DP called me a middle class racist

[Whoswhoof]

Just now. Discussing the upcoming election. Both always voted labour. I said I’m voting Tory in the upcoming GE for a multitude of reasons, some of which come under the bracket of gender identity, kids sex ed, general tightening of illegal immigration, not taxing private schools. I explained you kind of just have to vote for the party that most aligns with your beliefs as you’re never going to agree with all of them (I don’t agree with a lot of Tory policies, but the ones that are important to me are relevant)

DP then jokes “So you’re a middle class racist now!” Then says only joking. DP will be voting labour.

Aibu to think this is quite out of order?

edited for typo!

I think that voting for the party that benefits you personally, rather than benefits the majority should be the very definition of the word “Tory”.

Remind me again which party this happened under…

@DontWheeshtMe they always had a right to live here! Most came on British commonwealth passports/papers but the rules were a lot more lax then, you didn't always need separate children passports etc. it's only the recent Tory government that then asked for paperwork people either never had or hadn't kept for 40, 50 years. It's not just 1948 the whole period before independence later in the 50s. It's a genuine scandal and a modern one, they didn't try to sort anything out they tried to deport people.

It may or may not be a problem - but a bit rich coming from you though. You're an immigrant yourself.

Baffled that anyone is considering voting Tory after the shit show of the last 14 years. The country is in a terrible state in every measurable way and every single public service is on it's knees. I dread to think what 5 more years of Tory mismanagement would bring!

if you’re referring to immigration, see again up thread that my grandparents came here - legally.
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Mass and illegal immigration is a huge problem”

No it isn’t. The UK desperately needs working aged people and young families.

You've never heard this in your life? I'm sorry but you sound quite politically naive. I'm very against private education - it reinforces inequality and I don't want my kids mixing with only well off children. I know plenty of other people who are against it. I grew up near Paul McCartney - even he refused to send his kids to private school because he disagreed with them.

If you choose to vote for a party whose foreign policy is fundamentally racist (not to mention callous, expensive and completely unworkable) then people might assume you hold racist views. That's just the risk you take.

How have you gone from always voting labour to voting for one of the worst Tory governments we've had for a long time 🙃

I don't think it's out of order. I would be seriously questioning my relationship of my partner said he was going to vote Tory.

Then you're even more stupid than I thought you were in the OP.

Your predecessors must be turning in their graves.

How am I an immigrant exactly? Ive just choked on my drink this is comical 😂😂😭

The illegal immigration position is exactly how the Tories want it to be. There is no other way these so-called boat people can claim asylum here as there are no other routes to get here for them.

If the Tories were serious about controlling it they would have set up processing centres in France a long long time ago, as offered by the French. No need for illegal crossings then.

If they’re “only mixing with well off children” then that’s on you. Socialising shouldn’t only happen in school.

Legal immigrants are being “wind rushed” RIGHT NOW. My husband has indefinite leave to remain, and it was only by reading a newspaper article that I found out that unless he gets his paperwork transferred online by the end of this year, he will no longer be legally allowed to remain here. We now have to provide evidence that he has been in the country every year since he arrived. Hope many of you have payslips dating back twenty years? That’s the evidence we need to provide to update the paperwork. Trying to provide that evidence is a bloody nightmare.

It’s costing us hundreds of pounds to do this sand it’s taking days at a time to chase, and it is only by my happening to read an article that we are doing it at all. How many thousands of people will have no idea and then suddenly discover at the end of this year that they are no longer legally able to remain?

So please, tell me again which government this is happening under?

It’s a bit more complicated than that. At the time of the actual ship HMS Windrush (and until 1949) we didn’t have British citizenship. We only had British subjects. British subjects born in other parts of the British empire had a slightly different status, but there was effectively no difference between an ethnically British person born in India or Jamaica and an ethically Indian or Jamaican one. Every single British subject (half the world’s population) had the right to move to Britain. With the dismantling of the empire that changed, but we continued to treat Commonwealth nationals as family. For example they can vote in U.K. elections, whereas EU citizens never could (even pre Brexit). Also, because we are an island nation, we have never had ID cards and have repeatedly resisted their introduction, so until relatively recently, we did not traditionally have any mechanisms for evidencing a right to work here. That said, not everyone being classed as Windrush dates from before 1950. The vast majority were not British subjects when they arrived here or even from that generation. Some people genuinely did come here illegally in subsequent decades and knew it, but have been able to jump on the tragedy of genuine cases in order to regularise their own status. In the grand scheme of things, I think it is better to err on the side of generosity. They have been here for donkeys years. Their lives and families are here. It’s not in anyone’s interest to send them home.

I don’t think the Windrush scandal is anyone’s fault. It’s just the fall out of the various constitutional changes that took place in the mid 20th century combined with some poorly trained immigration officers who know nothing about our history and lacked basic empathy or curiosity. You see the same cruel decisions made about Brits in Australia; a country with such close family ties to the U.K. that half the population has the right to British citizenship. .

You could have been with your dying nan though. No one I know really took this seriously and nothing would have prevented me from being with a dying relative. There's been loads of posts saying they didn't adhere to the rules either

OP are you happy with the state of the nation? Do you think it’s working well for the country, and for people here? Great, then vote Tory and we can continue as we are.

Personally I can’t see anything worse than carrying on with this mess we’ve got in in the past 14 years, but you do you.

IMO voting for a party whose ministers have quite a horrendous record of making sexist, racist jokes and comments is an interesting choice, and I can see how that would make supporting them racist adjacent, but again…. You do you. It’s a democracy after all.

But that’s not what we are getting. We’re getting mostly young men with no skills and no family, who can’t speak the language. I’m all for immigration, but people who have something to offer. It would be great to go with the points system like Australia and Canada. Then we can get skilled people, with families, here.

I genuinely cannot understand anyone voting Tory. This country is in a terrible, terrible state and you want it to continue?! Madness. Utter madness.

I get it OP - just don’t tell him who you’re voting for - none of his business anyway. We’re a Tory household here so we don’t have clashes like that. It’s still a personal vote and it seems he’s got some crazy views about people who don’t vote as he does so….

Hard to understand how anyone can look around this current shambles of a country and think ‘yes, the people who have overseen this deserve another go.’ Baffling really.

Insightful and brilliantly put. Thank you