Do Europeans hate the Brits?

[Floofydawg]

We're in Spain at the minute and have encountered some pretty hostile behaviour. Not so much from the Spanish, as we speak the language, but from other Europeans. We've been coming here many years and I've never before encountered such hostility. It got me thinking, do many Europeans dislike the Brits?

Nope it's not ridiculous. The Australian accent is sufficiently distinctive that nobody is going to mistake it for an English accent. Same with Americans. Irish people look similar to brits and there is enough commonality in accents (e.g. the accent from the north of Ireland and northern Ireland are very similar. They also have a lot of commonality with Scottish and northern English accents) that some not well versed in the nuances will not be able to discern the differences.

Similar to the other Irish who have posted, I have frequently been mistaken for English when abroad. My accent is not, at least to my mind, in any way similar to any English accent.

Agree I’ve noticed better service/chat when they realise I’m Scottish and not English. I’m not sure what the reasons are, but it’s definitely a thing.

Look, they're not denying them anything!
Just not that bothered.
Whereas, with an Irish person things are a bit warmer.

Did you see the recent news article where English women said that they got really badly abused in Wales.

Apparently they walked past a funeral home, and someone said to them "it's free for English people".

I think you must be imagining it. I'm as English as they come and never had an issues at all - I do speak French and German though

I don't know. I'm Scottish and in Spain. Haven't experienced anything other than friendliness. I have to say though I have noticed on my last couple of holidays that the English tourists are just very loud in comparison to other Europeans. Loud speaker calls by the pool, hollering across the pool at their equally loud kids. Just seem to have very loud voices. Lot's of performance parenting. Just my observations.

That would imply that Englands colonial past has nothing to do with why its disliked now.

Its more likely to be related to the louts.

Ironically my husband is Irish.

I've been all over Europe loads of times and never encountered hostility. The opposite actually, people are generally lovely, give or take the odd bell end.

No, not particularly after what they did to Ireland during the famine. A lot of English people have awful opinions on NI and say some incredibly nasty + outdated things, therefore I don’t feel it’s necessary for me to defend an entire country.

Not necessarily true. Since the good Friday agreement, anyone who is Northern Irish can be Irish, British or both.

Dh considers himself both but when we are abroad he's Scottish/Irish never British. I don't think we've ever encountered abuse when travelling but he's obviously picked up the idea that it's better to emphasise those parts of his background (one Scottish parent, one Irish parent) from somewhere.

I being part English, part Russian amongst other things tend to keep my mouth shut during any conversations about countries of origin though.

I'll pretend to be Irish in future then to dodge the xenophobia. Thanks for the tip.

Would you like to borrow my nice Irish EU passport as well?

If you're English then you aren't going to notice the subtle shift between confirming you're English or saying that you're not.

(I also speak French and German)

That doesnt really make sense.

The famine is a very, very long time ago.Those people are all dead . And it was the rich aristocracy in England who did it at the time, not the everyday English person
They had nothing to do with it.

No one alive in England now, did it to Ireland did they .

What if I said we should hate a German child for what some people did in his country in world war two. Does that make sense?

I won't need that to dodge the xenophobia in restaurants etc

I would 😭

Again, don’t shoot the messenger.

I'm not??

Youre not a messenger. We already know all this goes on

If people can't see beyond an accent then there's no hope for them. Disgusting behaviour from anybody seems to be without borders and it appears that there are thick-wits everywhere, sans borders.

@Kiuyni definitely not imagining it, it’s a clear change in attitude. I’m not saying it makes a difference to everyone, but it’s fairly common.

I've never experienced it first hand and have always received great hospitality and friendliness when I've been abroad, but whenever I see any travel/holiday tiktoks and Instagram reels for example the comments are usually full of comments about English people being "the Americans of Europe" and being disliked. But as I say I've never experienced this in real life only online.

I think across Spain there's a lot of anti tourism feelings at the moment from what I've seen in the news, especially in Barcelona and on the islands, but I don't think that's limired to any particular nationality.

I sometimes wish nationality didn't exist. It causes division.

And it's so stupid.

Lots of us have parents and ancestors from different countries, and a lot of us have lived in different countries.

We are not from one country.

A previous poster mentioned the 'Brits Abroad' type behaviour.
That's got to have had an impact and negatively influenced many, especially those who live in the very countries offering the cheap, all inclusive, alcohol flowing locations that Brits love to flock to. And behave pretty entitled and obnoxious in.
Of course not all tourists behave like that but enough do to leave a bad taste. That's not even touching on the stag and hen 'events' that have jumped on the 'let's take it abroad' bandwagon 🤷‍♀️