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.

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

@Rumboogie, blimey, I am sorry, you are absolutely right. I had little sleep last night and am existing on adrenalin fumes. I was reading the figure as 580,000 which sounded feasible for migration numbers if gross. Obviously not 580 million haven’t immigrated to the UK!

• typo, have immigrated, not haven’t immigrated.

It's ironic that the "Johnson" side of Boris Johnson's family came to England as refugees from Turkey. His Great grandfather was Ali Kemal, a Turkish journalist and politician who fled to asylum in England in 1909. Fearing discrimination owing to anti Turkish sentiments during the First World War, the family changed its name from the Turkish Kemal to his MIL's maiden name - Johnson.

So his rhetoric is to shut the door on refugees like his own family!

BTW the remark about Obama was entirely accurate

Johnson’s comment was written purely on baseless assumptions. Not once did Obama talk negatively about the UK. It was dog whistle racism and people from his own party condemned it.

These threads are two a penny every day.

Cannot. Wait. For. Friday.

The reference to the population of the EU being 580 million was deliberate and dog whistling. Similarly to Farage’s poster.

This is the level of our politics and so we will apparently get the politicians that we deserve. God help us.

Not just Turkish ancestry either, Russian, American and Swiss and he was born in the US himself.

Johnson? Speaking the truth? Are you serious?

Brits do get some of the same. In my 13 years in Belgium, some of the Flemish Belgians resented the Brits and Americans as they said we drove up prices of private rentals. True, to a certain extent, but they conveniently forgot that the proximity of the big HQs (EU, NATO), which weren't all Brit and American staffed, also added to this.

I don't think everyone on the continent is wedded to FoM by any means....the French lorry drivers who were on strike recently, and blockaded routes between Belgium and France because they were being undercut by drivers from Eastern Europe had a problem with it.

Smilethoyourheartisbreaking

I am not, I incorporated the word because a friend of mine who’s Irish uses the word. Regardless I cracked a smile, British imperialism (so ‘treating other countries like their own country’) and all that. I dislike Johnson, I would never vote for him. Or for the Conservatives. I’m a leftie; I usually vote something comparable to the Green Party. Still I think he’s going to win; because he’s going to deliver the holy grail of Brexit and I don’t think the mood in the UK concerning this issue has changed. I even think most of the voters who voted leave had in mind a relatively hard Brexit-what he’s offerings- but this is debatable.

Got the message loud and clear.

My house is going on sale in January and I will leave this island and go back home. I am not staying somewhere where I am not welcome.

Whether all types of immigration is good or not isn't the issue. I think its possible to have a sensible discussion on immigration. But his comment firstly ignores that the UK could have done what other EU countries did and limit benefits and rights for those who come to the UK without work.
And secondly...its just divisive and nasty. Of course EU migrants treat it as their own country...because legally, if they settled here, it was and is their own country, so why would they think any differently.
Also...the UK needs unskilled migrants. Hospitality workers, asparagus pickers, hospital cleaners, there are so many vacancies because British people dont want those jobs.
I am married to a UK migrant. A skilled one who 'treats this country as his own' by paying a shitload of tax, doing stuff for UK charity, getting involved in the community eg stuff for school, doing a job they cant fill with a British applicant because hardly any are fluent in his language and with the appropriate technical degree. And he feels sickened by Boris's comment and even more unwelcome. He seriously wants us to consider moving to his home country now. Other friends in similar positions feel the same

And that's my yardstick - if Boris is saying stuff that offends EU migrants, then what he is saying is offensive, no matter if you or I think he didnt mean it / he has some points about uncontrolled immigration etc

Married to an EU migrant

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.”

Selective quoting - what he actually wrote:

"Some said it was a snub to Britain. Some said it was a symbol of the part-Kenyan President’s ancestral dislike of the British empire – of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender."

"Some said that perhaps Churchill was seen as less important than he once was."
www.thesun.co.uk/archives/politics/1139354/boris-johnson-uk-and-america-can-be-better-friends-than-ever-mr-obama-if-we-leave-the-eu/

In fact, BJ was simply referring to what other people had said/written about Obama, for example:

The Guardian 2008:
"Could Britain's colonial sins pose a risk to our relationship with the soon-to-be most powerful person on Earth?"
www.theguardian.com/world/deadlineusa/2008/dec/03/obama-grandfather-maumau-torture

Forbes Magazine 2010:
"Is President Obama Anti-British?"
www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0809/opinions-paul-johnson-current-events-obama-anti-british.html

Telegraph 2011:
"Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told a New York radio station on Monday that Mr Obama's youth led him to resent the West, which he said explains why Mr Obama's foreign policy differs so greatly from that of his predecessors."

"One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, (is) very different than the average American," Mr Huckabee said, pointing to Mr Obama's decision in 2009 to return a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8356132/Leading-Republican-claims-Barack-Obama-grew-up-in-Kenya.html

Just wanted to say to Cuteorange and Ooohthestats DH. You, and other EU citizens, are hugely welcomed to be at home here by millions of the U.K. born population.

These millions are probably not enough (this time) to defeat the worryingly shifted new Tory/ERG party.

However, there are still millions of us who do not agree with Farage and Johnson's rhetoric. Millions & millions of us recognise that the world has globalised and who welcome you here.

secondly...its just divisive and nasty. Of course EU migrants treat it as their own country...because legally, if they settled here, it was and is their own country, so why would they think any differently.
Exactly. We have been told for years that migrants need to integrate. But if they do, they are blamed for being successful!

Just a reminder of what prebrexit Boris said on this, before he sold his soul:
I'm the great-grandson of Turkish immigrants - where would my family be if London hadn't given sanctuary to my great-grandfather? So I'm totally in favour of people being able to make their lives in another country

mobile.twitter.com/PreBrexitBoris/status/1204263714905608192

@Lunde
So his rhetoric is to shut the door on refugees like his own family!

Like many, you make an inflammatory comment by deliberately conflating refugees and economic migrants.

Neither Johnson nor anyone else is talking about refugees.

What is seen as bad about the points system? Other countries employ it and are not demonised for it. Labour's 'open door' policy is bonkers and does not bear thinking about - what is wrong with expecting people moving from one country to another to have a job to go to, etc. I have lived in a country with strict immigration rules - had to give bank statements, have a medical, provide evidence that I was not a criminal, and proof of a job to go to. I did not complain about this, but accepted it as that country's legal requirement.

ginghamstarfish it's the treatment of EU citizens. Living here legally and in good faith, often for many years. Children, houses, paying into the system. To then say that to them is despicable.

Ginghamstarfish - it is the way it is being proposed as a vote winner and the EU system being portrayed as open borders. Under EU regulations immigration can be limited in the very way you suggest. Other countries do that but our government decided not to. They are now pretending that it is the EU's fault not their own! Complete hypocrisy and manipulation of the public.

Under EU regulations immigration can be limited in the very way you suggest. Other countries do that but our government decided not to.

All the more surprising that Labour's manifesto is promoting an 'open door' immigration policy and the levelling up of benefits for non-British citizens. Labour want to remove the 'two tier' access to benefits when other EU countries appear to be moving in the opposite direction?

Does anyone have an actual link for Labour's immigration policy that isn't just right wing press lies?

Having a hard time believing what I read after seeing this.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/10/break-embargo-expose-press-lies-labour

I think Boris Johnson is correct in saying we shouldn't have unskilled foreigners coming who do not have jobs to come to. Absolutely fine to recruit workers from foreign countries if the need arises but I don't believe people should just be able to arrive without a job. (Just as we can't pee off to, say, Australia).

It is heartbreaking to see scruffy rumanian-looking women going in and out of cars at busy town crossroads trying to clean windscreens to get by. Why allow them in?

We also have a housing crisis and our own DC living at home with parents for far longer than the past. The answer isn't just to build more and more and fill up our land. That also affects climate change - rising water tables due to concreting over land leading to more flooding. We need to have a reduced population to help with climate changes.