To think Starmer is utterly reprehensible

[Thegreyhound]

I know everyone will disagree, that’s ok- But I just have to say that Starmer today seems to have sunk lower than I ever believed he would with his incendiary ‘island of strangers’ and ‘incalculable damage’ rhetoric.
I find it particularly shocking because he has calculated this and decided it’s worth it to throw immigrants under the bus and essentially give all the ground in the debate to Farage, Tommy Robinson and Enoch Powell types.
Policy can be altered without making statements that are designed to impact race relations and make life even more difficult for people who are just trying to get along and make a living here.
Starmer is vile. This country does indeed feel like an island of strangers these days but the strangers are not the immigrants :(

But I don’t think it’s far right rhetoric at all as most of the UK isn’t native British. When is someone considered a native Brit? Second gen? 3rd gen?

I hate the ‘we need to import cheap labour as Brits won’t do the hard graft jobs’

Huge amounts of Brits now as now not 100% Anglo Saxon. A lot of us are the product of immigrants. At what point are we new immigrants so hard grafters and at what point are we considered Brits so lazy and feckless and won’t do the hard roles? Are only new immigrants hard working but us old immigrants not? Makes no sense at all.

I believe in supply and demand. People will take a job for the price people consider it worth. I think care work is above a minimum wage salary. If low skilled workers stopped coming, the market would find the right price for ‘native’ Brits to take.

The clue here is that the Dad works. The kids go to school and will leave with qualifications and get jobs.

This. ^ It honestly beggars belief doesn't it? I am also genuinely heartened, and relieved, and pleased to see that so many more people are speaking up on here now, who are feeling the same. I feel like I've been going batshit over the past few years, with being afraid to speak out about how I feel, for fear of being snapped at, piled on, and berated and mocked. (I think many others have felt the same.)

Even in real life now, many people are beginning to speak up, and not tolerate it anymore. As the massive surge in popularity for REFORM proves. The tide is turning. Thank GOODNESS! 🤗

" It's what they do"

Tell me you're racist without telling me you're racist

The low paid jobs such as childcare as well get people saying salaries will rise and get British nationals (those with nationality - time for nationality criteria to be increased possibly to ten years and a A level ability in English if I heard TalkRadio correctly this morning) doing the jobs. The other side is that whilst people complain about the jobs low pay when they use these services they don’t want to pay more. Do you want your child care/elderly care doubling in costs? Do you pay a bonus to make the wage acceptable for you? Answer is no. Same for all low pay jobs that facilitate your life.

Oh, and I also refuse POINT BLANK to believe that every single person who supports Starmer on this, and everyone who voted for REFORM is a massive hate-filled, bigoted, racist. Nope, not having it. The old 'you're a thick racist bigot' trope isn't washing any longer (not that it ever did.) People just sound badly educated and foolish when they say this. They're embarrassing themselves every time they say it! And they can never see the irony in their attacks!

Agree with this. I wish people would wake up and realise this instead of fighting amongst themselves.

Everyone is so egocentric and determined that their own opinion is right that they completely ignore what is blatantly obvious.

Labour don't have balls. Disappointing. I'm sure there is something we don't know or an outside influence going on. Feels like they have been pushed into this direction outside of the party. It's pretty incongruent for Labour.

I’ll pay the going rate for the service of which I need. If it turns out that most people can’t afford it then it is for the government to subsidise as they do in other countries. The solution isn’t to import the labour to make the service cheaper

It is not racist to want immigration to be controlled.

He's woken up and smelt the coffee.
Like it or not, (& I don't) immigration is the subject on which the next election will be fought.
Failure to realise this and take any meaningful action - as opposed to making speeches - lost the Tories the last election and might actually have destroyed the Tory Party as an electoral force.
Starmer is, after all, a professional politician and politics is after all "the art of the possible". It is no longer possible to ignore immigration no matter how may "progressive" feathers get ruffled.

Thank you!!! I am well educated. I have a well paid job. I am tired of being told I’m a racist because I want immigration to be controlled.

Starmer’s speech was reasonable (apart from the island of stranger bit, that was just once and a bit unnecessary).
I watched the whole thing.

They do need to do their bit though. Starting with our medical degree graduates getting priority for jobs! And not bumping up people’s wages with benefits when those people are working part time (unless they are carers).

Hardly a significant electoral demographic.

The answer is NOT no. Don't assume to speak for everyone. How narrow minded. This is the problem with the left, they can't see ANYbody else's views but their own, and they assume everyone should think like them otherwise they're a thick bigot.

Good for you. I assume that includes all the services you use such as bins, road works, nurses, cleaners, supermarket shop floor workers etc How’s the government going to subsidise your life? Do you want to pay higher taxes or sell your home to fund your care? Which countries cover high childcare /elderly care costs?

“Safe” what do you mean by that?

Had Gordon Brown realised this, he might have won the election.

Are you finally starting to get it? That supporting the numbers coming in and not working is impossible to sustain?

Stop catastrophising and exaggerating for goodness sake! 🙄

Common sense is finally coming through. You can see it in the polls, you can see it in the press - you can see it on here. A few years ago this site was so left wing you’d get absolutely slaughtered for saying anything against immigration. Now it’s 50/50 at least. Christ even the labour government are starting to turn!

We don’t want ghettos full of alien cultures, we don’t want our daughters and granddaughters being gawped at by young men, we don’t want to be paying millions on interpreters because immigrants have no interest in integration, we don’t want to be waiting years on council waiting lists because there are just too many people in the country, we don’t want to be paying for hotels full of immigrants.

In my town there are a number of streets (ever increasing) that are immigrant ghettos full of “Islam foods” type stores and dozens of fruit shops all doors apart open 24/7. How do so many fruit shops stay in business when there are 6 of them all down the same road? Because they’re clearly a front for “other” types of “busines”. Full of men stood loitering around outside of them.

Christ even our local Asda car park has become home to cars pulling up and Asian men all sat around talking and loitering around.

U took my granddaughter to park a few weeks ago and there were two Asian men on bikes staring at her the whole time. Eventually one came over and tried to talk to her. She ignored him. He carried on trying. This is not normal. Enough is enough.

And we have Farage to thank for the wake up call - Starmer is only acting on it because he’s scared shitless of Reform.

Honestly, in a fair society childcare and elderly care is shared more equally across the entire family, and equally between men and women. Things such as equal parental leave then contribute to that and grandparent leave etc. We can look at structures.
Part of the reason we have such issues with housing is also because families break up and do not support each other enough and whole communities are displaced away from where they are born, due to lack of affordability.
All these societal ills are connected.

LOVE that post @Vesuvio 👏 And that will resonate with soooooooooo many people.

He’s a lawyer, has no principles and can say anything without actually supporting or believing in it

So you can't provide valid stats and a reasoned argument. You can only generalise and sneer. In that case I can't make a response and am once again disappointed to find I'm debating with someone who isn't that bright. A hazard of online debate I suppose.

Plenty of people agreed with him. What a shame Clegg didn’t turn left, things could have been so different.