To think this country’s gone to S***

[emsjk]

Second time now I’ve sat down to have drinks with a friend only to be met with “I don’t agree with Farage, but…”

Cue a rant about Muslims, immigrants, how the country is not what they remember in the good old days.

More and more people are starting to spout this drivel about immigrants. Yesterday it was literally ‘I’m not racist, I have asian family, but’ and then cue racist rant.

I feel like the country I love that used to be fair and tolerant has gone to shit.

Also to add I live in the south east and every inch of green space is being built on massive ugly towerblocks to house these shit loads of people. It’s so depressing and concerning due to the overcrowded amenities such as doctors and hospitals and the fact no new ones are being built to accommodate these influx of people.

If I had friends who spoke like that or expressed the opinion that @Ineedthesun80 did I'd drop them and tell them exactly why.

My sister in law who is retired and hapily married to my professional retired brother blurted out at the dinner table when we had a family meetup that the boats should be sunk and they live in a nice part of the country with little diversity. I ddin't want to start an argument so we changed the subject. Grim times.

I keep hearing all the same stuff spouted, along with conspiracy theories around the 'invasion' and how it's part of the government/ elites plan to colonise the west with islam. Again generally white working class blokes. Ask them what they plan to do about it..it becomes 'everyone will rise and riot' but they aren't actually going to do it themselves. All gob and no action types.
The same ones that at a push will vote reform or not at all.

I live two miles from a major city centre with one of the highest proportion of immigrants in the country so you can go away with your generalisations.

The world is going to shit very quickly not just the UK, in the last year alone I see a massive dis improvement in attitudes and it seems to be getting worse, I think the general populations MH is quite poor at the moment and you notice it in almost every conversation / interaction….it’s a bit alarming to be honest, wondering if it’s just me who thinks this?

I think you need to have a wee think about why it might be that the men might make the dangerous journeys first, then bring their families over via a safe route once their asylum claim has been accepted.

Are you even prepared to host them again? If it was in someone else's house I can understand not wanting to cause an argument. If it had been in my house I'd have asked them to leave.

So on your very anecdotal evidence of a sample of two you think the country has gone to shit ok.

Considering there have been two raids in Greater Manchester this weekend on Islamic extremists plotting a terror attack, I think you’re wrong.

Just imagine how bad things could be if we hadn't spent vast amounts on policy programmes, campaigns, diversity officers and everything else. But what you're really highlighting is the abject failure of those policies to change anything. In which case, many people would say we should try a different approach and put those scarce resources to better use elsewhere.

If we get a grip on potential terrorism and get a better border system the reaction from other people angry about it will likely fall anyway.

Where are we supposed to put entire families? We don’t have the housing, education or medical infrastructure to provide thousands more families.

People are using food banks and having their disability benefits stripped from them. We obviously can not afford thousands more people in the UK, no matter where they come from.

Probably because they know the language or have family here. Why is it do you think that most chose to stay and claim asylum in France?

Calling people racist to shut down valid concerns doesn’t work anymore.

Clearly the forced entry of a huge influx of fighting age men from incompatible cultures is a massive issue for the UK.

They shut the hotel a mile from is last year to house migrants. It was really depressing as I drive past it every day, I had my wedding reception there in 2003. To see burley security guarding the entrance was downheartening. Suddenly the hotel was back to normal so I don't know what happened

They’ve probably checked into their lovely new builds now

The word Racist achieved almost magic powers over the past few years.

It was brilliantly used to shut down any debate, to silence-a magic bullet.

It still is powerful but we are seeing it become less so.

Good.

When the people already here and have contributed to our economy are left to struggle

I don’t think anyone is claiming we don’t need a debate around immigration and imo it’s not racist to say or think that we do. But unfortunately ignorant knee-jerk racism - the dangerous kind - is also on the rise, many of these people don’t give a shit about reasoned debate, and they are using the immigration issue to dress their racism up as legitimate concern. I’m talking about the kind of people that supported Brexit because ‘let’s get the P-k-s out’, with a lump of prejudice where their brains should be.

It’s impossible to discuss immigration without these morons thinking they’re being validated, does this mean we shouldn’t discuss immigration? Of course not, but it does mean politicians need to deal with all this extremely carefully. There were grunts of ‘Farage for PM’ in my local FB group the other day. I think we’re at a point in history where people need to be extremely careful what they wish for.

I live in the SE too. Our countryside is under threat of development. But not for high rise, social or dense housing, there’s no money in that for the developers after all. No, the developers here are planning to build (mostly) detached 4 beds instead, they return at a much higher price after all (avg £600k).

Of course it means something! They’ve got the same population, you said it yourself. They have the same number of taxpayers, and have to provide the same level of infrastructure for the same number of people.

Or should immigrants be dumped in the countryside and not have access to work, housing, healthcare or education?

Do you really think it’s as simple as ‘they have a bigger landmass”? Because if that’s your argument then we have plenty of space too. Only 6% of the UK is built on, so we can just drop them in the other 94% and forget about them.

Ditto transphobic, islamophobic, Karen….

translation: shut up and submit to whatever’s going on

Think what you like. A few minutes spent researching this might change your view.

Burying one’s head in the sand about racism is every bit as dangerous as the problems posed by immigration.