Boris Johnson said fellow EU citizens should stop “treating Britain as their own”.

[RicePuffs]

Boris Johnson said fellow EU citizens should stop “treating Britain as their own”.

This is vile rhetoric, dog whistle politics stoking xenophobia.

From the Times on this:

“EU migrants have been able to “treat the UK as if it’s part of their own country” for too long, Boris Johnson said yesterday as he reprised the core message of Vote Leave’s 2016 EU referendum campaign.

The prime minister guaranteed that migration would fall under his plan for an Australian-style points-based system after Britain left the European Union. The focus on migration, in stronger language, in the last days of the election campaign is intended to appeal to undecided Eurosceptic voters in Labour marginals.

He told Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News: “I’ve said that what we want to do is bear down on migration, particularly of unskilled workers who have no job to come to and I think that’s what’s happened over the last couple of decades or more. You’ve seen quite a large number of people coming in from the whole of the EU — 580 million population — able to treat the UK as though it’s basically part of their own country and the problem with that is there has been no control at all and I don’t think that is democratically accountable.”.

He mentions 580 million which is not net. EU migrants are net contributors and have helped to staff our NHS, look after our elderly and so much more.

Here's a list of the offensive things he's said, not including the last two weeks.

"Boris on women.
In a farewell piece in the Spectator marking his exit as editor, Johnson advised his successor that way to deal with a woman colleague giving you advice is to “just pat her on the bottom and send her on her way”.
Reporting for the Telegraph in 1996 he wrote an article about the Labour conference in Blackpool, which he devoted to reviewing the quality of “the hot totty” delegates who were present. He wrote: "time and again the 'Tottymeter' has gone off as a young woman delegate mounts the rostrum."
Johnson allegedly had a calendar of naked women on his desk while working at the Telegraph, despite complaints from women colleagues.
In 2005, while campaigning to be elected as a Conservative MP, Johnson said: "voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts".
In 2012, while hosting the London Olympics as mayor, Johnson told his readers of the "magnificent" experience of watching "semi-naked women playing beach volleyball ... glistening like wet otters."
Boris on LGBT+ people.
Johnson famously described gay men as “tank topped bum boys”.
In his book Friends, Voters, Countrymen, published in 2001, Johnson wrote: “If gay marriage was OK – and I was uncertain on the issue – then I saw no reason in principle why a union should not be consecrated between three men, as well as two men, or indeed three men and a dog.”
Johnson once attacked Labour’s opposition to Section 28, writing:
"Labour's appalling agenda, encouraging the teaching of homosexuality in schools, and all the rest of it."

While he was Mayor of London, he spoke about gay men taking their husbands “up the Arcelor,” a reference to the Arcelor Mittal observation tower in London’s Olympic Park.

When he became prime minister, Johnson faced a call to apologise from his own party’s LGBT+ group. He did not respond.
Boris on people of colour.
In 2002 in an article in the Telegraph Johnson described black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”.
In 2018 Boris Johnson compared Muslim women to “bank robbers” and “‘letter boxes”. Tell MAMA reported that these comments were directly linked to a 375 per cent rise in anti-Muslim hate crime.

In 2000, Johnson wrote that a "bunch of black kids" made him “turn a hair”, saying “if that is racial prejudice, then I am guilty”. He claimed Macpherson's reforms were "just as wrong" as Enoch Powell (the MP infamous for his racist 'rivers of blood' speech). He also claimed a key reform to let victims and third parties define if something is racist – now the national standard for prosecutors – was "Orwellian stuff" from the "PC brigade".
Writing for The Spectator in 2002, Johnson defended colonialism and advocated Britain reinstating control over colonies in Africa. He said “the problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge anymore." He wrote:
“The best fate for Africa would be if the old colonial powers, or their citizens, scrambled once again in her direction; on the understanding that this time they will not be asked to feel guilty.”

In 2016 Boris Johnson said Barack Obama had an “ancestral dislike” of the British Empire. After Obama removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval office, Johnson wrote a column in The Sun in which he claimed the move was “a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender.”

It doesn’t matter, he’s going to win- might even be for the best. Quite funny though because Britain (and the Brits) did exactly what he’s describing for centuries.

Well, I certainly don't agree with Labour's "open door" immigration policy, easier access to benefits and services, full voting rights in UK general elections for all residents - I can't think of any other EU country offering that package. Can you?

ScreamingLadySutch I'm from Africa and your post is completely vile.
Honestly is this the kind of shit people feel emboldened to come up with now?
You're a racist.

xenophobic hate rhetoric

What a load of bollocks. There is not one thing about what he said that is xenophobic, unless you take it completely out of context along with everything he said before and after it. Which you could do with any quote from any politician. Or person. It’s not racist to say you need a control on mass unskilled immigration.

It’s not racist to say you need a control on mass unskilled immigration.

He basically said that EU citizens, here working and contributing perfectly legally and in good faith, had made themselves too comfortable. It's disturbing and anyone that can't see it for what it is almost certainly has questionable views themselves.

Eu migrants are net contributors and have helped to staff our NHS... etc

I do not disagree with this. But I think we need to recognise that the impact of immigration ( EU and non EU) varies enormously from community to community. So those living next door to German bankers and French patissiers in the London boroughs have a very different experience to those living next door to low skilled, non English speaking migrants in deprived Northern towns.

We have to be careful how we speak about immigration. But pretending that it has been a universally positive experience for all, (and that anyone who questions this narrative is a fascist) is exactly why the hard right parties in this country have attracted more support and goes a long way towards explaining the Brexit vote.

wobblyaerial I don't disagree with you, I just think it's bloody awful to have the actual PM say what he did at a time when tensions are already so heightened.

He didn’t say EU citizens - and I am an EU citizen. He said ‘migrants‘. It’s perhaps too nuanced for you - maybe he needs to dumbdown a bit for the likes of you.

@EstoLargo he said EU migrants. So that includes you. What was that you were saying about things needing to be dumbed down?

”You’ve seen quite a large of people coming in from the EU – 580 million population – able to treat the UK as though it’s basically part of their own country.”

Yes, that was the whole point.

The man is an ignorant twat.

BJ is like the UK's Trump - and I friggin' love it! Good to have a man in power who isn't too scared of 'offending' someone to speak the truth.

For anyone living in the EU what is your governments attitude towards Brits in your country?
E.g. are all of the English pensioners in Spain welcomed with open arms or are they considered a nuisance?

The new Tory/ERG party are definitely doing a last minute manipulative emulation of Farage to try and encourage votes...

The actual figures show that the average EU migrant contributed £2,300 more to UK public funds each year than the average UK born resident contributes. EU migrants paid £4.7bn more in taxes than they took out in benefits and public services.

If, the Tory/ERG saw non EU migration as a problem, they have always been able to do address this, if they chose to. Brexit has not prevented this.They have chosen not to address it for over a decade because they don't want to - in fact non EU migration has been increasing to compensate for the departure of EU citizens.

The points system seems eminently sensible to me. We need skilled immigrants from many countries, not more of those who contribute nothing, a percentage of whom end up in our prisons. If it's ok for Australia why would it not be ok for the UK?

@RicePuffs

He mentions 580 million which is not net.

Surely you don't think he meant this as the number of migrants to the UK! He was referring to the total population of the EU!

@MaxNormal

Absolutely typical Boris smears. Things taken out of context and used to denigrate. eg. 'picanninnies' 'watermelon smiles' - from an anti Imperialist satirical article criticising Blair (and the Queen) for outdated attitudes to former colonies, using appropriately historic terms.

'Letterbox', 'bank robber', - from an article defending women's right to wear what they like.

Boris has a habit of generating soundbites which are then easy to use against him.

BTW the remark about Obama was entirely accurate.

Rumboogie your response to that, your attempt to spin it as acceptable, tells me plenty.
I repeat, this is not the behaviour of someone suited to being PM.
Would you like to spin about how he didn't really get sacked for lying from two jobs now?

@wobblyaerial, I agree with you that Labour and then coalition and conservatives should have had increased financial help in those areas that had a sudden big increase of immigration. I would still say immigration overall is beneficial. I also think when some commentators talk about controlled immigration they don’t realise there were controls there as part of the EU, our govt didn’t always use them.

Johnson though using language saying EU citizens have viewed the UK as their own for too long - and people will view that as referring as well to current Eu residents who have lived here - is unwelcoming and othering. It’s depressing there are a few commentators here who don’t see what kind of atmosphere that creates for non UK citizens living here.

Fairyliz, I am a brit in the Netherlands. I have lived here 6 years and now have Dutch citizenship, for which I had to learn the language, take exams etc. Etc..

The attitude of the Dutch to me has been completely welcoming. Especially as I speak Dutch on nearly all encounters now. I Have never had a moment's hostility or resentment. They just appreciate that I live and work here and contribute and that my kids are in local schools and fully integrated.