Is anyone else getting quite tired of being called a racist?

[Peppatina]

I know it can't just be me.

It doesn't matter what carefully thought out reasons a brexiter has for wanting to leave (I've seen some very articulate and reasoned ones on mn itself) we are still all getting lumped into a stereotypical group of closet racist idiots.

And Lord forbid any of those reasons might just involve any concern over levels of eu migration!

I've been told that I'm essentially imagining the three week waiting list for my GP or that this is nothing to do with eu migration. If I say I know it is because of the names being called out I become the equivalent of Enoch Powell.

The same goes for a certain local estate very much being a no go area, especially for young girls. After braving this street once with my children and being spat on and shouted at by a group of very hostile Romanian men/boys I've been told I imagined it.

When I had my son a few week ago my I was the only English speaking person in my ward. A polish man was shouting and being very aggressive to staff as they were struggling to find an interpreter.

I absolutely know that not every migrant is aggressive and that they should build more schools and go surgeries but I believe I'm right to be concerned about a high number of migrants who are not intergrating with their local community and the unsustainable strain on services.

I'm sick of being told that my experiences don't matter. That to even mention that this is what life is like in our town means I am a racist or little englander.

The Sun has just declared itself behind a brexit. What a surprise considering its owned by Murdoch. Hopefully this can only be a good thing for the remainers.

I'll have a glass of wine to that.

You don't have to worry about the Eu trying to be tough with us after we leave and telling us what we can or cannot have. We hold all the cards, they are finished.

"Project Panic! Now top Eurocrat warns that Britain leaving the EU could trigger the end of Western civilisation

EU council president Donald Tusk predicts end of global order after Brexit"

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3638953/Project-Panic-Eurocrat-warns-Britain-leaving-EU-trigger-end-Western-civilisation.html

It will be the end of our useless political class too and a better one that works for Britain will replace it.

I am gripped to this I have never been this involved in politics in my life. I am enjoying the argument. Thank you for entertaining me this evening I am now going to bed.

Claig how do we hold all of the cards if we leave?

The President, Tusk, is saying it will be the end of Western Civilization. They are panicking, it os the end of their perks and entire system. They will have to bulldoze the Brussels buildings and then the police will be sent in to look at the accounts.

We are the 5th biggest economy in the world, they will beg us, just as Cameron begs Gordon Brown, to help them save themselves from their people. they will do anything, agree to anything if you offer them a scrap of help.

We will emerge stronger, richer, no longer needing to give them our money, and others will follow. It is the end of their dream, the end of their banker scheme.

Everything, everything is about to change for the better and our entire democracy will change and all the losers among the political class that we have had to be lectured by will soon be gone.

Tusk is panicking now, hoping against hope that Cameron and Brown can save him and the EU and stop the British people ending their game.

But on Jun 24, the real panic will start as the British people's vote triggers a domino effect all over Europe and as the European political class has nowhere left to hide. Their empty threats will become entreaties, the high and mighty will be brought low.

All over Europe, the people will once again be sovereign and free of the bankers.

I think out two biggest political parties will go to eat within before war with each other if we leave. Then they go to war with the EU.

To the OP- there are many unpleasant people in this country. I have seen them shout at nurses on maternity wards, molest women, abuse kids. They were all British, this country is full of them (perhaps they should leave?).

Unpleasantness has nothing to do with nationality, it is, sadly, universal. So please do not assume that one unpleasant Polish person, or Romanian, or German (why leave them out?) means that they are all terrible.

Definitely don't make this the reason for voting leave.

I have some sympathy if your concerns were related to a perceived stretch on social and health services, housing and schooling, but consider that this stretch is not really caused by immigration alone- it is caused by a British government making excessive cuts, underinvest and leaving the population to fend for itself.

Please don't vote leave. What little protection people in this country enjoy is because of the EU. Don't for a moment believe that a conservative government will do anything to further or protect maternity rights or invest in those kind of services that make our collective lives easier (health, education, etc)- they are simply not that ay inclined. Just look at this government's red tape reviews: each and every one of them aims to strip away layers of protection for anyone but big business. And don't for a moment believe that immigration issues are solved by leaving the EU.

We truly are better off in.

Anna, we're not. It's as simple as that. The maths doesn't add up whichever way the remain camp want to spin it. It's incredibly misguided to think there is a bottomless pit of money available to support a nation and its infrastructure. What the remain camp wish to imply, is that the EU will provide this bottomless pit of money for everything to carry on as is (!). We have a finite number of resources. The reason there appears less investment in health, education, housing etc is that indeed, despite alleged lowest levels of unemployment this country has ever seen, we are in fact in financial dire straits. Only 5% of the population unemployed yet 26% of GDP is spent on welfare benefits. British Ex pats in Europe are anxious they may lose their right to claim their pensions abroad if we Brexit. Well I'm sorry, but every penny of that state pension is then spent in the host nation, be it Spain, France etc not one penny spent here in uk shops or business. I can assure you, Poland, Romania, France, indeed all other EU nations are not paying state pensions to their ex pats settled in the uk, for them to spend in uk business here. You leave Poland, you get nothing from the polish government. Britain is still sending child benefit to children living in EU zones outside the uk, as long as a parent is working here for heavens sake. It's utterly screwed! My point being, we can't afford to remain in Europe. Putting your head in the sand or making other excuses for the NHS, housing, etc won't create the wealth required to fix the problem. Importing a further 20 million families, won't fix the problem. The best the remain camp are doing to address this is say, if we remain we'll fix it. No they won't, because under the EU laws they've signed up to, they can't. Which is why we're in the mess we're in already. There is no bottomless pit of money that any opposing political party can suddenly produce. However, to argue these points, to say 'we're full' is met with a constant barrage of you must be racist (All racists will be voting Brexit. REALLY?!!!! So fucking offensive. How about all ISis sympathisers will be voting remain!! Total shit, no?)

We must control our borders, we must control our spending (all EU committed monies are out of our control, we're told what to send over) and its absolute madness to even suggest otherwise. I'm not racist. Economic migrantist? Yep. Sorry but we're full,

Chris, the phrase "we're full" is classically racist and has a long history of being used as an argument ("lack of space") to attack those who live amongst us who are not the same as us ie Jews / Eastern Europeans whatever. As I said: this argument has a very long history! At its very worst it was used extensively by the nazis who claims lack of space 'for ordinary Germans' and thus others, including Jews, needed to be driven out.

Eugenics theory also historically has a large component of arguments about space / lack of space.

Are you not alarmed by the very flat racist echoes of what you say?

Would you still claim lack of space (which is nonsense anyway) if British families started having more children? Or would you claim more resources should be built to accommodate those children?

still the housing crisis in the UK isn't enough in itself to convince you of the huge problems we face due to population increase? Where I live, green belt land is being released for building as there is no other option.

We need the population to increase. We don't have enough young people to pay for the disproportionately large older generations.

Now this to be better managed, granted. Building on green land is far from the only solution.

Rooner what has stopped us from controlling our non EU immigration before now? It is slightly higher than EU immigration

Housing shortage is only partially caused by immigration. The major cause is simply not building enough houses for a population that is loving longer, becoming more likely to divorce and live alone before marriage.

Losing our primary source of house building trades won't help this, especially if combined with the kind of massive economic uncertainty, falling house prices and negative equity.

Loving = living!

Doesn't anyone see the irony in the immediate racist rebuttal from the remain camp. Hitler for heavens sake!

Stilllovingmysleep, Switzerland declared 'we're full' 2 years ago. According to your translation of that, we should be discussing military options to depose this new Swiss Hitler. Indeed, I can't believe we've allowed Switzerland to do this unchallenged for so long. How dare the population be even given the option to vote on sovereignty when they're clearly such a racist bunch!!

Kateinkorea, it's a lovely idea to just throw away the worlds passports. However, the complete breakdown of a democratic society would do nothing but take all of us back 2000 years. You remove democracy in one fell swoop. All the population will know is, they have to live by regulations, but they're not sure whose regulations they are. The regulators will be the 'commandants' who can 'control' regional areas.

Sovereignty and democracy are inextricably linked. Borders and the control of those borders for the protection of the democratic rights of its people, is an absolute must.

I'll say again, we must have control over our borders, we must have control over our spending and I'll add we must have control over our democratic right to shape the society we live in.

I live in an area where there is very high migration, in fact the population you'd describe as white British are very much in decline. I am British myself but married to an EU migrant so have a foreign name.

There are good points and bad points. There is a lot of diversity in the produce that can be had but there area is starting to become monocultural in some areas and this is reflected in some of the schools. There are some issues with gangs from different communities and there have been several stabbings and other issues arising from 2 rival gangs from 2 African communities who don't get on. This has made a part of the area a no-go zone at night, not just for white British but anybody from another community. Talking to the local PCSO they experience a range of issues from fly tipping to murders which often are either linked to a lack of awareness of how things are done to quarrels from different communities being carried over.

There has been impact within the schools in the area and many schools are now overfull and have had to create what they call international units which deal with newly arrived children. There is crowding in some of the housing and I would say some are overcrowded, with a small semi opposite us (smaller than our home) having around 8 people living there. The police were called and spent around 3 hours there over the weekend due to some kind of falling out that was had and I am now going to call the council to report the fly tipped junk that was left there as the occupants decided to all move out and I doubt tell the landlord. Our Polish friends have been complaining that they cannot access a doctor's appointment easily and a Portuguese friend ended up walking out of A&E after waiting for 5 hours and still not seen. It doesn't appear to be working at the moment for anybody. We also live not far from the Sports Direct facility and have known people working there, not much of that situation was working for people and there are other local employers with similar practices, in fact most people on here will have bought from them at some time or another.

I'm not saying migration isn't the whole picture, it isn't, there are many problems within white British communities, but nobody says it's racist to stereotype those communities, yet not all from those communities fit a box either. When it comes down to racism I've witnessed staggeringly awful attitudes from ALL parts of humanity on occaision. Nobody is without fault!

In terms of the whole brexit/remain thing it's a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of thing, there are going to be negatives to both options.

The only real winner is big business half the time and they are pursuing what I call prosperity without humanity.

Chris I am not from Switzerland but have a close friend who lives there and from what she tells me Switzerland is indeed a very very anti-immigrant country and yes racist on some occasions.

I mentioned the nazi rhetoric not because (obviously not!) the brexit camp are nazis! I don't even have to justify that argument with an answer, clearly they are not and they have concerns that have to be debated. My point was the the 'we are full / we don't have space' arguments are well known racist / anti-immigrant discourses that are found in a large number of historical moments to justify all sorts of things including eugenics. If it were me, and I found myself using such a well known,
historically common racist trope, I would question my assumptions and my understanding of what I see around me.

We live in a time when the public sector is being destroyed by the government. There is no 'lack of space'. Such a thing doesn't exist. Britain has plenty of 'space'. 'We' are not 'full'. None of this is based on anything other than fear of the unknown. The reason people come here to work, as you know, is because they cannot find on most occasions meaningful and well paid work in their countries of origin. The U.K. is seen as a desirable place to live and work. Would you rather that the U.K. had no jobs and thus nobody wanted to come here? Can you also not imagine that you might at some point in your life have to move country out of necessity or indeed out of desire for a better life? Would you want to be greeted with attitudes of 'we're full!'?

about Switzerland, here's a fun fact:

in Feb 2014, 50.3% of Swiss voters voted to stop free movement and introduce a points-based system instead. Since then, support has dropped, and if the referendum happened again tomorrow, only 36% would vote the same way.

the Swiss were promised by the anti-immigration campaign that they could stop EU immigration, while continuing their usual trade with Europe. After the vote, it became clear that this was not going to happen, and that there would be a heavy economic price to pay to stop EU immigration. So the tide of opinion turned.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. And the Leave campaign is lying when they say that you can.

Where is all this 'space' still ?

Farmland, pasture, floodplain, woodland, forests, mountains - where will you be building the new towns? Where will you build the associated infrastructure - power stations, reservoirs, landfill, sewage farms, roads, railways, airports? What about the native species and habitats you will destroy, do they matter?

You don't have to think immigration is all sunshine and rainbows without any drawbacks to vote in. And this...

"What about the native species and habitats you will destroy, do they matter?"

This is a huge reason to vote in. Farmland? Habitats and rare species? Millions of pounds worth of subsidies and funding from the EU, don't you know. Many of my closest friends work protecting our rarest species and habitats and they are TERRIFIED of the leave campaign for what it will do to the natural world in Britain that they love. They have no bias towards voting in, so I trust implicitly their assessment of the impact an out vote would have. And they wholeheartedly believe it would be devastating.

Should we stop inmigration to London, which is definitely 'full'?
Perhaps we should be building on the Yorkshire moors or Scottish highlands where there is plenty of space. No, people want to come and live in
already overcrowded cities and that is one of the main reasons for needing controlled immigration

I find it amusing more than tiring.
It's a sign that the other person has nothing intelligent to say when they automatically use the R word, instead of giving proper reasons as to why they don't agree with your 'out' decision.

On a more sombre note, when a word is overused like this and flung at people that don't warrant it, the word ends up having less impact, which is worrying ,as there is very real racism happening in this country on a daily basis.