Unfriending right wing friends

[nondrinker1985]

One of my school mum friends of around 10 years has started sharing loads of Restore Britain/Rupert Lowe posts.

I’m actually really shocked as she’s an Irish immigrant herself.

I’ve unfriended her which is a shame as day to day she’s ok. Also another mum who has been liking and commenting on the Restore Britain posts, they’ll probably tell me they’re not racist but I can’t be arsed calling them out.

That's not what I asked. I asked what the limit is.

I think it’s good to keep an eye on them. You need to know what is being said - and - if you can - question them.

Complacency could win out. Think Brexit.

We do none of those things with illegal immigrants. The clue's in the word "illegal". If an illegal immigrant were so foolish as to put their head above the parapet to claim their hotel accommodation and free mobile phone, they'd find themselves very quickly in accommodation in a police cell before being taken to a detention centre for deportation.

That point on barring asylum claims can you expand on it? Generally more than half are approved when looking at initial grant and appeal.

Do you have different figures from somewhere?

Do you not remember the so-called Boris wave? No?
The explosion of asylum seekers coming in through various means for many years now is beyond political partisanship. It's a problem Reform or whatever other R parties out there would have issues properly addressing in the real world. They want you to think a bit of muscle and elbow grease is all it needs but the first thing that will happen under them is fucking up the defence alliance with France and other EU states (but France is the one with independent nuclear capabilities) which, again, is of existential importance if we want to protect ourselves in a post NATO world.
But well, that is of course the whole point for the people who actually finance those parties and pull the strings behind the scenes. They WANT a weak Britain on the world stage. Putin and MAGA would be delighted. A vote for R parties is a vote for them.

Can you link it please?

Well, she's perfectly entitled to think what she likes. I just happen to feel it's a backwards and medieval point of view. So I now see her very differently.

The Boris wave was a massive increase in legal immigration. It was done to deliberately suppress wages of British workers during a period of high inflation. Boris has admitted this treason quite openly.

You are also deluded for thinking France is any kind of ally to the UK. They are hardly putting in much effort to police their beaches and they happily tow boats into UK waters rather than back to France (can't blame them really).

The EU is devided and weak because of terrible leadership. Macron and Merz are hated just as much as Starmer is here.

It seems the lesson of Brexit has not been learned at all.
Left leaners KNOW they are so correct that no one could possibly think other than them, hence Reform will lose the next election.
They convince themselves this will happen because by only listening to echo chambers and only engaging with people with the same opinions as them and dismissing people with different opinions as thick/racist/sexist/cunts they get a skewed view of reality. Remember when people were convinced Corbyn would win because 'everybody' was going to vote for him (see above for echo chambers).
It's a dangerous way to live politically but the left never learn this lesson because of their overriding conviction it is them who follow the correct path and everyone else is so wrong they are not worth engaging with.

Astonishing that you would compare your holidays in Europe with what these people go through. It just reflects how little you know.

It's very easy to make pronouncements on stuff that you know nothing about.

Aren't you lucky that you can't even imagine what many of these people have gone through.

What does “strident voices condemn you for mentioning immigrants” have to do with me?

No, we are well aware that it's a possibility that the racists could win. There are plenty of them. And many of us are making contingency plans accordingly.

We are just hoping that they will all destroy each other before we get to that point. Or that the idiots will look across the Atlantic and conclude that fascism isn't such a good idea after all.

I would say I’m a floating voter and have voted the main parties as well as Green in the past. I love the fact I can see on here and SM a range of views and value that I live in a democracy where people can have a range of views - even if I don’t agree with them.
The issue about the people arriving by boats is a real issue for many. The example I can give is that I live near one of the immigrant hotels and, during term time, the men (it’s only men and younger ones at that) gather outside of a secondary school, watching the kids have their PE lessons through the fences. That is making local people and those with kids at the school very worried. It may be innocent but who knows?
To my mind, foreign men fleeing their country as refugees makes me question why it’s not women and children leaving in huge numbers first? When I think of Germany in the 1930s, Ukraine a few years ago - the refugees are women and children first. Men left Germany but prioritised their children first. This is possibly why there’s so much suspicion about the male refugees from Afghanistan etc.
Anyway, I think it’s healthy to have friends from a range of political spectrums - sometimes you may learn something, and other times, you may in turn learn things. When we stop listening and talking to each other, well that’s when we are fucked!

A very interesting reading threads like this where people react with name calling and even anger when faced with opinions that go against their own. Why is it such a threat to hear different viewpoints? Do people never question why is this making me angry? Am I reacting this way because it is a justifiable anger or am I reacting and name calling because my world view is being questioned?
I would have traditionally voted left but now the left is not the left of workers and ordinary hardworking people. Growing up where I am from the left sought to win by talking and winning hearts and minds. Now the progressive left demonises those with different opinions. They have shut down conversations by attacking those asking questions. That tactic isn’t very effective anymore

Am I concerned about the people coming in on boats? Yes.

Do I think we should be housing them? No.

What is the alternative to housing asylum seekers while their applications are heard @Helen1625 ?

If asylum seekers weren't provided with accommodation, they'd set up camps like the "Jungle" at Calais, which would surely be worse. They have the right to seek asylum and to stay in the UK while their applications are processed and determined, and we voted away the UK's Dublin agreement right to return asylum seekers to the "first safe country" when we voted for Brexit, so can't be deported until their applications have been determined. (For reference, around 50% of applications succeed at the initial stage, the majority of refusals are appealed and around a third of those appeals succeed.)

If applications were processed and determined more quickly, those who succeeded would be able to work, find housing etc instead of languishing in a asylum seeker accommodation for years. However, there would be some people who'd object to spending money on processing applications just as much as they object to the cost of housing and feeding asylum seekers.

Do a little research on how many people of Spanish origin live in Britain. You might be surprised 😉

There is a world of difference between right of centre politics and the racism and bigotry you see and hear.
I am left of centre in my views and values. I have no doubt that some, or indeed many people with right of centre views have the best interests of thd country and people within their views. How to achieve it is different.
The most important thing right now is that the centre ground finds a way of getting it together to get a sensible and workable solution for the next 10 years and overcomes the extremes to both the left and right.

As far as I'm concerned that response is disingenuous from start to finish. Either that or you're genuinely incapable of distinguishing between the mainstream right and the far right, in which case I suggest getting yourself an education, and some history lessons to boot.

There are so many threads on men arriving and people calling others names or getting angry about people who question it but where are the multiple posts and threads on women and children pretty much being stopped?

Surely if the thought of stopping male arrivals is unpalatable stopping women and children is more so.

Is this more about caring about Labour rather than caring about that issue in particular

But not all.

Granted, even one man harming another is one too many, but then I say the same about all men.

You can't say 'those in need' as a blanket statement for all.

I'm not saying i agree with @JustSomeWaferThinHam but I do think this is willful misinterpretation and spin to fixate on the turn of phrase re: a European holiday.

It's a valid question-
why not stop in Italy/ Germany / France....?
Why run the gauntlet across the channel?

I am curious to understand more as I also dont understand why the majority dont stop in the first safe country either.
i am (geniunely) interested to know what you know about it, and your experience of illegal immigration/ asylum - did you cross the channel yourself?

Your volunteering is very commendable. However, your understandable sympathy for individual cases seems to have coloured your overall view and caused you to ignore relevant facts.

A person may well have a traumatic backstory but this doesn’t automatically mean they are definitely never going to be a criminal. In fact, trauma (along with being male) is one of the biggest factors in criminality. Obviously I repeatedly say not ALL asylum seekers, but some. The stats say 75% of small boat landings are men under 40. The remaining 25% are men over 40, women and children.

As the marketing by people traffickers and obvious incentives have spread across troubled regions more effectively, the demographic of those coming is likely to have changed - certainly, UK Border Control has come across ‘asylum seekers’ popping home for a holiday or wedding for it to be raised as an issue. This is noticeable problem in Europe as well.

We know that some of the people in small boats are terrorists, rapists and murderers. This has been proven in court.

You lumping all asylum seekers together by making the assumption that they are all desperate, non criminal, worthy people is as incorrect as anyone lumping them all together to claim they are all criminals. Funnily enough, while this is often the accusation from the left, I have never seen anyone seriously claim that ‘all’ asylum seekers’ are criminals.

The comments on those news articles are diabolical. And these aren’t even anonymous accounts. And even when they are not would be refugees but simply non-white the comments are disgusting.

Stop them coming. Stop the incentives that make them want to come here. What's the alternative to that? Have no deterrent, no way of returning them and no limits on how many come over?

Accepting them at the rate that you are speaking of, 50% on application then more on appeal, we're talking 70-75% of all who make the journey are accepted, further appeals, absconding and human rights interventions mean the other 25-30% probably won't be removed either. Where do we draw the line?

Take the emotion out of it. Think about it sensibly and logically. We don't have the housing, the infrastructure or the services to take in an unlimited number forever. We are a country in massive debt. The NHS is on its knees, police numbers are down, council housing waiting lists are long. Is the sensible thing to add hundreds more per day to the numbers already here? They can't work so the burden falls on the taxpayer who is already struggling because food, bills and everything else is going up.

Yes, it would be easy to say 'but they're human beings, show some compassion, they have rights.'

It's possible for both things to be true, for both of us to be right - we can feel sad for them, but we can't allow this to go on indefinitely. We need to get our own house in order first.

The first safe country line is misinformation.

If you think it isn’t could you list which EU countries are currently doing this.