Get back to your country...

[Zeropointzero]

Do you think it is ok to critisize the current british state of affair,if you are not british?Since Brexit, I have been told a few times:why dont you go back to your country.I have lived here for 37 years.There are many things I like in Britain,but also things I really loathe.

I do bristle at an Aussie on the tv ranting about the uk (we are very good at that ourselves, it feels different when a 'foreigner' - gosh what an old fashioned word that feels - does it) but he comes to and fro and isn't settled here. I think you are ok to moan away OP and I would rather the person telling you to go 'home' left instead.

I've been here 24 years. Haven't naturalised as I would lose my original nationality if I did, and right now that really is something I wouldn't do precisely because I want the option of leaving if I need to.

In the time I've been here, I've worked, paid my taxes, made friends and built a family, so anyone who says I have no right to call out the bad things that are happening in the UK is going to get short shrift from me.

It's mostly flag shagging Brexit loving ultra nationalists who say those things anyway, and their opinions hold no value.

@Eviebeans

In my mind after that amount of time you're British. Feel free to comment - things feel grim at the moment don't they.

I find this need for assimilation very British, and very odd. I wonder if it has its roots in a colonialist past.

I have lived here for over half my life. I am not now, and never will be, British.

I criticise Britain. I also criticise my own country. Is that not our responsibility in a democracy? You keep doing it OP. And respond to people inviting you to return to your own country with the MN classic ‘Did you mean to be so rude?’

Not British. Don’t have a British passport as home country doesn’t allow dual nationality. Both children have British passports.

Been here >20 years and have no desire to return to original country.

However I’m perfectly comfortable saying that there are a whole load of things about The U.K. (and England in particular) that just suck a big goat’s cock. (Boris and Brexit especially).

Such comments to the OP is horrible sloppy racism, but I’m finding this sensitivity to national criticism is growing as per a PP’s comment.

I don't actually get the defensiveness people have over their own country of residence. But I do think the defensiveness is the world over.

I teach in HE to a high proportion of international students. There is a definite and growing trend for students from every country (both young and older) to express their anger at any criticism of their home countries.Either political, economic or commercial. The latter, I’m told, is due to sentiments of ‘economic nationalism’.

It’s now at the point that no country / no government / no economic system / no company attached to a particular country can be criticised or critiqued. I’m wondering how we have come to this dangerous territory. It is impossible to fix a problem if we cannot admit there is one…

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived here, or if you live here at all, feel free to have an opinion about this country or any other. Even if the opinion is negative. Telling someone to go “home” to their own country has always had racist undertones and is therefore unacceptable.

You can absolutely criticise the UK if you live here, no matter where you’re from.

I am English, born in England, but lived for a good period of my life in Scotland and I STILL get told “Why don’t you just go back to Scotland” by some people when I mildly suggest this country could be improved in some ways.

Blind loyalty is absolutely useless. If you care about a country, you should always be looking for improvement.

I think you are completely entitled to criticising the UK wherever you were born. Personally though, I have had to come off twitter because of the constant complaining about things here. I don’t think it’s great at the moment by any stretch of the imagination but I think things were worse in previous recessions. Certainly it felt like that in the part of the north west were I live. I find it hard to listen to constant complaints, probably because this Covid era was really challenging for me for various reasons. I am not burying my head in the sand but not am I wanting to spend every waking hour complaining. So, if I was in your company and listening to you complaining about the UK I would probably just make an excuse to leave the conversation simply because I need to protect my own mental health.

I can see both sides of the argument. It is infuriating when someone complains about a situation, has the power to change things but can't be arsed. In your case you have the power to move to the country you are a citizen of, but choose not to. Presumably weighing up all factors you think remaining here, with its flaws, is better than moving away?

I think it's rude to criticise another country whilst in that country. I have major problems with certain aspects of America, but I declined to air them while I was over there because it felt unnecessarily rude.

Ultimately unless you are a citizen of the country you are in, you are a guest, no matter how long you have been there. It's rude to criticise a host's home while you are a guest in it.

I'm British. I loathe the British attitude to any form of immigration, the get back to your own country and stop stealing our jobs brigade book my piss, used to be proud we were a nation of multi culture, just a nation with many racists.

Then you get the bits that move abroad, they insist on being called ex pats, now you're an immigrant, being British doesn't make us different or special

@HarrietsChariot

I can see both sides of the argument. It is infuriating when someone complains about a situation, has the power to change things but can't be arsed. In your case you have the power to move to the country you are a citizen of, but choose not to. Presumably weighing up all factors you think remaining here, with its flaws, is better than moving away?

I think it's rude to criticise another country whilst in that country. I have major problems with certain aspects of America, but I declined to air them while I was over there because it felt unnecessarily rude.

Ultimately unless you are a citizen of the country you are in, you are a guest, no matter how long you have been there. It's rude to criticise a host's home while you are a guest in it.

Guests don't pay for the running of the household, Harriet. Those of us who have made our lives here, who pay taxes and contribute - we aren't guests. We're residents. Your analogy is faulty.

No one likes their country being criticized by someone who's not declared themselves as part of the country. It happens when the person criticising is seen as not coming from the right place: 'I want to see this country get better', not 'I hate this country and I'm happy to keep badmouthing it".

That said, telling people who're criticising a country's whatever to go back to their country or to emigrate to another country is a useless, emotional and tribal reaction, at best. I'm sure they know they can go somewhere else if they want but it's not the point.

I also think you can criticize any country you live in.

I'm British and temporarily not living in Britain for reasons beyond my control, and I've found that parochialism is rife wherever you go.

I criticise both places freely and at length, but for completely different reasons in each place. We're citizens of Earth, not of some crappy political construct. If you care enough to want to make a positive change to the place you're living in, what does it matter where you were born?

What really irks me is that people are furious now when there has been terrible suffering and injustice for such a long time. The truth is that they were happy enough when things were ok for them and still don’t care about issues like social mobility and child poverty.

No one likes their country being criticized by someone who's not declared themselves as part of the country.

Not sure that’s true. I think this is peculiarly British. I’ve lived here for decades, I’m married to someone British, I have dual-national children who, when asked, identify as British. I have not, and will not ‘declare’ myself as British. But I have exactly the same right to criticise, and praise, as anyone who is. I participate fully in the life of this country. I’m just not from here.

@HerRoyalNotness

Of course it is ok. People who say that don’t have intelligence to say anything else. Surely they should want better for their country too

Exactly this,

Of course you pass comment on the state of this country.
People with these views are half the problem, being feed this bile to cause a divide, that then feeds the hostility felt in this country.

Rosesandblossoms

I didn't mean to literally declare, as in citizenship ceremony. If you identify as British or married to a British person, etc, you've already "declared" in that sense, no matter where you're from.

By "not declared", I meant when someone says s/he's a foreigner or an outsider, then criticises the country in the latter way I mentioned. It's not unusual to get pushback from people because of that. Not saying it should be, it's just what I've observed.

No, it's not peculiarly a British thing. I know of at least two other countries where you'd get the same. But yes, the 'go back to your country' rhetoric is usually said with racist or xenophobic overtones.

Just to be clear, I'm also not originally from the UK. As I've written before, I think anyone can criticise the country they live in, it doesn't matter how long they've lived there or if they're married to anyone from there or not or if they identify with it or not.

To be fair there are a selection of things that you can legitimately moan about in the UK, a couple of which are almost national hobbies, so the weather is always a fairly safe one, roads and traffic another.

@HerRoyalNotness

Of course it is ok. People who say that don’t have intelligence to say anything else. Surely they should want better for their country too

I completely agree, Royal. I’m British currently living in the US. I now love both countries and criticize both. There’s nothing wrong with wanting better for both your birth country and your “adopted” home and recognizing their imperfections.

OP I'm really sorry that you have had this said to you; it is an absolutely awful thing to say to someone.

Of course you're entitled to summarise British affairs as you see fit - as much as anyone else! Don't listen to nasty people xxx

I live in France. I ask my neighbours opinion on Macron, French politics etc.
I’m very careful not to give any opinion of my own though.

It’s like families. I can criticise my dm but if dh criticises her I get defensive.

However I think 37 years would give you a right to voice your opinions.

I personally think,not allowing someone to critisize their country comes from a deep insecurity.my grandparents have fled Germany before the outbreak of the 2.worldwar.Nationalism and flag waving did become a very dangerous movement for my grandparents and they decided to leave Germany in order not to participate in the Regime.I suppose,I have grown up with the mantra: be very very weary of a Regime were flag waving and excessive Nationalism is upheld.I dont like the present popularist Government,it is dangerous and usually ends in tears (or worse) for everybody.it was however good to read,so many people here on this thread agree with me and are equally repulsed by Flag shagging.

We pay taxes but can't vote so we can at least say how it is and say our opinion.

I spent almost 30 years in the UK, paid taxes, voted, volunteered, had a child there — but in the end the xenophobic micro-aggressions grew so much in the wake of the Brexit referendum that I did as the xenophobes told me and left.