To think "genuine concerns about immigration are irrelevant?

[MrsBennetsPoorNerves]

I fully accept that people may have genuine concerns about immigration. Some of those concerns may be 100% valid. Some may be based on misinformation or poor understanding. Regardless, I can accept the fact that some people have concerns.

But if people do have concerns, there are ways of expressing and addressing these properly. Peaceful demonstrations. Lobbying MPs. Or even standing for election.

But as soon as people make the leap from expressing legitimate concern about government policies to intimidating and attacking innocent individuals who have no influence or control over those policies, that is when "concerns" are no longer relevant and common or garden racism takes over. If people weren't fundamentally racist, why on earth would it even occur to them to do this?

If I am unhappy about decisions affecting my community taken by my local council, my first thought isn't to go and beat up my neighbour in order to make a point. Most people would recognise that such anger was utterly misplaced. Why is it that people don't seem to recognise that the anger towards migrants/asylum seekers/ethnic minorities/muslims etc is equally misplaced. Why are so many people saying that they understand the reasons for the violence ever though they don't condone it.

I don't think it's at all understandable that someone with grievances about government policy would think that throwing bricks at a mosque or setting fire to a building full of people will help to resolve the issues that they are concerned about. The people that they are targeting are not in a position to change anything. There is no logic to this thinking, so why do people's minds go there? As far as I can see, the only possible explanation is racism, pure and simple. The "genuine concerns" are nothing but a cover for thuggery.

No, you're not getting my point at all. You wouldn't suggest that a conversation around immigration would take the heat out of the situation if you did.

To be clear, I think the racism is a completely separate question from the concerns about government policy, and if you're getting called a racist, it is probably because you're saying or doing racist things.

I think we absolutely do need to have conversations in this country about poverty and left behind communities, and I have no objections to issues relating to immigration being included in those conversations, if they are well informed and based on an intelligent analysis of the facts.

But I don't think anyone is suddenly going to start engaging with people who are using "concerns about immigration" as a vehicle for expressing their racist views. Such conversations will, quite rightly, continue to be shut down.

Yes of course racist views should be shut down. They are abhorrent. But hitherto any discussion around limiting immigration as been tricky, as people who are not racist, who do not express racist views get accused of racism. This dilutes the power of the word now we have actual racists on the streets. Same with the Conservatives being called facists and far right and now we have the actual far right busy rioting away!

And yes ...the discussion re limiting immigration (without using racist language) needs to be had to take the heat out of things. Conversations need to be had on all sides in the spirit of tolerance and solidarity for all of us otherwise things will be suppressed and then flare up again.

I agree- I enjoy diversity. I’m not in survival mode though.

Also, whereas we used to celebrate diversity by joining in with other cultures and styles, we’ve got wary of appropriation now. Not only do some people ’not look like us’, we’re told we can’t look like them. There are all sorts of negative messages you can take from that.

So different communities are becoming less alike and more siloed.

Only 0.6% of our population are refugees. It's totally not a concern.

We need immigration. Our public services needs staff. Those uneducated thugs are not going to help look after our aging population are they?

It's just an excuse to wind people up and activate their animalistic anger over lack of resources.

It's disgusting.

Governments haven't been listening to people's concerns. So what do you suggest people do/say?

Immigration is a real issue and is going to get much worse. Climate change and war are massive drivers. Historically, as a nation, we’ve certainly been responsible for a good proportion of those causes, far more than the proportion of responsibility we take for dealing with the problems we’ve helped to cause.

Sadly, I am unsure there will be any humane solutions presenting themselves in the next hundred or so years, as the situation continues to deteriorate. Presenting immigration as the root problem that needs fixing is like treating cancer with a sticking plaster.

If people really wanted to prevent illegal immigration then they should be protesting against war, poverty and climate change.

I genuinely don't get how people who think immigration is damaging (even partially) don't think their views have been listened to.

Immigration has been just about all politics has talked about since about 2010. And certainly it's been a key part of every election and referendum. I personally think it's been OVER PLAYED in politics when we have much bigger and more pressing issues.

Now, the last lot talked about it and did fuck all. But that's what they did about almost everything - which is why they are gone.

The new lot have only been there about 10 minutes.

I have been shocked by normal seeming pensioners I know who angered by the winter fuel payment changes have been sharing fake information about asylum seekers. Things like how the government gives them all brand new iphones on arrival. Somebody has set up misinformation targeting these pensioners in order to stoke up resentment.
Social media platforms desperately need policing for such nonsense so that gullible people are not encouraged to believe lies. I understand the online safety bill legislation struggles with balancing this against free speech.
No point reporting anything to fb as it is just bots which don’t understand.

Hang on now. "Their wages have been undercut by cheap labour". Cheap labour did not undercut wages. Employers did. Nobody has ever showed up at the interview saying "I don't want the salary you offered, I am going to take 20% less, please". Yes, having surplus of workers meant the employers felt justified to offer lower wages but the responsibility is still with unscrupulous corporations, not with foreign workers. Let's not start blaming the poor and ignore who really makes the decision.
"Their lives are much worse than those living in hotels paid by the state". I doubt it. People waiting for their asylum to be processed are not in receipt of much state support. They get a pre-paid card to cover food and necessities. A whopping £25 a week plus a hotel room where they can't even cook. How well do you think you might eat on £25 a week without a kitchen? I imagine they can't access food banks either as they have no recourse to public funds. All this information is freely available online from official government sources.
People are frustrated at their quality of life, I get that but by blaming "the other" they are unlikely to change their own situation.

But their needs aren't secondary. The asylum seekers do not get treated any better. The last government were at fault for both situations.

I live v near the hotel attacked in Rotherham.

The reason things like this happen, in my own opinion, is because white British people from certain areas are just absolutely fucked off with having fuck all, and being able to do fuck all about it. It's helplessness and hopelessness.

They aren't politically engaged enough to know how to make a difference legally. They have very little to lose. They perceive immigration or ethnic minorities as part of the problem, and 'less' than themselves. They are fed up of being gaslit by the politician's, the police, social services, the council. Remember Rotherham had the Pakistani grooming gangs, and the community was told repeatedly it wasn't a problem? Rotherham has had problems with immigration. Not just with the large Pakistani community but also with a Romanian community, Slovakia community. People come to Rotherham, or in the case of the Romanian community, are brought to Rotherham and basically dumped here. There is no effort made by any agency to help with cohesion, no give and take from either the white British or new communities brought here.

So you have a town full of poor white British people. That have had fuck all in some parts since the pits closed down. Then you get immigration of the 'wrong kind'. More poor people with fuck all. The 'natives' think 'well what we had (industry) they (politicans) took and now we have fuck all, and here are some more people with fuck all come to take a bit of our fuck all and we aren't giving then it'.

The people in Rotherham, and other places like it, have been struggling for years and years and years with problems caused to local people by immigration. And it's OK saying 'well as a country we need immigration', because even though I understand we do, and most people in Rotherham actually do understand we do. But when you have fuck all, your mam has lost her winter fuel allowance, your sister has 3 kids and is living in a damp infested shithole, her universal credit has fucked up again, she can't get to work cos she can't get childcare, your daughter got harassed by Asian youths on her way home from college, the neighbours son is buying crack from the local Indian takeaway and robbing everyone to pay for it then someone says 'there's a riot against all this shit, wanna come?' it seems like a good idea.

Especially when it's stoked up online by Tommy Robinson et all cos they speak 'more sense' than them wanker politicans that keep fucking you over.

Are they racist thugs? Yeah. Do I agree? Absolutely fucking not. But when you are a member of a community that has been repeatedly fucked over, you can kind of understand the anger and frustration and helplessness and hopelessness that leads to these flash points. Am not a historian, but from what I remember from history lessons, the far right gained power and support in Germany because working class people had nothing after ww1. And the same dynamics are happening now. Not just in the UK and places like Rotherham, but across Europe too.

@HighlandCowbag thanks for your post, the naïveté and refusal to see the issues because ‘racism’/‘be kind’ is sad

Such a good, moving description of their perspective.

Of course they are wrong to target innocent individuals.

If we write them off as thick racist thugs who we can feel free to despise it doesn’t address their desperation.

I don’t think ignoring all this will help. It creates a tinder box situation where an event can trigger instability

No it doesn't help if we just say they are thick or racist or thugs.

It comes from somewhere this hatred of other humans. I know a woman, my age and background who was there, cheering the mob on. She's genuinely got a heart of gold. She is furious about any mistreatment of animals, looks after her mum like she's a queen, got 3 lovely young adult children, married to her childhood sweetheart, they both work their bollocks off for what little they have. She lives in a village on the outskirts of Rotherham that is an absolute shithole, she's not academically smart, or politically engaged.

But was there, sharing social media videos and cheering. I know this woman, she wouldn't hurt a fly but something makes nice people turn. Every community has a breaking point.

It's a curious thing and I think all humans are capable of it if they get into a state of mind where they feel forgotten hopeless and like no one cares about them or respects them.

Then you get a phenomenon where people who have nothing and are very vulnerable (no home, separation from family, no power to earn, total dependence on the state) are nonetheless FELT to be the aggressors, the thieves who stolen what was not theirs and got a favoured status unjustifiably.

Meanwhile the scary violent arson-setting mob surrounding them nonetheless FEEL that THEY are the victims and that they are powerless and that what was "theirs" has been stolen from them.

One would like to think that one would never fall into that trap but of course history shows us that it happens time and time again that certain people are scapegoated and blamed for ills that a more powerful group feel have been visited on them.

I think that your post is spot on sadly and unless you see it you just don't realise.

And actually demonising those who do it perpetuates the problem.

There’s an almost chemical need to fit in for survival- it’s massive- and when that gets switched on, higher level thinking gets switched off. So group behaviour- which is enforced by targeting those not in the group- is a survival strategy.

The only way to halt this is to get people out of ‘barely surviving’. Though actually it isn’t just factual, it’s a feeling. I’ve seen well off people behave badly because their ‘barely surviving’ mode kicks in incorrectly.

I read that studies show that poverty immediately impacts maths ability. You lose points off your IQ during times you are struggling. The people most in need of making good money decisions are those least able to do so.

I think @HighlandCowbag summed it up pretty well. And I'm fairly sure many of the people won't be using your thought process re big corporations chosing to hire people who work for less and "let's complain to them I'm sure they would listen"
The big corporations are acting within the law re minimum wage and won't care.

These people were often from proud working communities (ship building and mining where I live) where their work has already been taken from them once. They now see people moving in and taking whatever jobs left they may have hoped for and no one is listening to them and the hope for the future has gone. They dont have the option to move to another country and have a crack as not many other countries put up penniless immigrants in hotels and give them allowances.

I expect they also see thousands of people coming in illegally and being housed at great expense by the tax payer when the UK's own are left to rot. At least the levelling up agenda noticed there was a problem. But Labour don't care about those sorts any more.

Don’t forget Sunak, he was happy to push ahead with the Rwanda plan. Immigration isn’t the problem it’s the disenfranchised white working class who have been ‘mobilised’ by those who want them to do their dirty work.

Quite. They have been listened to. But their demands cannot be met. And as for the poster who said they should stop illegal immigration, how exactly would that work? And most of the asylum seekers actually have their cases granted. Much of this issue was manufactured by the previous government.
Being listened to doesn't mean you get what you want if what you want is neither possible or desirable.

Asylum seekers haven't taken their jobs. They're not allowed to work. This is foolish for several reasons. It leaves loads of grown ups with nothing to do and there are people with skills we desperately need prevented from working because the previous government stripped back the staff process applications.

Although it's not just the poor and maths-impaired that have noticed there's a problem. And probably they aren't the only rioters I bet (although they will probably be people who think they have nothing to lose). Successive government's have failed to tackle the issue and the signs are already that Labour don't get it and will make it worse (amnesty for illegals, thousands of Afghans to come, cancelling the Rwanda plan even though that was the only attempt however rubbish to deter) . I would hope that Labour have had a wake up call but I seriously doubt it. This means that Reform will get stronger and I'm not sure that will go so well now.

Although TBF if the riots are dealt with the cynic in me thinks that this may have worked out quite well for Keir (short term) in that it has retoxified the debate and will mean people think anyone anti immigration is a racist thug. So not vote for Reform.

I think there's two different things. Highlandcowbag has it pretty much right.

But I think most of the rioters, were actually racist thugs. I heard they'd travelled to the area in a lot of cases.? Just waiting for an excuse to blow.

Now this may have caused a snow ball effect to the disenfranchised who aren't listened to after that, and that's why it's escalated.
My partner very briefly hung out in his youth, with a big gang of lads from an affluent suburb of greater Manchester. They were brutal. They were racist, and just went out to fight. While holding down good jobs. My mixed race partner 'was ok though, because they knew him'.
They'd go to football matches to fight.
That's all they were interested in and all they talked about.
These are the sorts of people who have come out on the streets attacking police.
Have you seen the 3 men who have been convicted? They couldn't even say why they'd done it!

So, yes, the lovely lady with the heart of gold cheering on the mobs from the sidelines, with genuine concerns. But I reckon the mob are mainly just deranged dickheads, taking someone's struggles on, well, because they like violence.
Hope I've tried to make my point there. Struggling to get it across!

Excellent post.

I think 99% of rioters for any cause don't really give a fuck about 'the cause', they enjoy violence and destruction or they just get carried away with the mob mentality of it and think it's justified as for 'the cause' or to demonstrate their anger.

But many protestors who probably went home when it was all kicking off or just didn't go because they knew it would, are frustrated, living in poverty with no way out and very few opportunities to improve things for themselves or their families or communities.

They are living pretty shit, hopeless lives and being gas-lit by Governments, groups or individuals telling them they're racist or thick and things they see with their own eyes aren't really happening and they've got it wrong, are liars or just don't understand well enough - well, it creates a powder keg.

There were a few hundred arrests of thugs, but 4 million people voted for the Reform party (I didn't BTW, I voted Green) and attempting to write them all off as racist thickos is inaccurate and a dangerous move and likely to lead to more support for those kind of parties at further elections. As we've seen elsewhere in Europe.

And a lot of people outraged by people voting for reform don't live in places like Rotherham and aren't experiencing the issues that those people deal with day in day out.