I really liked my neighbour until she said this

[neighbourhoodwatch]

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...

I thought so too.

Mumsnet gets more and more right wing and rascisty every year and it really shows on threads like these or threads that mention benefits, I suppose they come for the culture wars/transphobia and stay for the xenophobia, this place is nothing more than Parler in pearls.

I have a friend who posts comments like this on fb occasionally . In every other way she has a heart of gold and I would trust her with my life . I am sure if she knew individual immigrants she would be more understanding , but her stance comes from fear of “the other” and too much exposure to fear-mongering press .

I think xenophobia is more common in areas of low immigration. I lived in multi-cultural South London until the early 90s. I grew up with kids whose parents were immigrants, from many different cultures. Xenophobia and racism were pretty much the preserve of the far right and the woefully ignorant. (The National Front actually had its HQ half a mile from my house)

In my mid-30s, I moved to a more rural county. There were so few people of colour in my town that they really stuck out and everyone knew who they were, and they were accepted. But the casual racism I heard from well-meaning, well-educated professional people was shocking. There they were, living in an affluent town with 5 non-white households, moaning about the UK being overrun by immigrants.

I'm glad to say that the town is now much more diverse, and has a very active group that supports refugees. And to rile the xenophobes still further, I give benefit advice to them once they have been awarded refugee status. 😄

Yes... I'm an immigrant too. And when my first two were babies, DH and I were claiming benefits (due to redundancy) and hadn't fully learnt thé language yet. Whenever my brexiteer tory parents rant about immigrants, I remind them of me and their grandchildren. The ones who are bilingual, have a wonderful life and many opportunities, but we still have to listen to this sort of shite from time to time from the odd (usually drunk) nationalist here.

I would have to given them an opposing view and then just keep them on the 'smile and wave' list. Maybe take in the odd parcel but nothing beyond that.

Of course we need controlled immigration.

One of the smallest countries in the world and we cannot cope. Our schools, hospitals, housing, etc.

A genuine question how can we deal with this in a fair way? No nastiness please.

Increase taxes to pay for it?

Australia I believe has a points system and quite a difficult place to reside but they are not criticised. It is just accepted.

Exactly this! And people always blame the elderly for the toll on NHS services but they’ve paid enough bloody national insurance into the system over the years!!!

How many native doctors, police officers and teachers are out of work or had their self-employed income reduced because there are too many people chasing those jobs? What is the same statistic for plumbers, bathroom fitters, plasterers and other blue collar jobs?

I think you've scored an own goal, you've backed up the point you are trying to negate. Comfortable public sector professionals (the traditional home of the chattering classes) not affected, private sector working class blue collar workers possibly are.

Actually, re-reading, its clear you are simply putting words into someone's mouth that bear no relation to what she said.

Ugh. Have nothing more to do with her, horrible woman. At least you know what she's like - many of the abhorrent posters on this thread probably keep their xenophobic cards close to their chests in real life.

We live in Cornwall, v low immigration, my FiL is just like the OP's neighbour, he is now in a Hospital being cared for by "all these migrants clogging up the NHS/GP surgeries"

Its rubbish, migrants make a up a tiny % of our population and as they tend to be young, don't use the NHS much.

The sad thing is, it won't change his views.

Haven't read the full thread, but just wanted say you're absolutely not unreasonable. I'm an immigrant, too, and have ended several friendships over attitudes like this and don't regret it one bit.
Sorry you have such a shitty neighbour 💐

The recruitment issues in the NHS are nothing to do with it being a monolithic government service which has got capacity planning wrong.

The government cut the training bursaries at a time when everyone was telling them we were coming up for a mass exodus due to retirement and demand on services was increasing due to an ageing population. At the same time Brexit happened and good people who had been working well in health and social care (because it’s not just the NHS affected) left. We also had covid which has caused another wave of exodus as people left due to the stress of working in that setting.

There is increased demand on social care and nursing homes (because of the ageing population) and they can’t recruit to them because the wages are shit and the work is hard, again excellent staff have left and cannot be replaced. This means there is no throughput from hospitals because the care isn’t there in the community, causing a backlog.

The only impact of immigration in this scenario is that of losing staff. Some of its been anticipated for years, I was going to meetings 8 years ago about increasing training capacity in preparation for the predicted shortfall. The government then made some short sighted decisions which affected it (framing it as lifting the cap on training places) followed by all this other stuff.

The NHS would completely collapse without workers from overseas.

Well a collapse wouldn't be a very good thing, but can you not see that it is a very bad thing that we need workers from overseas? That it means there is something very seriously wrong with the NHS, that it cannot train and retain enough workers?

Saying immigration is good because it gives us lots of healthcare workers is a very short-sighted way of viewing the world. The fact that we have a lot of immigrant healthcare workers is a sign of fundamental failure in our society, and that's true regardless of how you feel about immigration.

Yes, how about blaming the ones that have 5 or 6 children, that can't have a relationship without getting pregnant? those never get 'blamed' and are usually the ones spouting these opinions

and i am someone who one got called 'the right kind of foreigner' by a great uncle of my DH

MN is predominantly left wing.

My PIL say things like this all the time… I immigrated to the UK when I married their son. I pointed this out once, but apparently that’s different because… er… well… it’s just different (aka because I’m a white middle class anglophone). 🧐

So your neighbour has different views to your own. You're both adults aren't you?

👏 👏

im not an immigrant but my close family member are… people in the bar I ram used to moan about immigrants to me and I’d remind them of my name and ask them if they think I’m right person to talk about this with. Of course I was ‘different’

my aunty who is full blown immigrant hates immigrants. It’s hilarious

So there are 110k healthcare workers on the dole, 20k Police Officers & 300k adult social care workers all lazing around & not wanting to work?

And thats before we get to agricultural seasonal work.

The long term unemployed number about 375k, job vacancies in the UK, are approx 1.4million.
The majority of those 375k are unemployable.

Short term unemployed quickly get jobs again.

It’s not good that we are reliant on immigrant workers but I don’t see having a lot of immigrant workers in healthcare as a sign of failure in society.

But I don’t see immigration as a ‘bad thing’, my experience is that diversity caused by immigration makes us better. I also think a lot of people will blame immigration for things which are ultimately down to personal choice, case in point is people complaining about immigrants taking our jobs and voting for Brexit and then companies having to reduce their output or even close down because they can’t get people to work for them. Local farmers having fields of crops rotting because no one will work for them and pick them anymore.

I was about to sympathise until your response here. Sounds like you're equal at stupid comments now.

A bit dramatic to say this woman is a Tory-voting racist or is even xenophobic IMO. It’s such a cowardly term to throw at someone who expresses a concern at changes around them.

She possibly failed to articulate herself well and isn’t very bright. She probably meant too many extra people for the size of this country. And you know what? She’s right. This is a tiny country with too many people in general draining its resources.

There are too indeed many people here. Am I racist or xenophobic for saying or thinking this? No. Am I the daughter of an immigrant? Yes. And does my ‘foreign’ parent agree with the above highlighted statement? Yes. I also know many ‘foreign’ people who say similar and regularly go home for medical treatment as the NHS is so crap.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/overseas-hiring-spree-to-bail-out-care-homes-rl2wbb2s9

There are indeed too many people here

The recruitment issues in the NHS are nothing to do with it being a monolithic government service which has got capacity planning wrong.

You say this, and then afterwards directly support the opposite view!

The government cut the training bursaries at a time when everyone was telling them we were coming up for a mass exodus due to retirement and demand on services was increasing due to an ageing population

So a failure of government planning contributed to the problem? I though that was what I was saying. (Of course I was saying it was/will be an endemic problem, a single incident proves nothing either way.)

Brexit and covid are valid points of yours, but they are one-off events, not multi-decade systemic factors, so not really relevant in the larger context, which isn't just about shortages today, but shortages over a period of decades.

and they can’t recruit to them because the wages are shit and the work is hard

Not sure this is relevant because it's not about NHS, but treating it as a separate issue, I will comment. Do you think the right solution to lack of employees due to hard work and low pay is to import foreigners who are so desperate they will do jobs that Brits won't, rather than raise pay and improve conditions so Brits will do jobs?