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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I really liked my neighbour until she said this

577 replies

neighbourhoodwatch · 18/08/2022 23:00

I've recently moved to a new area and was talking to my neighbour, who I really like.

Somehow the conversation went to GPs and how you can never get appointments and basically have to beg to be seen nowadays.

She was saying how it didn't used for be that way... before...

She then went on to say that it's because of all the immigrants that have come into this country and how our country is too small to hold all these people.

She also talked about the illegals coming in on boats etc and how terrible it is.

I am immigrant. I didn't come on a boat and I have a good job etc. But essentially I came to this country. I've never claimed benefits or anything like that. I'm on a high salary etc and studied here etc etc. So, I'm well established. Essentially whenever people say stuff like that, alarm bells start ringing for me.

Am I seeing it too black and white ? It's just difficult when someone says stuff like this to someone who also came here..... as an immigrant...

OP posts:
Q2C4 · 19/08/2022 10:25

Our Education Secretary's approach to the UK's medical student cap is that it's ok not to train enough Doctors here as we can hire the shortfall from overseas.... wonder what your neighbour thinks of that.

Cynderella · 19/08/2022 10:26

I think these views are common and often prefaced with, "I'm not racist, but ...". As a teacher, I hear it a lot, and while a lot of kids pick up stuff off social media, TV etc, when you do parents' eves, it's easy to see where it comes from. I just say, ah well, I disagree with you there and, if I can, counter their nonsense with a fact or three. If I can't think of anything, I'd still disagree, so it's challenged. I mix in wide circles and often encounter these views. Sometimes, people are open to reason. Sometimes not.

19Bears · 19/08/2022 10:27

This reminds me of the clapping for the NHS in lockdown. I went out into the street with everyone at first, but soon felt I couldn't stand alongside someone who voted for the Tories, voted for Brexit, supported the likes of Farage and his private healthcare plans, loved Priti Patel and her methods of keeping immigrants out, standing there clapping with his German surname.....

Not my neighbour though, my husband.

Hopefully stbexh.

excitingusername · 19/08/2022 10:37

And lol, what is all this crap about the tories being anti-immigration. Immigration has gone up 3 million under the tories. Besides, there's not much to choose from between the parties nowadays. The idea that the tories are any kind of gamechangers is nonsense.

Dotjones · 19/08/2022 10:38

She's right in that the population has increased dramatically in the last few decades. In the 90s we had under 60 million people, now it's around 70 million. It's not just new immigrants that have caused this inrease of course, but they form a large part of this number - especially when you include the children and grandchildren of people who've entered the country since WWII.

That's the key - some people only "count" immigration as being the people who arrive on our shores. Others count the descendents of recent immigrants. It depends what angle you have as to which method of counting you prefer to use. Someone who is pro-immigration will probably use the former to downplay the scale of the change immigration has caused, someone who's anti-immigration will use the latter.

Regardless of your view on the above, surely we can all agree that the services needed to sustain such a rapid population growth have not grown in proportion.

IsadoraQuagmire · 19/08/2022 10:39

Mississipi71 · 19/08/2022 10:19

Ah, the accusation of being thick, when one has alternative views to your own. Whereas your own post is positively littered in intellectual reasoning.

Show quote history

😂

apintortwo · 19/08/2022 10:40

How skilled of her to fall out of her mothers fanny right here, I hate people who believe in boarders or nationalism.

I don't know where to begin with this TBH

Entwifery · 19/08/2022 10:40

I'm an immigrant as well and hear this quite a lot, from my DH's family that immigrated from Italy a generation ago and faced abuse from the locals, and an acquaintance whose parents immigrated from Ireland and experienced xenophobia. But I'm a white native English speaker, so I "don't count" as far as these types are concerned and they feel free to spew this crap at me.

What quite a few people are shocked by is that it cost me thousands of pounds to immigrate to the UK, and I pay upfront to access the NHS each time I renew my visa on top of also paying NI. I'm also not eligible for public funds (benefits). So quite a lot of immigrants contribute more to the economy than they take!

HazelBite · 19/08/2022 10:41

You could be talking about my brother! I've heard all this nonsense spouted by him. The irony is that he is married to a woman from Thailand!
He does'nt realise how people laugh about him behind his back because of this.

TartanGirl1 · 19/08/2022 10:42

Definitely NBU

We spent time living in another country and someone was moaning about immigrants to us. We pointed out the that we are immigrants and were told but we were the right kind! Vile attitude.

LK1972 · 19/08/2022 10:47

DysonSphere · 19/08/2022 05:29

I personally wouldn't take offence. I'm black and some people, especially the older generation aren't PC, they will still refer to brown people as coloured etc. I try to seek things I have in common and have a fairly robust threshold for offence and writing people off. It has always paid off.

I also think that just because someone voted Brexit doesn't automatically make them a racist🙄 I think that's equally as lazy as someone blaming immigrants for everything and I thought we'd got past that nonsense and acknowledged that there were a lot of factors that influenced peoples' vote. Actually calling people racist for raising issues about immigration leads to people listening to people with more extreme viewpoints.

I do think there needs to be an acknowledgement of how immigration legal or otherwise, has rapidly changed some areas, not all positive and for white indigenous people born here decades ago, the areas they grew up in might feel taken over and alien to them.

I was born and grew up in SE London the child of second wave Windrush and one day an elderly lady I used to check in on was saying she felt the local high street had changed out of all recognition. The traditional small independent grocers, stalls and specialists shops (think things like pollards) had gone, replaced with sellers of exotic foods, cosmetics, cafes etc owned by non-british people some of whom don't speak English much or only employ family members as staff and don't mix with the community or attend the local pub etc.

I was quite young at the time and thought 'how ignorant' But after a few years I thought: She's right. That's how it is from her perspective. Who am I to say otherwise? I can see myself how it has changed from Frank and Barbara running the local corner shop and post office, who you would chat and have a natter with to being replaced with a family from abroad who maybe you don't have much in common with and don't talk to English to you beyond necessity and speak in their own language around you.

Then there's schools. Is it necessarily beneficial for schools with children representing 20 different languages or more to be using/receiving extra resources to help them catch up? I'm focusing on the word beneficial, because again for some people, they may think well, everyone else is getting the help, but not the poor white school children in some deprived part of the country away from the major cities.

The NHS: There is a massive shortage of training GPs and other allied health professions. It's all good foreign doctors being fast tracked or granted visas to work within the NHS, but why has the government withdrawn or reduced bursaries over the years for university health courses to the indigenous population whilst placing emphasis on immigrants holding the NHS together? And how many white English GP's are there for a white person to go to without waiting for ages? That sounds ignorant - why do you care as long as they're qualified? - but I try to put myself in their shoes. There have been times that I as a woc have desperately wanted a black doctor because they will understand things culturally that my white doctor as competent as they are, won't quite understand in the same way, and I don't see why it's different for a White person either.

When people expressing concerns (however ignorantly) like your neighbor are not listened to and just written off with a slogan of DailyFail Reader, Brexiter, racist, and not engaged with, then they are sitting ducks for the far right who do listen and give them all the time they want.

We need to have a balanced conversation around immigration. It may be a net good, but it does have impacts that may not be wholly positive that need to be acknowledged if we are to have cohesion as a nation. We may not like those views, but you can't just dismiss them.

This is an excellent post, and as a first-generation, albeit white, immigrant I totally agree.

Also, I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the effect of trained medical staff leaving developing countries to work in the West. It's a massive financial burden on them, and it periodically gets in the papers, then there are a few articles that we should train more of our own medics, then everyone realises it's too expensive and goes quiet again. It's not a sustainable or even a decent solution to our lack of trained staff.

Point in case in today's Times:

Overseas hiring spree to bail out care homes

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5d107934-1f2c-11ed-b7c3-8b288ab55a56?shareToken=edf42c8010613f1a85e50a24f768bf48

apintortwo · 19/08/2022 10:55

then there are a few articles that we should train more of our own medics, then everyone realises it's too expensive and goes quiet again

Someone needs to step up and analysie costs involved in detail. Exactly how much more expensive is it and why? Is any part of the training left out for professionals coming from other parts of the world or not? If this was the case, what's the impact for the standard of care in the UK?

Even if it really was much more expensive, it's something worth investing public funds in.

How come so much is spent on NHS admin staff and other non-essentials (e.g rewriting literature to eliminate the word 'woman' debacle) but training new GPs is out of the question?

Highfivemum · 19/08/2022 11:04

What a bitter sad person ur neighbour is. I would pity her to be honest. To live ur life with hatred for others will eat away at her. Distance yourself from them. Let them sit and moan and live the life they want and believe Wot they want. You can’t change them.

Aiionwatha · 19/08/2022 11:04

I'm not surprised by the responses on this thread, MN being primarily a middle class platform. Mass immigration largely impacts the poor and those living in deprived areas.

mamabear715 · 19/08/2022 11:08

@DysonSphere
What a wonderfully balanced post, thank you!
I haven't RTFT as I was upset by the first few pages.. I vote Conservative.. I voted for Brexit & was really hurt then by people lashing out & saying I was racist - that never had anything to do with my reasoning.
Ours is the only white family on our road - I just don't THINK in terms of colour. My neighbours are just S, J & N!!

fUNNYfACE36 · 19/08/2022 11:09

Having the opinion that our country does not have the nfrastructure to support mass immigration does not make you a racist or v a xenophobe

Aiionwatha · 19/08/2022 11:10

DysonSphere · 19/08/2022 05:29

I personally wouldn't take offence. I'm black and some people, especially the older generation aren't PC, they will still refer to brown people as coloured etc. I try to seek things I have in common and have a fairly robust threshold for offence and writing people off. It has always paid off.

I also think that just because someone voted Brexit doesn't automatically make them a racist🙄 I think that's equally as lazy as someone blaming immigrants for everything and I thought we'd got past that nonsense and acknowledged that there were a lot of factors that influenced peoples' vote. Actually calling people racist for raising issues about immigration leads to people listening to people with more extreme viewpoints.

I do think there needs to be an acknowledgement of how immigration legal or otherwise, has rapidly changed some areas, not all positive and for white indigenous people born here decades ago, the areas they grew up in might feel taken over and alien to them.

I was born and grew up in SE London the child of second wave Windrush and one day an elderly lady I used to check in on was saying she felt the local high street had changed out of all recognition. The traditional small independent grocers, stalls and specialists shops (think things like pollards) had gone, replaced with sellers of exotic foods, cosmetics, cafes etc owned by non-british people some of whom don't speak English much or only employ family members as staff and don't mix with the community or attend the local pub etc.

I was quite young at the time and thought 'how ignorant' But after a few years I thought: She's right. That's how it is from her perspective. Who am I to say otherwise? I can see myself how it has changed from Frank and Barbara running the local corner shop and post office, who you would chat and have a natter with to being replaced with a family from abroad who maybe you don't have much in common with and don't talk to English to you beyond necessity and speak in their own language around you.

Then there's schools. Is it necessarily beneficial for schools with children representing 20 different languages or more to be using/receiving extra resources to help them catch up? I'm focusing on the word beneficial, because again for some people, they may think well, everyone else is getting the help, but not the poor white school children in some deprived part of the country away from the major cities.

The NHS: There is a massive shortage of training GPs and other allied health professions. It's all good foreign doctors being fast tracked or granted visas to work within the NHS, but why has the government withdrawn or reduced bursaries over the years for university health courses to the indigenous population whilst placing emphasis on immigrants holding the NHS together? And how many white English GP's are there for a white person to go to without waiting for ages? That sounds ignorant - why do you care as long as they're qualified? - but I try to put myself in their shoes. There have been times that I as a woc have desperately wanted a black doctor because they will understand things culturally that my white doctor as competent as they are, won't quite understand in the same way, and I don't see why it's different for a White person either.

When people expressing concerns (however ignorantly) like your neighbor are not listened to and just written off with a slogan of DailyFail Reader, Brexiter, racist, and not engaged with, then they are sitting ducks for the far right who do listen and give them all the time they want.

We need to have a balanced conversation around immigration. It may be a net good, but it does have impacts that may not be wholly positive that need to be acknowledged if we are to have cohesion as a nation. We may not like those views, but you can't just dismiss them.

Beautifully put

user09473672 · 19/08/2022 11:13

Revolvingwhore · 19/08/2022 08:18

You'll never talk any sense to the (largely) middle class lefties who don't actually experience immigration in their work or where they live. The sneering dinner party set who prefer sneering at the working class.

If you live in poor housing, working in a low paid job then you have a very different experience.

Show quote history

Why do you work in a low paid job?

user09473672 · 19/08/2022 11:15

mamabear715 · 19/08/2022 11:08

@DysonSphere
What a wonderfully balanced post, thank you!
I haven't RTFT as I was upset by the first few pages.. I vote Conservative.. I voted for Brexit & was really hurt then by people lashing out & saying I was racist - that never had anything to do with my reasoning.
Ours is the only white family on our road - I just don't THINK in terms of colour. My neighbours are just S, J & N!!

I don't think in terms of colour I have only noticed I am the only white family on our street ☠️☠️☠️☠️

MangyInseam · 19/08/2022 11:27

FinallyHere · 19/08/2022 08:26

@MangyInseam

I'm very sorry that you think that the crisis in hoisting and healthcare is due to the simple numbers of people who live here.

I'm sorry that you don't work it through, looking at the number of job vacancies there are currently. People work improve the economy, so overall more tax is paid and more money is available to be spent on 'public goods'.

Spending on 'public goods' is not a fixed amount to be spread across however many people there are in the country, meaning immigrants take from existing residents.

Consider that actual public spending is determined by the government. They decide what to spend and where to scrimp. The current lot appear to be happy to underfund their NHS and to see rents and house values continue to rise.

We might speculate about why that would be. Could it be because their supporters benefit from high rents and have funds to pay privately for health care.

That they choose to blame thief own choices on immigrants is convenient only because enough people swallow that line and continue to vote for them, against their own best interest.

It makes me very sad for our society.

I'm sad you have poor reading comprehension.

beachcitygirl · 19/08/2022 11:31

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Loopyloue · 19/08/2022 11:33

Could you try and talk to your neighbour @neighbourhoodwatch ?
If you found yourself liking her before she said what she said it would be a shame to not develop the friendship. Sometimes people say things out of ignorance and I don't mean rudeness I mean genuine ignorance.

LakieLady · 19/08/2022 11:40

RudsyFarmer · 19/08/2022 09:10

I’m surprised she feels confident enough to vocalise that out loud, in public. I’m aware lots of people think it but to actually say it, I’d assume she was either an older generation or a little bit thick.

I'm 67, so from the "older generation". I'm not xenophobic, and neither were my parents, born in the 1930s.

I think the age stereotyping is really rather lazy. My generation were involved in anti-apartheid, Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League when the far right were gathering force in the 1970s. (I spent my 22nd birthday demonstrating against the National Front at the "battle of Lewisham".)

Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

Original poster
neighbourhoodwatch · 19/08/2022 11:41

Loopyloue · 19/08/2022 11:33

Could you try and talk to your neighbour @neighbourhoodwatch ?
If you found yourself liking her before she said what she said it would be a shame to not develop the friendship. Sometimes people say things out of ignorance and I don't mean rudeness I mean genuine ignorance.

Look, I don't now hate her. I was just surprised and it made me feel quite ' othered '

Knowing someone has those views and likely voted brexit, makes me feel othered and like they don't view me on the same level as them.

I've never known what it's like to live somewhere I'm actually ' from '. I am always a foreigner wherever I go and to be honest, the people I get on best with, are also foreigners. I feel like I fit in with them better, no matter where they're from. I'll do my thing and be cordial etc. but I don't think it will be a great friendship and that's fine. I also don't think she's a horrible person. She doesn't know better and I have no idea what I would believe if I had had her upbringing.

I could never be anti immigration. It's all I've ever known. I think it's easy to blame 'others' for problems in a country. But I don't believe being born somewhere gives you some divine entitlement over that land and who can come and live there under whatever circumstances. You know what does give you a right to decide what happens in a country ? The people who work and pay taxes there. No matter where they're from.

OP posts:
InTheStars · 19/08/2022 11:42

Fleetheart · 19/08/2022 07:30

some very ignorant people talking on here. Yes the NHS is overstretched. And the schools also. nothing to do with immigration; all to do with the choices made by our government about where to spend OUR money. Yes of course we should control immigration- or at least understand it; if we don’t how can we make the right provision for schools , hospitals all kinds of services. But this government is failing on every count; they are looking after only themselves (with our money), and it’s very convenient for them to have people believe it’s because we are overcrowded.

Well put @Fleetheart. Lack of investment in just about everything is to blame. I guess that's why the Conservatives have their name - they con people and they serve themselves.