If this isn't what you voted for stand up and be counted!

[WidowWadman]

So all those Brexiteers and Lexiters who didn't vote on the basis of immigration controls, where are you? Will there be marches against May's interpretation of your vote?

You know, I actually believe that plenty of people didn't realise what their vote was going to unleash despite being warned frequently and emphatically. It's not too late to speak out and stand up against it. If you didn't mean it, don't hide behind that you haven't meant it. Do something about it.

Pro-tip: declaring xenophobic things to be not xenophobic, actually is not speaking out against it or distancing yourself from it. Declaring hurt at being lumped in with the xenophobes without outright condemnation of their rhetoric doesn't count as standing up to it. Much the opposite.

(PS Elements only the first part of my last post was to you....I should have put a paragraph in there. You yourself will not need me to tell you this, I know, but in the interests of being absolutely accurate and literal I will point this out!)

If that is true Natalia, calm down the rhetoric! Comparing posters you disagree with to Hitler, describing voters who lose a vote as bonded salves and other such overly emotional, inflammatory tosh devalues any thought process!

If you have a point it should stand on its own, without the PA perjoratives!

Actually Natalia - your Scottish analogy, although exaggerated, isn't that far off the truth.

With 10 times the population in England compared to Scotland, the 58 (out of 59) non-Tory MPs are always outvoted. They can't make a difference to Government policies.

What England wants, England gets

Comparing posters you disagree with to Hitler, describing voters who lose a vote as bonded salves and other such overly emotional, inflammatory tosh devalues any thought process!

...errr...I've done that where, exactly? I have to say, OurBlanche that I find that a grossly offensive and, yes, I'll say it, fucking stupid accusation.

We were discussing the nature and meaning of democracy. There have been doctoral theses written on this point. It is not a simple idea, but it is often discussed as such. One poster claimed that one form (direct democracy via referendum) was the best way. I was using 1930s Germany as a stark and recent example of the way that that form of democracy can lead to awful and unintended outcomes. Likewise, my other points were attempting to illustrate the poor outcomes that can arise from a system that blindly and simply accepts the majority view. All of these, for your reference, are entirely accepted methods of argument in any philosophical or political journal that you would care to read.

all this talk of "democracy" is pretty bloody simplistic. Hitler was democratically elected in 1938, don't forget. Read de Tocqueville and the tyranny of the majority.

Hitler used referendums to show his popularity and to demonstrate the will of he majority for his policies. It's what dictators do rather than have themy debated and scrutinised by parliaments.

If all the people who live in England vote that all the people who love in Scotland are to become bonded slaves and are no longer allowed to vote, is that democracy? (There are more of them!).

If you aren't making those comparisons why all of ^^ then?

Why not just talk, leave all the weird PA crap out of it, stop with the hyperbole, just talk! I doubt the doctoral theses you mention were quite as overtly laden with emotional triggers!

If you wish to discuss democracy, start with what we actually have rather than spinning it into WhatIfsVille!

Ummm.. no one cares. To.respond to my Boston point?

Oooh! [goes back a few pages to find that post... ]

Natalia, perhaps your analogy should have referred to BigEndians, LittleEndians and which end of the boiled egg to cut off so as to avoid causing upset. I suspect you were sailing a little too close to real life (particularly in light of today's headline articles by certain newspapers).

Well I thought it was really valid in terms of Boston is held up as this place of massive immigrant effects.

It is valid, smallfox but, unless you and I debate the great similarities and odd differences between there and here, anyone will take you up on it

Element I haven't read the papers today (accounts needed doing) what headlines? Genuinely interested as I now suspect I have missed something that Natalia was using as her inspiration and I have, therefore, been a small minded middle Englander

I'm interested in the Boston point, but have nothing really to add as I trust smallfox's stats and facts.

smallfox I read your post about Boston and found it very interesting. It's all down to perception that immigrants are taking things away, and I am not sure what can be done to persuade people struggling on low wages and on the housing list otherwise.

Sorry Sapphire I didn't mean they were up for dispute, just that no one would have anything to add.... hence the tumbleweed

I used to live about 20 miles from Boston and now live many miles away, in an equally rural area that has always had seasonal workers. So smallfox and I could probably bang on about what is/is not the same.

But as we have already ascertained that we hold broadly similar views, despite our being on opposite sides of the Brexit vote, that wouldn't be in anyway interesting to anyone!

On the housing list you can repeat the point that EU immigrants are far less likely to be in social housing, and are actually under represented for their size of the population.

Low wages? I don't know at all. But I just hate the fact that it's convinient to do so and these fears are exploited by people who don't actually have the best interest of those whose votes they have garnered at heart.

I've said before its like the walrus and the carpenter and that's how I feel.

It's all down to perception that immigrants are taking things away, and I am not sure what can be done to persuade people struggling on low wages and on the housing list otherwise. Yes, that! It comes out as being racist but is rooted in fear, a sense of being further disenfranchised, overlooked, etc.

We have yet to find a consistent way to get both sides to realise that they have a lot in common, could work together on a wide range of issues. Instead it becomes a bitter, fear fed competition to gain 'something', occasionally especially at the expense of others

Still working on it though

Ugh blanche.. food Bank today. Heartbreaking. Need wine.

Yes, that! It comes out as being racist but is rooted in fear, a sense of being further disenfranchised, overlooked, etc.

Or just having narrow horizons, and not being brought up to question?
How do we tackle it?

My MIL is an interesting case - she goes on and on about immigrants, reads the Mail from cover to cover, (yet voted Remain). A new family has just moved in next door to her - young family, go to Church and, wait for it, Polish. She likes them - decent, hard working, model citizens! She wasn't happy with the previous white English neighbours. So on a personal level, maybe people can be shown that immigrants are not bogeymen to be feared.

These headlines Blanche -

twitter.com/hrtbps/status/785965530633076741

In particular the Express, IMO, is rather close to inciting action towards anybody who speaks critically about The Project:

You can sum up in one sentence the disgusting opinions of the rabble of MPs who are demanding a Commons vote on Brexit: "The people have spoken, we don't like what they said because they aren't as clever as us so let's ignore them and try to reverse the referendum result" Such snake-like treachery cannot go unpunished.

Here's what I would do with them: clap them in the Tower of London. They want to imprison us against our will in the EU so we should give them 28 days against their will to reflect on the true meaning of democracy. We're in the midst of an exhilarating people's revolution and those who stand in the way of the popular will must take what's coming to them.

I think many people who fear immigration are quite fine with the ones they know or come into contact with.

It's just the ones they don't know but hear about they fear coming here. Years and years of negative reporting does shape perceptions.

Holy Crap Element I shall now retreat back into Middle England... aka Support to Stop after work drop in

Our foodbank was yesterday, smallfox Something has happened, locally, as we had a sudden influx of Staunchly Gobby Young Men. We spent a lot of time explaining how it really works... and desperately trying to figure out who had referred them. Some re-training is being sorted for one overly helpful advice centre

I agree Peregrina my late FIL used to call people darkies, but on a personal basis he had no problem with anybody.

smallfox yes I can say that, but any challenge of what they feel they're seeing in front of them is very difficult to take, as it is a belief. Even someone who used to work in the housing office, said she didn't think it was right people from the EU should be housed.

In conversation with a friend on Monday, I said how the biggest trading block is on our doorstep, how economically we could be stuffed, and she said if you use logic it closes the debate down.

Don't forget Blanche (and others) the Mail is the paper that supported Mosley's Blackshirts and Hitler.

Me? Why me? I don't read any of them

Yes negative reporting and excessive comments from politicians. These all shape the way people behave.

I agree that fear about immigration is very much about the fear of the big bad wolf that is yet to be seen.

However, all these comments such as the ones element linked to, or the 'proposals' from the PM etc... All shape behaviours in the population. And also decide of what is socially acceptable or not.