To think that the uk is a hostile environment for the natives aswell as for immigrants nowadays?

[malificent7]

Well the government have succeeded in one thing; making the uk a hostile place to live for most people what with cuts. Brexit etc. Is it just me or do things feel... tense?

I feel like UK is one of those places where something is always brewing just beneath the surface. But somehow things keep ticking along. Huge inequalities, injustice, deep divisions, terrorism, wars etc. And yet it is a surprisingly open country in terms of integration of immigrants. In countries like Germany or France it seems that even if you're second or even third generation immigrant that's still what you're seen as - an immigrant

Having said that, there's a hostile environment all over the world now. I'm definitely concerned. So easy for politicians and extremists to take advantage of.

"We need to be very careful and consider what we are doing"

And we all need to moderate our language because as the arguments turn nasty posters like eli4899 are given the idea they can join in and people will agree with them.

Thanks for suggesting she "moves along" ElonMask your disapproval will mean more than mine.

carried out by people claiming to be Muslim. Most Muslims reject them clearly and unequivocally.

They are Muslim though. That’s what they say they are. When they carry out these atrocities shouting out ‘allahu akbar’, who are you to say that they’re not actually Muslim? They’re not Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Most do condemn them - that’s not good enough. All Muslims should. No sympathy should be felt for these calculated murderers.

We could counter by pointing out acts of violence carried out by other groups

No, that’s sidestepping the issue. I’m talking about Islamic terrorists specifically.

If one person or a group of people who share a trait behave badly do you condemn everybody of that religion?

Of course not.

Some people act badly, they are condemned by the majority of the population and the majority of Muslims - so your point is?

My point is that we need to be very careful about who we allow into this country. If this is the price of taking in refugees and asylum seekers - that we’ll have a few more terrorist attacks than we once did - I don’t want it. It’s too high a price to pay. You may be willing to take that risk with you and yours, you may be willing to put up with the threat of further attacks - that’s up to you, but you should say that’s what you want. I don’t.

When people talk about the 'hostile environment' wrt immigration they are referring to a deliberate set of policies created by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, with the aim of making life in the UK extremely difficult for those who are not here legally.

Landlords are now required to check the immigration status of tenants and can be fined or imprisoned if they fail to do so, if they knowingly let a property to someone without the correct papers or if the court decides they had 'reasonable cause to believe' that a tenant presented false documents. Landlords can now evict tenants without going to court if they merely suspect them to be illegal immigrants. There is evidence that landlords are increasingly unwilling to take the risk of letting to anyone who does not have a British passport, especially if they are not white.

Until the scheme was scrapped 2 months ago, the NHS was obliged to share patient information with immigration officials. Even though everybody, regardless of immigration status, is entitled to free GP services, those without regular documents are often afraid to access care when they need it. Hospital staff are now required to check immigration status before treatment and demand upfront payment of up to 150% of the cost to anyone who cannot prove their status. Confusion has led to GP surgeries refusing to register anyone without certain documents.

The Home Office now routinely asks DVLA to revoke driving licences of anybody believed to be in the UK illegally. People's homes can be searched if it is believed they hold a driving licence and do not have permission to be in the UK. Only those with at least 6 months leave to remain can now apply for a UK licence.

Schools are now obliged to share pupils' details with the Home Office. There has been some pushback in this area, with parents refusing to answer questions on nationality and birthplace in the schools census and the government has now stepped back on a policy to force shools to share this data. Theresa May wanted to create a policy to make schools put children of undocumented migrants at the bottom of the list for places and to require schools to withdraw places for them. Thankfully this policy was dropped.

There are now increased sanctions on employers who employ anyone without permission to be in the UK, up to £20,000 fine and imprisonment. They don't have to have done so knowingly. It's enough for a court to decide they should have had 'reasonable' cause to doubt the veracity of the employee's documents.

Banks are now required to check the immigration status of both new and existing customers. The Home Office can require the bank to freeze or close the account of anyone without the correct documents.

This doesn't just affect those who are in the UK illegally. It affects anyone who cannot easily prove their right to be here - hence the Windrush scandal. There are all sorts of people affected - those here on a family visa who are fleeing domestic violence, or whose British spouse has just dumped them. Those here on a work visa who have been made redundant. Those whose documents are all with the Home Office while they wait months and months for their visa extension to come through and have only a tatty Home Office letter to explain themselves in the meantime. Those who are appealing a failed asylum claim. Those who have grown up in the UK since early childhood and never even knew they were here illegally until they tried to apply to university.

While the Windrush scandal has forced the Government to scrap or freeze some hostile environment measures, and while there are current legal challenges to some others, there is no big roll-back planned. Sajid Javid has renamed the 'hostile environment' as the 'compliant environment', which I expect will be every bit as successful as the renaming of the minimum wage as the 'living wage':

... there is a belief that as long as May is prime minister, there will be no dramatic departure from the status quo.

“She’s very wedded to this tens of thousands target,” one former official says. “She’s wedded to the hostile environment albeit with a different name. It’s going to be difficult for any home secretary to put their own stamp on things.”

TL;DR - YABU. As a white, British passport holder I have not been subjected to the hostile environment. None of this state engineered racial harassment has happened to me.

@PencilsInSpace

I don’t see why any of those are unreasonable ideas. It’s not racial harassment to want to know exactly who is in the country and why.

Did you miss the bit about landlords being reluctant to rent to anyone who's not white british, just in case?

Did you miss the bit about people being too scared to access healthcare even though they're entitled to it?

Did you miss the bit about hundreds of people wrongly having their driving licence revoked or their bank account closed because of home office errors?

Did you miss that this affects a fuckton of people who are here perfectly legally?

Which rock were you hiding under all summer that you missed the Windrush thing?

None of them are, in essence, bad ideas. It was probably badly executed as most things are these days, but I agree with the basic ideas.

...with the aim of making life in the UK extremely difficult for those who are not here legally

So it should be.

Landlords are now required to check the immigration status of tenants and can be fined or imprisoned if they fail to do so, if they knowingly let a property to someone without the correct papers

Sounds fair to me.

The NHS was obliged to share patient information with immigration officials

Fair enough.

Hospital staff are now required to check immigration status before treatment and demand upfront payment of up to 150% of the cost to anyone who cannot prove their status

Again, fair enough.

Confusion has led to GP surgeries refusing to register anyone without certain documents

When they have the correct documents, they’re will be no problem will there?

The Home Office now routinely asks DVLA to revoke driving licences of anybody believed to be in the UK illegally

Fine by me.

Theresa May wanted to create a policy to make schools put children of undocumented migrants at the bottom of the list for places and to require schools to withdraw places for them

Sounds fair to me.

There are now increased sanctions on employers who employ anyone without permission to be in the UK, up to £20,000 fine and imprisonment

Good.

Banks are now required to check the immigration status of both new and existing customers

Again, fine.

This doesn't just affect those who are in the UK illegally. It affects anyone who cannot easily prove their right to be here

I can’t imagine living somewhere for years and years and yet being so lax about your immigration status. People need to take personal responsibility for this.

Those who have grown up in the UK since early childhood and never even knew they were here illegally until they tried to apply to university

That’s on their parents, not the government

The flaws in the hostile environment are not just in the execution. The basic idea is flawed and racist:

1. 'hostile environment' forms part of the actual definition of discriminatory harassment in the equality act. Theresa May deliberately chose that language. A home secretary does not choose language casually, neither does she stick doggedly to that language for six years, including 2.5 years as prime minister, unless that language is important.

Since 2011 the EA public sector equality duty has required that any pubic body (e.g. your DC's school, your local authority, the Home Office ...) considers the impact of their new policies on people protected under the Equality Act because of a protected characteristic: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; sexual orientation.

The idea is to try not to put in place discriminatory laws, rules and policies if it can be helped.

Was this done? I don't know. Either it wasn't done, or it was done and the home office decided 'fuck it, we don't care if this shits on black people, we'll do it anyway', because it is glaringly obvious that these sorts of policies will disproportionately affect BAME people who are here legally, including British citizens, as the many legal challenges are now highlighting.

Many many people have been flagging this up for years and the home office and Theresa May have gone 'lalala I can't hear you' and then the Windrush generation finally got their voices heard last summer (they've been affected since 2012 same as everyone else) and the government went, 'oh no, we didn't mean you, you're the nice sort of immigrant, have some compensation.'

2. The hostile environment deliberately outsources border control to individuals throughout society, many of whom are completely unvetted and untrained. NHS staff, landlords, employers, bank managers, school staff, social services, charity volunteers ... and for those most likely to be untrained and unvetted - landlords and employers - criminal sanctions including prison sentences apply if they get it wrong. There are many now who just won't take the risk of employing or letting to someone who doesn't have a bog standard British passport or EU card (soon to be gone). Here's the government guidance on how to check if your prospective tenant has the 'right to rent'. It's 39 pages long and it's complicated.

This is as much to do with austerity as immigration. Why pay for a department full of officials when you can outsource it all and not even have to pay people for doing the work? Just threaten them with massive fines and prison if they get it wrong and the job's a goodun. Who gives a shit if people are discriminated against because employers and landlords are scared? Who gives a shit if some employers and landlords are actually racist and these policies are a gift in their laps? Who gives a shit if some employers and landlords are abusive and will deliberately exploit the rules to enslave vulnerable people who no longer have any rights?

A sensible discussion on immigration is needed but it can't be had with people who think the hostile environment is a good idea.

Excellent point pencils posters claim to want an open and honest debate and then create a hostile environment where it is ok to 'other' people and treat them in a way that lack human dignity.

Humans need human rights.

Human rights aren't just handed out to the people you like. They are for all humans.

There are massive human rights breaches caused by these policies.

For those that seem to think Christianity has been bad for women’s rights,
In Ancient Rome men used to be able to kill their wives and children at whim in what’s know as patria potestas. This was abolished after christianity.
Also in Rome, males would have sex with young boys (pederasty) which Christianity also stopped.
Monogamous marriage halted practices of polygamy and keeping of concubines and sex slaves- all very damaging to women.
Christianity/Judaism positively influenced western laws to have a fair and ethical system.
Jesus stated that men and women were equal in the sight of god-
I think marriage is an institution which has protected women and children on the whole from being exploited or abandoned when they had less social standing. I still think it is valuable today.

I think a significant number of people in the west have no understanding of the impact of culture, positive or negative.
There seems to be a general dislike of British culture. Often sneering at admitting that Britain even has its own culture at all. It feels like we’re all expected to live in a state of perpetual shame of our own culture. At the same time exalting every other culture and being blind to the more negative aspects.
Some cannot see how the values they hold were shaped from christianity. Theres a general lack of appreciation and no understanding of what so called western values are- or where they came from.
People seem to have decided that their culture isn’t even worth holding on to and have welcomed moral relativism.

The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.” Proverbs

I think the West is in the process of tearing its own house down, destroying its own social fabric.

I work with young asylum seekers. We talk a lot about culture and different views on a range of issues.

I am very positive about aspects of British culture, the rule of law, the ECHR, democracy and equality. We also talk a lot about religion.

I think I know more than a lot of people about the attitudes of new arrivals to the U.K.

Most are very, very welcoming of new ideas and very interested. They are fully aware that the U.K. has different morals and they want to understand as they are keen to fit in.

Some students want to just abandon their culture and fit in, others less so, most are just confused. A lot of these young men are missing strong adult roles models.

It is a complex situation that is really not as simple as "they all think this". Kurds have very different values to Afghans and resent deeply being treated the same. Within country groupings individuals have widely differing views and morals. Like all humans.

My home town is becoming a scary place.

Missymoo100

Well said. I think what we're seeing partly through Brexit (although I think that's misguided) and the lurch to the right politically across Europe is people waking up to the fact their countries have been made the subject of a massive social expirement over which they had no say.

In 1950 Sweden for example was an ethnically homogeneous society, by 2050 it will be unrecognisable.

I think Britain has become unsure of itself- what it’s values are and why they are worth preserving.
I think there needs to be a general sense of shared values in order for a functional society. People being so divided isn’t constructive.
I think if the country is going to try to integrate other cultures, it needs to be sure if it’s own culture and values. If the scale of immigration increases, so do the challenges of integrating people into the society.

I don’t think Britain is prepared for these challenges, especially since it seems unsure of its own identity and seems to have lost its way.

We seem to simultaneously and naively hope everyone will become like us, but can't say what we are like other that to agree that any displays of pride in Britishness is ugly and the preserve or racists.

I think Britain has become unsure of itself- what it’s values are and why they are worth preserving. I think there needs to be a general sense of shared values in order for a functional society

I agree wholeheartedly.

The British seem to be falling into a wishy washy state of indifference about their own values/culture, but expect they can assimilate those with a much stronger sense of cultural identity.

I think we’ve been living off the moral gains of WWII for a very long time. We knew precisely who we were, what we stood for and what we were against. We took pride in our institutions and our history. But all that has faded away over the years.

I’d go further and say I don’t think the British have anything worthwhile that they believe in anymore.

Can't get past the second page where ElonMask doesn't think it's racist to say that a man stabbed someone because he is black how the fuck can that not be racist

I think Britain has become unsure of itself- what it’s values are and why they are worth preserving. I think there needs to be a general sense of shared values in order for a functional society

Human rights would be a good place to start.

Whatever TacoLover nice try.