Xenophobia: Brexit official discourse

[jaws5]

Hearing one minister after another at the Tory conference today has made me feel ill: So foreign doctors are welcome UNTIL more British doctors have been trained in a hurry, foreigners will be treated as second class citizens when applying for a job, and EU nationals are one of the "main cards" in Brexit negotiations. I cannot imagine any other country in the world where the official discourse of the governing party would include these statements without it being condemned as xenophobic. Shame on them.

"Well, our friend blamed.... The EU for creating this mess in the first place"

Great, these people will make Britain great again.

What a depressing YouGov poll. Really, most people agree it's a good idea? Why?

"Just get headlines and make people 'go back to where they came from' or never come here in the first place."

The only foreigners (I know) who don't seem to care at all about Brexit and potential xenophobia are those whose English is very poor and who are in low skilled jobs. For them the UK is better than their country. Immigrants who might respond to this scare tactic are those who are here won't put up with being made feel like second class citizens, those in exert jobs, the citizens of the world..

Fear of terrorism?
Trust that data will not be abused?
Idea that they are not foreign so it doesn't affect them?
Simply not thinking the idea through about possible implications?

Well quite Green. But those figures. That's all that matter. Not humans. Nor the implications.

It will also push a lot of educated, liberal Brits away too.

fawful maybe because people don't have enough knowledge to see how this can be reminiscent of what has happened in not such a distance past.

Maybe because they don't feel affected by it. They're not foreigners so it won't affect them.

Maybe because they are not putting that information into the context in which it has been proposed.

maybe because people are so used now to be put into list of all type that it doesn't matter anymore (I'm thinking the extremists lost, the DNA records etc etc)

I've been reading another thread on MN about schools asking pupils nationality.

Plenty of people to say 'Yes they are and ??' And others saying 'well they are not going to use it round the foreigners around are they?'

have people forgotten or never had any history lesson in their life?
Are they not realising that sort of information can then be pout into electronic format (if it's not already the case) and be made accessible for any sort of purposes, not for 'census' (I'm not even sure what that information will help with at all TBH)

red I am feeling despondent right now. Your posts are very interesting sometimes a bit above my head

Could I ask you, how do you picture the UK as a result of what's going on right now in say 5-10 / 20 years?

Can't think of one good reason for such lists. I officially despair (which I guess is the point).

Isaac Asimov called it a long time ago;

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Sad but true Messiah

WT I was one of the posters who called out racially inflammatory language on this thread last night. Specifically, I objected to this:

I do not want to go into the supermarket where all the staff have East European accents. And don't tell me those jobs couldn't be done by British people.

It is not nasty name-calling to object to this sort of discriminatory language. It is a by-product of the anonymity offered by sites like this.

On the contrary, we need to call out low level hate speech every time it appears. There is (or at least there used to be) a basic cultural norm of acceptable discourse in this country, and we are in danger of sliding below it.

You can't just go elsewhere, as if you were choosing between M&S and Waitrose. Not everyone can have the British 'ex-pat' life of toing and froing between Guildford and the Spanish Coast, depending on their health requirements.

Not everyone needs roots, Owl, though I see you also felt the need to return home after your travels abroad. Imagine how it's even more difficult for someone already uprooted once to start all over again, against their will. Put up or shut up is a bully tactic.

No one is forcing any EU nationals to stay here. Life is very globalised now. I'm British, but I've lived in South America and Asia. The world is such a small place that you can really set up shop where you like and get on. If you don't like what Britain has become then leave. I would not stay in any place whose values I fundamentally didn't agree with.

But it's not so easy as that when you have a family that is integrated into their local culture and society. If you lived in Asia and S America I'm guessing you lived the expat life - English speaking friends, english language education for your kids. Being a long term immigrant is very different. My teenagers couldn't just up sticks and fit into a school in their "home" country: it would play havoc with their education, and they have never been educated in their maternal language.

Thank you Figment for stating what should have been an uncontroversial fact before we went through the fucking looking glass!

Figment - this same poster went on about why shouldn't jobs go to people who were born here? And hadn't got an answer when asked about Boris Johnson. Maybe we should ask Amber Rudd if she plans to have Boris Johnson deported?

That YouGov poll is bloody depressing, but I think nicely illustrates what I was saying way upthread - that it doesn't matter if TM and her delightful pals were just "chucking a few ideas around" so we don't have to worry because these things probably "won't come to pass". They are the ones who have put these ideas out there for the delectation of the citizenry, who now think these are jolly good ideas. The genie is out of the bottle. Next step is that some of these measures will come to pass, because lo and behold, The People have spoken.

And while I'm on a rant, that thing about how horrible mean Remainers are "silencing" and "shutting down" Leavers. Isn't it also shutting down when any attempt to point out that certain people are spouting nasty racist bollocks is met with "You're sneering! You think you're soooo superior! You're name-calling!"

Green if I knew that myself I'd act accordingly. DH have been having ongoing conversation about whether to move abroad or not for the last couple of years. We are both British. We have no idea where we would go. In theory DH's options are probably quite wide - in practice the reality is much harder, with many other countries also tightening their borders and employment requirements.

Where do I see the UK in 5 years? The normal rules by which government which is responsible should work have gone totally out of the window. One way or another its behaving in a manner that is reckless, ignorant or just plain self destructive. Trying to predict what they will do next is pretty damn difficult (impossible). This is even if you take the attitude that we should support Brexit - its not so much what the government are doing but the way they are doing it that is the real concern.

I don't have a problem with reform to improve life for lots of people. Quite the reverse. It can't be at the expense of anyone (whether they are British or not) either though. A huge part of our international relationships and the respect we command comes from our openness, how our democracy is perceived from abroad (even though it is totally fucking dysfunctional) and from science/education. The very thing that May seems to have a bit of a problem with. She needs to maintain them AS WELL AS improving things across the board. She can not go authoritarian AND keep that. Especially with the anti-liberal elite attitude she is peddling to win votes. Loose that, and you loose the economy. Education and prosperity walk hand in hand - bottom line. Especially in an information age.

Key point here: even if people can not move abroad, an authoritarian approach is counter-productive to productivity rates. (Hence why reducing hours which some countries have tried, has improved productivity rather than reduced it which defies what you would assume).

I guess my point is, how long will it be before governments come to their senses and realise that promoting education = questioning things therefore freedom to question things = good thing for your economy therefore probably not the best plan to treat these assets to your state like shit, anymore than its a bad idea to shit on anyone who hasn't had that privilege for whatever reason.

I note also, that I don't see the idea of 'scroungers' or people who don't work hard enough going anywhere either, judging by May's language. You need to tackle this mentality which fosters people looking down on others rather than attacking the educated.

Its a matter of incorrectly identifying the problem because you've already got the idea for the solution fixed in your head.

I don't know. I just see a hell of a lot of bollocks going on from the top. Gross mismanagement compounding years of mismanagement that have gone before. They are trying to fix problems by coming up with the answer first.

The basic principles of management are:
^1) Identify the problem (and also what the problem isn't) This might seem an obvious statement but, quite often this isn't done
2) Get a deeper understanding of the problem and fact check
3) Come up with a range of possible solutions
4) Make a decision
5) Implement the decision
In that order.

With Brexit we have gone

1. Decide the problem is the EU unilaterally (without looking to see if it might actually be something else)
2. Present this to the public making sure your facts are totally inaccurate or misleading
3. Get the public to make a 'decision' based on this (minus a plan)
4. Find out the problem is different to the one you thought you had
5. Say you are going to implement this 'decision'
6. Investigate the problem more deeply
7. Panic as the solutions are more difficult than you though and face a lot more barriers than you realised were there
8. Throw the advise you are getting out the window as irrelevant / unimportant
9. Demonstrate that your understanding of the problem is still completely flawed
10. Redefine the problem with a totally new set of goal posts, whilst still maintaining that this fits with the original problem and this fits the 'decision'
11. Then come up with a plan based on your lack of understanding of your basic problem.
12. Actually make the decision

Brexit, really is the tip of the iceberg though.

The only way for politicians of this ilk to go, is to blame someone, so they can deflect it from themselves. Brexit created the perfect recipe for disaster with everyone looking for someone to blame in just about every area of the state.

5 years time? No NHS. Education system in disarray as new plans in turmoil. Housing solutions leading to ever increasing resentment as they are imposed from the top with profit central to planning and local communities not properly listened to. Pensions? Like watching a slow car crash. Brexit? Still not complete. EU's fault not UK's. Environment. Are you joking? Under Leadsom?

20 years time? With that legacy? Uggh.

The problem is and always has been poor government planning - both long and short term by government. Not the fucking EU.

"I do not want to go into the supermarket where all the staff have East European accents. And don't tell me those jobs couldn't be done by British people." If Brits would like these jobs, the should apply for them. The better candidate will always be selected. It reflects quite badly on us.... think about it, Eastern Europeans who, in some cases, don't speak english as we do still get recruited, so they must have more to offer....

I have said it before and I will say it again, Brits are not quite as hard woking as some other nationalities. I know of businesses in the city who love to employ Germans for example, especially for PA roles as they are known to go over and above. I don't think us Brits are internationally known for our work ethics to be honest.

At my local H&M, for example, the Eastern European staff are excellent. They are really meticulous and professional and very helpful. And they seem more clued in than some of the British girls working there. I have the feeling that among some Brits there is this ingrained sense of entitlement or feeling of superiority, which is really interesting as we do lag behind other EU counterparts in very many area. It's quite off putting and simple minded really.

They are the ones who have put these ideas out there for the delectation of the citizenry, who now think these are jolly good ideas

I think those ideas have always been out there in one form or another, but for the last three or four decades they have been marginalised, partly because the people who hold those opinions are quite politically and socially diverse. Basically, it's the 10-15% of the electorate that has been voting UKIP in recent years, plus a part of Labour's demographic, plus the Tory right.

May is making a play for all those voters. Maybe she has made the calculation that it doesn't matter if she pisses off the educated Tory vote and the business people, because they're not going to vote for Corbyn - or maybe she thinks that she doesn't need them anyway.

Incidentally, May's pitch is becoming almost indistinguishable from that of the French Front National under Marine Le Pen: socially hard right, but with interventionist economic policies that are more commonly associated with left wing parties.

mistigri the similarities between Marie LePen and TM hasn't been lost on me either.
The difference is that (most) people still see her as a danger rather than a solution...

I think you are overly optimistic Red. No politicians wants a population with a critical mind and the ability to read between the words. Because when said population can do that, they can just do a spill of words and get away with murder. See the working class voters who voted DC and were subsequently surprised to see THEIR benefits cut.

Scared, that was perhaps something of my point.

Thank you Red. The whole world is in a massive transition, to what is not clear at all to me. I feel it started around 2010/2011.
BTW I'm obviously massively generalising in terms of work ethics and probably it's a cliché I don't know but the sense of entitlement and feeling superior by virtue of being British I do feel that is a national trait.

I agree green. I've worked with French peole whilst in the UK. I've been in contact with Polish people. People from Nederlands. They are appalled by a lot of the 'British ways' and how going the extra mile just doesn't seem to occur to them.
Having been at the interface between the British company and the customers in those countries, I can tell you there is a point where it's hard to justify anything.

the best for me is still when I was working in a British manufacturers in the quality department. Plenty of documents to do that were similar bar the odd modification (name of part, colour, you get the idea).
Even in house, taking initiatives, finding ways to be more productive, challenging ways of doing things were all rejected as 'Not Working Properly' or 'Not my Job, why should I do that?'