreigners taking our houses". Imagine people looking at the Farage Nazi style poster (the one with the walking people, just like walking Jews that the Nazis used to create fear and alarm) and thinking it was actually a bad thing. Imagine we were better than that.

And there was a Brexit referendum.

How many would vote to leave.

Exactly.

For me it's not about your colour of your skin, your nationality, your religion etc, it's about the government providing the necessary services for the amount of people in the UK, with uncontrolled immigration how can they do this, What population levels do people think is enough for this tiny island ?

"Wanting control of immigration does not a fucking racist make"

No but by definition it makes you a xenophobe and nativist.

Well even the ones who weren't voting for racist reasons were happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with the obviously racist ones because it meant they would get their own way. She kind of has a point with that.

After the Afghanistan and Iraq wars during which 200,000 civilians died, the sheer hypocrisy of Labour voters (who I have heard come out with that statement - or variations of it on more than one occasion) is just breathtaking.

You are making a false dichotomy scottsh.

Being unhappy with the current level of immigration does not make someone intolerant or a Nazi sympathiser (or even a fan of Farage).

This is the link the remain campaign has tried to make, and I think it is responsible for much of the nastiness.

Before the referendum campaigns started, expressing unhappines with current level of immigration wasa fairly mainstream view, openly discussed and generally accepted as an acceptable opinion (hed, as I say, by 70-80% of the UK).

Project "Don't vote leave or you ar a racist" tried (and is still trying) very hard to equate wanting to reduce immigration with being an intolerant racist. This is not the case.

So no, not exactly.

I agree, very sweeping statements from your friend, does not sound like she's very well read.

user1486062886

Your question would make sense if the government was of a mind to provide the necessary services for any level of white, British people. The bulk of immigrants came here to work and paid taxes. It is not their fault that the government is not minded to provide anyone with services.

Oh, and given that only 10% of the country has been built upon I dont think we can even think that we are so full that people are living on the edge of Brighton pier as there is no land left.

Certainly there are pressure point areas but that is government policy at fault. Not immigrants, who cant vote anyway.

"Being unhappy with the current level of immigration does not make someone intolerant..."

By definition it does. Intolerant of immigrants. What is the acceptable number? Who gets it? Why? Should anyone? What is the barrier? What is the criteria? Why dont we like immigrants? Colour? Accent? Language?

Or a different way of asking. What is the positive that is retained via limitation of immigration?

WrongTrouser
< waves >

And as evidence of my last post, we know from the statistics, that a large proportion of people who voted remain are not happy with the current levels of immigration. They must have weighed other aspects of EU membership as being more important than FOM. In fact, of the remain voters I know, many have expressed unhappiness with current levels of immigration.

So how does that work? Why aren't they being called racists? Because, and it was very clever jiggery pokery to do it , the story is that its not your attitudes and beliefs and how you treat other people now whih determine whether you are a racist. It is whether you voted remain or leave. Quite bizarre really.

By definition it does. Intolerant of immigrants. What is the acceptable number? Who gets it? Why? Should anyone? What is the barrier? What is the criteria? Why dont we like immigrants? Colour? Accent? Language?

Ahhh, you want completely open borders scottish

Scottishdiem is probably (and by probably i mean i bet my right arm) able to have the beliefs she has because she isn't the one that has to deal with mass immigration, she isn't the one living with the daughters of her community been raped and pimped out on an industrial scale by Pakistani street gangs, she isn't the one who has to work in a factory or warehouse where her employer has driven down wages and working conditions by having a workforce with a migrant majority.

Its such arrogance and hypocrisy that middle class people can sit and talk about the joys of mass immigration while the majority of migrants live in working class communities aside from the token, Westernised, middle class few that move into the suburbs.

It isn't racial, its cultural (primarily non EU migration) and economic (primarily EU migration). The sooner you get that into your thick heads and stop whining on like lower migration rates is the rise of the 4th reich the better chance you actually stand of convincing the average person that you aren't a bunch of self important, arrogant, 'I know better than you', saviour complex muppets with a barely closeted hatred of the average blue collar working class people.

Scottisndiem, why is you that brings the race card in to the debate "white British people" I wish people would stop this rubbish about all immigrants working, there are many that don't work just as the uk people don't, we need the free land for farming to feed us, until the government provides better services, why carry on with uncontrolled immigration ?

WrongTrouser

Yes. Because no defensible moral framework regards foreigners as less deserving of rights than people born in the right place at the right time.

Pakistani street gangs

Last time I checked, Pakistan wasn't in the EU.

UserX
Not yet, early days for the mighty EU machine

Not all rights are absolute. Rights of residency are reserved exclusively for citizens and legal residents with permision from the British government. To say otherwise is as absurd as saying people should be allowed to move into your house without your permission.

The native people of Britain and the people we have allowed to join us along the way have invested their lives, time and money into building, maintaining and defending this country so that it can be what it is today. Allowing people in with no interest in contributing to the success of this country devalues that investment for all of us.

I married an asylum seeker. So knowledge of the sexual violence meted out to people who disagree with governing regimes may be closer to home than you think.

And how many Pakistani gangs come from the EU?

(And why do police not believe young vulnerable women who say they were raped? Unless you think its an EU directive I suppose?)

See my post earlier on how wrong you are about wages and working conditions. And leaving the EU removes worker protections and relies on Tory governments to protect them. Just a thought. (if someone wanted a debate about globalization and manufacturing then thats very different from immigrants).