to be annoyed at so much racism re “the boat people”

[NavyOrca]

A large hotel local-ish to us (around 10 miles away) is currently closed for bookings as it is being occupied by just under 400 asylum seekers.

Recently, in our village and a couple of neighbouring ones, there has been a spate of parcels being stolen from doorsteps. I’m sure you can all work out who has taken the blame for this….! Even though one of the perpetrators is known to be a local lad, born and bred in our village, some people are still blaming others..

The comments on Facebook community groups are disgusting.

Since when has it been acceptable to so readily stick the blame upon those literally fleeing their countries?

I honestly feel that as a human race, we are devolving.

"when you're living in the middle of it you do get a good insight into what they are actually like"

Who is 'they'? Asylum seekers?

I'm living in the middle of it. I have two hostels within 10 minutes walk of my house. I have volunteered with residents from one of these hostels. I don't share your view.

But if you're straight and white and married, can I point out that your husband and sons belong to the ethnic group who commit the vast majority of rapes, child abuse and sexual assault in the UK.

Are you comfortable with me assuming they're predatory unless they prove otherwise?

@izimbra

But if you're straight and white and married, can I point out that your husband and sons belong to the ethnic group who commit the vast majority of rapes, child abuse and sexual assault in the UK.

Only if you assume white people only marry white people.

But that aside, which data source are you using here?

Your claim may well be true (the large majority of prisoners are white, for example). But I'm not aware of UK data that breaks out crime by both offense and ethnic group.

I'm wondering if this is something you're saying because it's true or because it seems like it should be true? “Vast” majority means, what, 80%+

That reasoning can go badly wrong where the background rate of different groups varies a lot. Denmark does publish this data and that indicates that the differences in offending rate for sexual crimes differ extremely, not slightly, by perpetrator origin.

All men pose a risk to women. White men don’t pose a greater threat than other races. They make up the majority of the male population so make up the majority of offenders.
Undocumented men aren’t safer.

Let me just leave these facts here for you for a moment.

irr.org.uk/research/statistics/criminal-justice/

Foreign national prisoners
Foreign nationals are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. There were just under 10,000 foreign national prisoners in English and Welsh prisons in December 2022, making up 12% of the prison population. The most common nationalities after British nationals in prisons are Albanian (13% of the FNO prison population), Polish (8%), Romanian (8%), Irish (6%), Lithuanian (4%), and Jamaican (4%).

Just to add your wrong. We can all cherry pick individual facts to meet our bias.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/ethnicity-and-the-criminal-justice-system-statistics-2020/ethnicity-and-the-criminal-justice-system-2020

A higher proportion of prosecutions for Black and Mixed ethnic groups were against children, 12% and 14% respectively, compared to 5% for White defendants.
In 2020, minority ethnic children also had a higher proportion remanded in custody, had a higher custody rate and received on average longer custodial sentences.

It is just a lazy way of closing down debate to bleat 'racism' when people expess concerns about the number and type of undocumented people pouring into our country,
Some of the settled population are badly affected by these migrants whereas other peoples' lives are untouched by the issue, and yet others do very well out of it. It is pretty selfish and ignorant therefore to assert that because you are ok with tens of thousands of undocumented young men arriving, this will be the case for everyone.

@GeneralPeter sounds good to me

Let's not forget the role that colonial Britain played in all this. Had we not gone interfering in the affairs of other countries, stealing their resources to better our country for the last hundreds of years, resulting in destabilising the migrants' countries they may not have reason to come here in the first place. We live in a wealthy nation because of the damage we did to those other countries.

This is how most of the world has behaved as soon as humans were able to travel.
It’s not unique to people born on this island.

That’s horrendous, but I would imagine is quite the norm in a small village - small minds. To assume refugees would be thieves is shockingly racist; anyone who can’t see that is part of the problem.

People are quick to quote ‘be kind’ but can’t seem to put that into actions themselves. I’d feel exactly the same as you, OP.

You're absolutely right. It's scary how anti-refugee hatred has become acceptable on some forums. People seem to feed on one another's spite. I don't understand it, especially those who rant about people who come to the UK to get benefits. Do they really not know what a tiny amount asylum seekers get, or that they can't go and get work until they get the right to remain? It's painfully depressing.

Not really. The mainstream left wing explanation for crime is sociological, ie that crime is caused by deprivation.

That would predict precisely that asylum seekers should be high-crime. Not only deprived, but dislocated and traumatised.

I'm pretty skeptical of the straightforward deprivation explanation, but that's what it would predict. Race needn't come into it.

What a good job the men in this country during two world wars didn’t feel the need to escape to Sweden or Switzerland and stayed to fight for their country

Give over.

Anyone would think that England was the only country that ever colonised anywhere.

I’d like to know why the countries of SE Europe don’t get to blame their problems on hundreds of years of brutal Ottoman occupation and slavery.

Or why Cyprus and Malta, which were victims of our colonialism, are somehow modern countries whose citizens aren’t trying to escape their own hellish societies on small boats.

Or why you aren’t bothered about China, who are covertly colonising Africa as we speak, and instead keep attacking Britain whose empire ended when the oldest citizens alive today were children.

And facts: many countries materially improved from our infrastructure and technology. Which is the excuse given by China today for reaping the resources of third world countries and committing them to impossible debts.

Completely agree with your comments. Too much right wing prejudice coming through.

take a peek on GN.

Oh dear. You do know about Switzerland I hope?

Why are they here then? If it’s all so underwhelming? Anyone would think they are being put up in four star hotels with meals, healthcare and an allowance. Access to all kinds of services and a very good chance of a right to remain if they get their story straight.

To add to my earlier comment:

• Many migrants are from countries that were never part of the British Empire.
• Wales and Northern Ireland are victims of colonialism too, yet they get no reprieve from bleeding hearts.
• Many countries in Europe did not participate in imperialism outside of Europe, yet they are still being flooded with migrants. Eg Sweden and Germany.

They prowl the streets in clapped out cars without insurance, unable to drive properly and stalk young children and school girls. They tell our children they live with Naymar the footballer and try to drag them into their cars. This happened at a grass roots football club and one of them got his balls kicked by a mother who had literally just dropped her son off for training and happened to see something going on in the car park. Don’t be so bloody naive, this is what they do. They don’t respect anything, especially young children, women and girls. Wake up you tool!

Is it racist to acknowledge people trafficking; to want our veterans cared for; or recognise that some of our pensioners will go without heat this winter?

when values are twisted and undermined people get angry and upset, understandably so.

I can only suggest op you take a wider view and understand fellow citizens concerns.

@izimbra Husband and sons...
Are you comfortable with me assuming they're predatory unless they prove otherwise

Not aimed at me, but I would.totally welcome any women to take extra precautions around any man and would not feel offended otherwise.

Men who may have committed crimes, have no documents or verifiable history especially, yes.

Cannot understand why anyone would 1) object to that and 2) feel that that is not sensible.

Please explain the link to veterans. Nobody can so far.

These people are not fleeing their country. There is no wars and why is it always men? You never see the women in the children? Mothers and father’s grannies and grandads are they left behind to fight the war. The word racist is overused they used it when they don’t want to here somebody else opiniondon’t .
our country is going down the toilet because of these invaders they get everything five star hotels free mobile phones money in their pockets central heating while our own indigenous people left on the streets. The heating allowance taken away from them. This is what causes the problem they are treated better than our own. That’s just my opinion.

Our veterans suffer from poor / no housing, lack of support with PTSD and mental health, and the pastoral care post service is shockingly bad. These men and women have given their service to this country only to be overlooked and disregarded. We owe Them a service of care and gratitude.