To think the anti-immigrations have BEEN "heard"?

[dropoutin]

I posted something like this on one of the riot threads but it ws locked soon after.

Is anyone else getting really bored of people justifying racism, terror, violence and destruction by insisting how important it is that those who imagine asylum seekers are responsible for the country's problem are "heard".

Little reminder: It's exactly that particular obsession that led to the Brexit referendum in 2016, and the most radical - and destructive - political change of recent times.

There were several years in which the country barely discussed anything else. Farage and Johnson got to tell you in great detail how the reason you're poor is because of the black family down the road. And you got the choice of believing them, or not. You even got to make Johnson PM so he could "get Brexit done" and "level up" your community.

You've been taken for a ride. Asylum seekers rriving irregularly (via small boats etc) make up less than 5% of total immigration, which is coming down after peaking in 2022 (partly due to the Ukraine war, and other factors). Neither Tories nor Labour are going to radically reduce immigration because anyone having to ACTUALLY run the country can see that doing so will exacerbate the demographic time-bomb, reduce economic activity and decimate the NHS. You're poor because of 14 years of Conservative economic policy, not because of anyone's skin colour or passport.

Meanwhile: How many of us get to have a national referendum tailored around our favourite policy hobbyhorse? When is my referendum on industrial relations? On housing and land ownership? On the House of Lords? When do I get to be "heard"? Being heard doesn't mean everyone has to agree with you, or that you get to go out and beat up brown people because things aren't working out the way you imagined they would.

It's not that you haven't been heard. It's just that you were wrong.

They've been heard loud and clear. Unfortunately a lot are now calling for the complete removal of Islam from our country. Even if illegal immigration miraculously stopped tomorrow, how would they know? They'd still be frothing at the mouth about brown skinned people being here.

👏👏👏

Because it is a stupid thing to do and any civil servant understands that.
For example, following Brexit, there has been negative net EU migration. Each year fewer EU nationals coming in and more of them leave. Good news, right?
Except that there is a high proportion of EU workers in the NHS. They left, vacancies became available. We don’t have enough qualified “natives” to fill these vacancies and it takes 3+ years for a nurse or AHP to become qualified and 5+ years for a doctor.
How are we going to fill the vacancies if we are no longer able to attract EU nationals? By doing a recruitment call in non-EU countries and offering generous relocation packages to nurses from Philippines, Nigeria etc. The non-eu migration therefore increase. It has to.
When you have a 24 month wait for a specialist, why do you think it is? Because there are no new hospitals? No, it’s because there are no staff to work in these hospitals. I worked in services which had open vacancies for 3+ years for a qualified nurse. Couldn’t recruit. There were no people qualified and willing to take up the job.
So yes, I think people have been heard loud and clear. Unfortunately there is nobody in the government with enough chutzpah to tell people they are being stupid.

I dont think that's true. As my view when reading the manifestos was that Labour also had immigration as a key policy with its new border security command and a committment to reduce migration by improving conditions for british workers to make less need for overseas workers , improving the point system etc.

No party was arguing for more boats and open immigration.

So I still think it could have been a top 3 issue for labour supporters but they just felt labours plan was better.

Is it about being heard or is it about being ignored? Every election and referendum people continually voted for less immigration and got much more.

The dishonesty of the Tory party is a big part. They'll say anything for votes.

I think we’ll diverge from Aus as they will be calm and never vote it out. We’ll be dealing with a tinder box which is prone to riots etc

The difference in spend and damage for not putting similar in place is extortionate

British people need to get off their arses and work if they want less migrants. Work hard in school, train to be a HCA or a nurse, get up at 5am for a job in caring. Work ethic. But these rioters (and some people on this thread) don’t want to hear that.

There are huge numbers of vacancies in the NHS and care sectors which we cannot plug. That’s why the UK is granting so many “low-skilled” visas each year - the vast majority of them are for care workers.

In February 2022 the Home Office added care workers to its shortage occupations list. We desperately need these migrants.

It’s always “too many immigrants, go back to your own country”. It’s never “Bob, get off your arse/put down that crow bar, stop smashing the window of SportsDirect and go and get a job at the care home”, is it?

We don’t have enough nurses. Can the racists (sorry, people “concerned about migration”) in this thread please gain a sudden passion for getting unemployed young British people to train as nurses?

27% of NHS nurses are from outside the UK. We have 100,000+ open vacancies which the NHS are desperately trying to fill with international recruitment. Maybe there’s a case for a small percentage of the 1.6 million people claiming unemployment benefit in the UK to start working? Then the NHS can change their recruitment strategy?

Probably should never have invaded and colonised all those countries.

Is Britain the only country in history to invade and colonise? Some countries are still at it today, on a large scale.

Nobody wants these people coming in uninvited on these boats though..the problem is how do you stop it?

This country is literally built on immigration, seriously did you never take history at school?
Starting at the Celts (although immigration goes further back even than that), then the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, the Normans, the peoples of the countries we colonised, refugees from persecution over the centuries (that we did not always treat well), displaced Protestants and Jews escaping the Inquistition, refugees from Belgium in World War I, Jews escaping the Nazis in the 1930s. Then there's migrants from former colonies, often deliberately brought over as a cheap workforce.
Shall I go on??

Basically we are all descended from immigrants, so yep let's send everyone back "where they came from", because where are you going to draw the line on how many generations you're going to go back.

Are we talking about those countries on this thread?

Gosh what a pig-ignorant post. No one even googles before holding an opinion, do they?

The UK has a work visa system like any other country.

I've not seen anyone arguing for unfettered immigration on this thread explaining their rationale clearly. I don't have the time to really get into it but I don't think that means my concerns are automatically illegitimate or genuine. I don't know why the burden of evidence should be higher one way than the other. Where are all the sources and peer reviewed studies saying uncontrolled immigration is good for a country like the UK?

Make the rule that anyone who rocks up on a boat/ back f lorry without documentation is an automatic refusal to stay. No exceptions.

People won't be paying traffickers if there's zero chance of it working

I think the PP point was that yes there may have been immigration over the centuries but nothing like in the last 20 years. And that the working class in the last 1,000 years or so (so the majority of people working and fighting for this country) would be predominantly people born here. Obviously if we had a war tomorrow the army would be made up of a greater proportion of immigrants and from the news reports they look like they are just as good as fighting!

But we’d still have to accept our share of asylum seekers under international law, so there’d need to be another way for them to arrive here safely which currently doesn’t exist.

Look to Aus for what’s possible under international law

They pretty much hardline put a statement as pp did, if you arrive like that you are not getting in

What sort of response is this? Is Britain's colonial past a reason to destroy its culture today? A culture that many people benefit from and enjoy? Just because Britain had one of the longest colonial reigns isn't a reason to justify picking apart its culture now. If we say yes to that then we say yes to breaking up cultures of dozens of countries all over the world, and that's only looking at colonies of the past thousand years or so.

Where do you stand on brits that do the same in France/Spain?

I can answer this with my own example. I lived and worked in Spain for a year. I studied it at night school and off my own back for 2 years before I went there, and was fluent within a year. I married a Spaniard. I worked and paid taxes. If you can’t speak the language, and you don’t integrate, and pay taxes, you shouldn’t be welcome there.

When you moved abroad 4 times, did you learn the language fluently, live among local people, fully assimilate into the local area?

2 other countries were English speaking, but not ethnically white countries. To work there I had to have a degree, earn over a certain amount and have Medical’s to prove I healthy. I worked and socialised with the locals and the other immigrants from all over the world. My DC went to a local school and learnt 2 other languages which where the 2nd and 3rd most popular spoken ones in the country. My DCs best friends were locals, Indian, American, Malaysian.

When my DH’s contract ended in one country, we had 3 months to leave, unless he found another. No benefits, nothing. I grew tired of the culture of the last place I lived and felt my DC would have had problems when older as 3rd culture kids, so I came back here. Being a 3rd culture child is an issue for many.

One of the things I was always conscious of when I lived overseas was that I was a “guest” in their country. If you weren’t born in the UK, you are a guest here and you should respect the people and culture.

I think the problem is, especially now with the likes of the toothless rioters and Robinson and Farage, there is a line between that lot and those of us who wish to engage in intelligent debate and voice legitimate concerns.

We are sadly all grouped together as racists instead we it's an easier narrative for a difficult situation where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. I think the government haven't got a clue what to do at this point.

Another issue is what migrants get blamed for when they're not actually responsible for it and it's been decided for them due to fears.

When my son was born, I was in hospital for three weeks as he was early.

The hospital is large and is in an area that has a big migrant population and has done for decades.

When I was asked to have my scan before he was born, I lived near the smaller hospital where scans could be done, we didn't have a car at the time and the other big hospital was two buses away.

I was sent my appointment for the big hospital so asked why I couldn't go to the hospital a 5 minute walk from my home. I was told because the NHS trust keeps this scan choice for the "Indian ladies" and it's only staffed by females.

I explained that it was ridiculous for me to have to get four buses for a scan there and back and actually, due to internal issues I would be in danger of wetting myself as a full bladder was required. So luckily the appointment was changed due to medical reasons.

The big hospital put on variations of veggie curries each night. Ladies like me who didn't really fancy that every night were told to use the pay for it yourself cafe. I asked why to be told because they had to ask the area had a big Indian population so the trust "had decided" to do this to cut costs.

The stupid part of this was I was in a 4 bed room with 1 Hindu lady, a polish lady and a Sikh lady. The Sikh lady said she would be happy to have anything to eat, and the curries they served were more like side dishes in her home. She said she was dying for a bit of fish and chips!

However, if you're someone like Farage hearing this, he would blame the Indian people for the decisions made by the trust for them. Did anyone ask them if they wanted this? Probably not.

It's perfectly possible to be concerned about the impact of immigration (in particular, large numbers over a relatively short period of time) and be opposed to rioting.

I'm not sure how this is all going to pan out. The riots might just simply die down but the general dissatisfaction felt by many communities is likely to continue. There is little hope and optimism across the UK so I think we could be in for a tough few years.

Well said, although the rioting types really aren’t capable of a caring roll.

It's a Europe wide issue though. Whether countries had socialist or center, or right wing governments, they are all experiencing the same issues, and many citizens are feeling they are not being listened to, and their concerns are not being addressed.

At its root is a concern for a loss of indigenous culture, and that does matter. You could call that racist, or nationalist, but it is way more complex than that. Ignore it and people with nothing to lose, those at the sharp end of our society, will use it as an excuse for all their ills

On BBC London last night two Imans came in to interview. They had, with the support of police, gone out to engage with a group of demonstrators. It was so positive. They went out, listened, discussed, gave out food, have organised open sessions at the mosque. Obviously not everyone will engage, but it was an amazing and brave thing to do. That's what we need more of.

What culture is being destroyed?😂