I really don't understand what you are all talking about!

[Corcory]

I keep reading how upset people are with the speeches at the conservative party conference and what TM has said and what she intends to do. I keep hearing about all the xenophobia and racism in the conservative party.
Someone on another thread talked about TM's ' citizen of the world' speech and how aghast they were. What exactly are you talking about?
I really feel too many people are reading headlines or taking parts of speeches out of context and spinning them way beyond the truth.
So many of the posters on here are EU citizens and are becoming ever more frightened by the rhetoric . I really don't think it is at all fair to hype this all up and frighten people. I absolutely abhor any racist taunts or comments that too many people have had thrown at them. That sort of attitude must be called out and stamped on straight away.
But winding things up with untruths isn't helping.
The last time I brought up the fact that 'quotes' from the party speeches were inaccurate I was told in no uncertain terms I was being patronizing!

[Peregrina]

I hope that EU friend boycotts the shop and gets his friends to do so. Especially since the move to metrication happened before we went into the EEC. But we then got cold feet and only half implemented it.

[GreenandWhite]

I agree with Bolshy

"A change in immigration policy is hardly a xenophobic act far from it." It is xenophobic if the reduce immigration at a massive economic cost and at the cost of the well-being of all citizens.
OP, sorry but I find your posts disingenuous. You say how 'horrible' and 'appalling' racist abuse is yet refuse to see how The Conservative conference has had only none topic 'immigrants and how to get rid'. To me your posts read like an attempt to minimise the impact of of the crap the Tories have spouted, they read like PR aimed at the hard of thinking.

[jaws5]

It is xenophobic because we, EU citizens, are under attack. We are citizens of this country and fulfill our obligations as such but our rights are being dismissed and denied. We are being discriminated against.

[jaws5]

There was a poster the other day who said the "EU foreigners might be able to stay or might have to leave, who knows". That stance is ignorant about our rights and about the law, it is xenophobic and discriminatory.

[TheElementsSong]

The Conservative conference has had only one topic 'immigrants and how to get rid'.

Exactly! "Brexit means Brexit" was a meaningless enough statement, but OK I could have given them that.

But there was no need for the madcap dash towards "Brexit means let's get everybody really obsessed with immigrants"... unless it's to get people softened up for who to blame if (when) the sunlit uplands turn out to be cold, windy and bleak.

[Corcory]

Twofingers - I was well aware of the implications of limiting immigration. However the leave campaign were quite specific in stating that they didn't want any EU nationals currently living here have to leave. As far as I'm concerned that will be the case. Oh of course the EU will have to agree to keeping our nationals too.
I think the increase in training doctors is great but could have been announced in an entirely different way - as in increasing the staffing in hospitals and reducing the work load on existing Doctors. There really was no need to bring up a self sufficient NHS. I suspect that all the depts. were asked for ideas as to how they could improve things towards Brexit and this is what Hunt came up with. Too true why didn't they suggest this earlier.
Bolshy = it was a party conference. I'm not sure that is where policies are traditionally announced. I think these are usually left for the Queen's speech.
Jaws - that a shame that your friend is upset about his fishing licence but for it to terrify him into a nervous breakdown seems a bit excessive.
As for the shop keeper who served your other friend - well they are definitely xenophobic, I've never been told this in over 40 years of buying things by the meter.

[Bolshybookworm]

Well that's a bit reassuring Corcory- I'll keep everything crossed that we'll hear something sensible at the Queens speech.

[Justchanged]

Corcory, your last post has given me hope that you can start to understand where we are coming from (and I assume is an acknowledgement that actually Hunt did mention foreign doctors in his speech).

For those who based our lives around freedom of movement, do you start to understand why we feel threatened and under attack? Even a UKIP MP, and pro-Leavers like Steve Hilton and that odious snob Charles Moore felt that the Tory conference went far too far. It's not press hysteria, it's because May seemed only to reach out to UKIP supporters, and to brand everyone else as sneering metropolitan elites.

[Corcory]

No sorry Justchanged. Hunt didn't mention foreign doctors it was TM in an interview on the morning of his speech I have since been told!
And no, I don't agree that TM was only going for UKIP voters, neither did she mention sneering metropolitan elites. International elites was what she said in the context of Philip Green et al.

[Peregrina]

TM is also trying to appease her right wing, who IMO are interchangeable with UKIP, although I daresay they would hotly deny it.

[TheElementsSong]

C&Ping my own post from upthread:

"I have read TM's speech in full (Telegraph)...

She makes the infamous reference to "citizens of the world" while talking about a spirit of citizenship, and directly before that sentence she talks about "international elites" without defining who these are.

It is only in the next set of sentences that she makes mention of bosses who don't look after staff, companies avoiding tax and so forth.

So I don't see how you can confidently declare that she was aiming only at the Philip Greens of the world.

[mollie123]

jaws
It is xenophobic because we, EU citizens, are under attack. We are citizens of this country and fulfill our obligations as such but our rights are being dismissed and denied. We are being discriminated against.
that is rubbish
if you are a citizen of this country you are NOT being discriminated against - have you taken out citizenship and view the UK as your home country?
If by obligations you mean paying taxes - we all do that
If by rights - what are the additional rights to which you refer which does not hold true for the other citizens of this country (the UK).

[Corcory]

TheElements - what TM said is 'too many people in positions of power behave as though the have more in common with international elites than with people down the road, people they employ, the people they pass in the street'. Then as you say she then went on about the citizens of the world thing.

[Justchanged]

Corcoran, you can read Hunt's speech here blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/full-text-jeremy-hunts-tory-party-conference-speech/

Towards the end he mentions reducing the number of overseas doctors so the NHS becomes self-sufficient.

[WidowWadman]

Mollie I have taken citizenship, to protect my rights and because I had regarded the UK to be my home. Theoretically I'm "safe" from any attacks the government may choose to impose on EU migrants. That doesn't make me feel any less attacked though. By becoming a British citizen I have not stopped being an immigrant. Any time people say "we don't want to remove you, just stop anyone else like you from coming" they still questions my right to be here. Is the emotional impact of the anti-migration rhetoric really so hard to grasp?

[Corcory]

He definitely didn't say 'overseas doctors' Justchanged.

[Justchanged]

eh? So when he said 'currently a quarter of our doctors come from overseas' who was he talking about? Please read his speech at the link I sent.

[BertrandRussell]

"Currently a quarter of our doctors come from overseas. They do a fantastic job and the NHS would fall over without them. When it comes to those that are EU nationals, we’ve been clear we want them to be able to stay post-Brexit.

But looking forward, is it right to carry on importing doctors from poorer countries that need them, whilst we turn away bright home graduates desperate to study medicine?

Even if we wanted to carry on importing doctors, the supply is drying up. The World Health Organisation says there’s a global shortage of over 2 million doctors – we’re not the only country with an ageing population.

But we are the fifth largest economy in the world – so we should be training all the doctors we need. And today I can tell you that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

From September 2018, we will train up to 1500 more doctors every year, increasing the number of medical school places by up to a quarter.

That’s the biggest annual increase in medical student training in the history of the NHS.

Of course it will take a number of years before those students qualify, but by the end of the next parliament we will make the NHS self-sufficient in doctors.

Training a doctor costs over £200,000. So in return we will ask all new doctors to work for the NHS for four years, just as army recruits are asked to after their training.

The result will be more home grown doctors and fewer rota gaps in a safer NHS looking after you and your family for years to come"

[TheElementsSong]

By becoming a British citizen I have not stopped being an immigrant. Any time people say "we don't want to remove you, just stop anyone else like you from coming" they still questions my right to be here. Is the emotional impact of the anti-migration rhetoric really so hard to grasp?

Exactly Widow I have very similar feelings. I was proud to become a British citizen and pledge my allegiance to my chosen home. But it has become very clear to me that there is an increasing sentiment (exemplified by political rhetoric and expressed often explicitly by some posters here) that I will never be British enough.

The "oh I didn't mean you" comments just make me because how do people expect to identify the "OK" immigrants when they're tutting about GP waiting times or school places or ethnic shops making their high street unrecognisable or all those strange accents making them feel uncomfortable? Answer: they can't really differentiate can they, unless we start wearing identifying marks, so the bottom line is they want to see fewer "people like me". (Not, I hasten to add, that "it's all about me" - just talking about how I perceive things right now).

[jaws5]

Mollie I have not taken citizenship, I am a EU citizen as stated in my passport and happy with that. If you are saying that unless I take British citizenship I have no right to complain and no right to expect politicians in power not to threaten my right to be here, that proves my point. You're refrasing the infamous "citizens ok the world are citizens of nowhere" and addressing me as an "other".

[Corcory]

Sorry what I meant Justchanged was it didn't come at the end which is what I thought you meant. He said overseas doctors in the context of praising them at the beginning of that piece just as Bertrand illustrated.

[mathanxiety]

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-nervous-breakdown-of-british-politics/2016/10/05/6ccbed64-8b39-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html?utm_term=.ff77fd485a4b
The Washington Post made it clearer than I did, Wellthatsit, when it called it 'encrypted xenophobia'.
From the article:
Later, she threw a few bones to xenophobes, hinting she would like to kick out the tens of thousands of foreign-born doctors who keep the vast British health service functioning and updating the old “rootless cosmopolitan” slur for a new audience: “If you believe you are a citizen of the world,” she declared, “you are a citizen of nowhere.”

We need to look at deeds not words
Words are deeds. This distinction that Me2017 posited upthread is meaningless.

You have a choice about the words you use when you are writing your address to the Conservative Party Conference. You choose your words carefully to maximise applause and energise the faithful. The address is always about preaching to the converted, a statement of what the party and the people in it are all about. This party is all about Them and Us. The UKIP wing of the Tory party is now in the ascendant.

www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2026008/little-england-conceit-brexit-full-display
Brexit is built on a fearsome alliance of arrogance, ignorance and nostalgia.
Arrogance because Britain is thumbing its nose at everyone else in the world, and at economic reality, in reckless fashion, ignorance because there is such a thing as economic reality and because the world has changed a lot since 1950, and nostalgia, linked to ignorance and to xenophobia, and feeding the arrogance. Brexit Britain is a prisoner of the imperial past.

The referendum happened in the first place because Cameron thought he could buy off the xenophobic wing of his party with the promise of one. His tactic backfired spectacularly because voters were ready to lap up the UKIP message, which is epitomised by that execrable 'Breaking Point' poster. The prospect of a referendum brought latent UKIPism out of the woodwork. That image resonated.

[jaws5]

widow and element yes, sadly it will never be enough to have a UK passport. I have never before been aware of my accent, I am now very uncomfortable speaking in places outside those I know well, my neighbourhood, my place of work.

[Peregrina]

Hunt extols the virtues of our Cancer research. Does he realise that our plans to leave the EU, and cut ourselves off from our European research partners and funding means that this is no longer going to be possible.

If he lasts 5 years - what will he be saying then?

[GreenandWhite]

"home grown doctors and fewer rota gaps in a safer NHS looking after you and your family for years to come"


Implying that foreign doctors are unsafe and that 'you and your family' matter to the nasty party therefore 'no more foreign doctors'.