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!

Math - your regurgitation of the Washington post article is exactly why I started this thread. It is the very antithesis of a mangled mess of an article that you can get.
This really just shows what people can google these days and read as gospel. Then it gets passed around and people start to agree with you and before you know it it's actually what TM said!

Corcory, you are utterly failing to grasp that the perception of what is said really matters.

You are dismissing people's right to their perceptions because you yourself don't want to see what others see.

Other people are usually well equipped with intellect, reading ability, and all the other faculties necessary to discern what a message from a Prime Minister to her party is all about, and what a message like 'Breaking Point' is all about, and they saw that that horror was not roundly rejected by the British public and rightly concluded that the British voters were not worried about it.

The conclusion that people are either animated by xenophobia or don't care enough about xenophobia to dissociate themselves from it by not voting for the policy exhorted by the xenophobes is completely reasonable.

You otoh want people to judge the statements of politicians whom you support according to the intentions that you discern in them. That is not reasonable, or rational.

• And you discern their good and reasonable intentions, moreover, without reference to their actual words.

Corcory, you said upthread:

'Justchanged - you see, again you have illustrated my point. At no stage in his speech did the health sec. say anything about foreign doctors or mention them at all.'

Now, apparently, you claim,

'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.'

These two statements are not compatible.

But aside from contradicting yourself, when May said 'If you consider yourself a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere', we are supposed to read this in the context of only applying to international elites - and not to normal people with international families, but we are supposed to ignore context of overseas doctors when considering the desire for a home-grown NHS? It seems to me that there is a lack of objectivity and consistency.

Fact is those who voted leave are getting no more say over what Brexit is than those who voted leave. Despite the warnings those who say they voted leave but protest about all the xenophobic overtones now should not be surprised. Farage standing in front of that poster should have been warning. I don't care if I'm being unreasonable in saying if you voted leave I squarely blame you for the current sh!t show. We are due to leave the Single Market, do you have any idea what that will mean for our country and the economy. My specific job will disappear for sure.

The point I am making Maths is that what was written in the Washington Post bears no relation to what TM said. You and anyone else with our intelligence can disseminate such articles and take of it what you will but not everyone does. Too many people take what is written in these articles as gospel and so it goes on.
In the other link you have given a journalist from Hong Kong seems to have us all sussed out!
You may well think this is what TM really meant I do not. Time will tell.

Corcory, your point in other words, is that in your opinion nobody should draw the conclusion that the Washington Post drew (and many people draw the same conclusion) simply because you are choosing to disregard the actual words used.

The article and other people's conclusions are based on what was said. What was said was clearly designed to appeal to the inner Kipper in the Tory audience and to attract actual Kippers into the Tory fold.

What you discern in TM's words is what you are projecting into them.

And to repeat my question, do you believe in the existence of 'international elites' and if so who are these people?

Justchanged - the word 'foreign' as describing doctors was stated as having been used by Hunt in other threads as in - get rid of foreign doctors.
This context is quite different to him talking about overseas doctors in the way that he does when he praises them at the beginning of the paragraph.
You first of all said the said foreign doctors toward the end of he speech. I took this to mean in the context of getting rid of foreign doctors which he didn't say.
There is a marked difference in praising the work of doctors and suggesting we get rid of them.
The passage in TM's speech you mention starts with - too many people in positions of power the piece goes on as we know and talks more about bosses who raid their staff's pensions and others who don't pay their staff properly. If people with international families take it to mean them then so be it but I very much doubt that is what was meant by it.

May's speech writers are very good. They referenced several other prominent speeches that people will be familiar with. They will be aware that the speech will be scrutinised by lots of different groups. These days search a speech won't just be serving one audience. There will be layers of meaning and the writers will know what these are.

What looks perfectly reasonable to one person, will be quite the opposite to another.

And its deliberate. People study this shit.

The fact that certain groups are 'hysterical' over it, means there was a message for them in there. Maybe you didn't get the message. It does not mean its not there. These are not people who perhaps would normally have a reaction of that strength either.

Personally I think May has over egged it, ad she doesn't know how deep those comment about 'citizens of the world' run and how much they mean to people. The hostile reaction to it has motived people who have been forced by the result of the referendum to reassess their identity. Its a wave of anti-nationalism and forging of a shared European identity that people didn't realise was so important to them before.

'Hysterical?' in the context of dog whistles and hate crime and xenophobia which many people have been on the receiving end of, and never experienced in this country before 23rd June? I think you underestimate the impact that the vote has had on people's sense of security. They have been called bargaining chips and the government has refused to confirm they will be allowed to retain their rights here. Even if in law, it is pretty clear cut that they will be fine. The government has gone out of its way to refuse to offer that reassurance.

You might not get it. That doesn't mean that other people are not right to be angry, concerned or upset.

You are being disingenuous in saying that xenophobia and racism has not been whipped up and people have been whipped up over this and that's somehow not right.

I'm disappointed I even have to make this post tbh. This thread is massively dismissive.

All the government has to do is use the language of reassurance which they know how to do. They aren't.

'The actual words used' were not the ones in the Washington Post Justchanged.
The international elite I think are the Richard Branson's, Phillip Green's etc. of this world who run businesses in the UK but are tax exiles or non doms and perhaps don't always look after their UK citizens, people they rely on to run their business and in the case of Philip Green has decimated BHS and the funds of it's pensioners whilst paying himself handsomely.

The sentence about citizens of the world Yoko was in the middle of a piece of her speech about bosses and companies who live off shore and have decimated ordinary worker's pensions or have twisted the tax laws to suit themselves and not paid in this country. She was aiming it at the Philip Greens of this world. Nothing to do with immigrants...

Interesting that Green, a member of a community that used to be called rootless cosmopolitans, is the poster boy for unscrupulous captains of industry, while Dominic Chappell escapes notice.

Red - I did not say that racism and xenophobia hadn't been whipped up. on the contrary.
They have every right to be angry and upset but what I fundamentally disagree with is the idea that it is perfectly alright to completely spin things that are said out of all proportion.
It would appear that it is perfectly alright for any remainer to 'make up' what they think has been said to suit their agenda but low and behold any leaver pop their head above the parapet, because of course you all know exactly what was meant by the £350m on the bus. 'All the masses of lies' we were feed which of course we all swallowed wholesale!
Low be tide any of us to actually have a brain and work out for ourselves what was actually meant because of course the bus said £350m and that's an end of it !!!!

Red - who exactly are you anyway - 'I'm disappointed I even have to make this post tbh' the headmistress!

I don't know who Dominic Chappell is although I have hear the name. I can hardly use him as an example so not so interesting!

Corcory - I think I am getting what you mean by nuance. When you stated ' at no stage in his speech did the health sec. say anything about foreign doctors or mention them at all', I should have interpreted that not as meaning that the health secretary didn't mention overseas doctors, but that he did but only to say how great they were (but shouldn't there be less of them....)

This is a fascinating insight into both how you can interpret almost anything to fit with your world view and also your inability to simply say, oops I got it wrong.

Oh we all interpret things to fit our own views that's for sure. However I would also say that the word 'foreign' seems to have taken on a much more sinister meaning.

I would be interested to know what you consider the 'proportional' response to xenophobia that has been deliberately and cynically whipped up by politicians.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Chappell and his role in BHS.

'Foreign' always implies a distinction between us and them, here and over there, etc.

In the context of the Brexit jingoism, the explicit embrace of 'national sovereignty' and the rejection of outside (EU) influence or power over Britain, 'foreign' assumes the worst possible significance.

Ah that Dominic Chappell! well he is definitely culpable but Philip Green was the experienced retailer who decimated the pension pot of the BHS staff and knowing that sold on the company for £1!

Corcory I really thought quite a lot of your opinions and contributions, so I am upset and disappointed that you've missed such an important part of how people feel. I kind of got the impression that whilst you disagreed with many of us, you at least had a respect for how others were feeling.

This thread just feels hugely dismissive of feelings.

The whole Remain / Leave campaign was about fact versus feelings and when its reversed, all those calls for listening about feelings have been thrown out the window.

A lot of people feel very, very insecure right now. I have an email from a friend sat in my mail box which I don’t know how the hell to reply. It relates to the treatment her grandchild are receiving at school. How can I offer her that reassurance, when there is thing after thing being said by government which further points out their Mum's foreign status and non-Britishness?

Please tell me, what the fuck do I say to her? Do I deny what her grandkids are experiencing? Do I say that, yes the government love them to bits, when Liam Fox is saying their mum is a bargaining chip (do you want me source and quote that). Do I pretend that Rudd didn’t suggest lists for workers without first engaging her brain about what she was saying? It was either deliberate or incompetent. Neither is reassuring.

Things are MASSIVELY sensitive. The government are well aware of it, or at least should be yet drip by drip add bit by bit in a slow trickle they are still coming out with things that are ADDING to that sense of insecurity, not taking away.

And you say, ‘Oh you are being ridiculous’ its hysterical.

Honestly?

People will 'get a grip' when this government manages to find its own and stops sounding like its on a power trip and has no regard for parliament, the law and admits that its 'mandate' is nothing of the sort its claiming.

When you have a Tory MP who voted LEAVE is standing up in the Commons asking for an emergency debate because they are viewing the government as acting in a tyrannical manner then there is something wrong. Or is he hysterical too? Somehow, I'm not sure a QC is really prone to that.

Maybe he is one of these nasty Human Rights Lawyers though.

I don't think your 'average Joe' would have picked up in the reference to a historical slur ('cosmopolitan elite'). That includes me, as I had never heard of it.

A lot of the arguments being used are being made by educated, articulate posters who take a strong interest in politics.

But everyone is prone to make what they hear fit their own biases, left leaning as well as right leaning, intellectuals aswell as lessential educated (for want iF a better phrase).

There is a narrative being created even on this thread, with people comparing notes about how they feel based on a lot of assumptions about things they think might happen (but which haven't yet).

Red toothbrush is correct that the Tories could have easily allayed people's fears with a few words of reassurance. I suspect they haven't done that because they simply don't want to show their hand before the Brexit negotiations.

I do think that some of the more extreme comparisons will do harm rather than good. People do it to make themselves feel better: I am better than this, I can see how dangerous he's people's ideas are even if you can't, you are complacent and just burying your head in the sand but I am not etc etc.

The idea then grows legs and people can't see past it, when there could be a much more measured process going on.

red maybe he's a member of the metropolitan elite, that one that May didn't refer to.
I haven't posted in this thread for a while but I'm following it, amazed at the delusion and denial of Leave voters. I have a similar on going discussion with an old friend who keeps dismissing the insecurity and fear my family is feeling as "over the top" and "dramatic", and when confronted with evidence tells us "it will all calm down and all will be fine". It could be some kind of unconscious defence mechanism as they start realizing what they've unleashed. The whole world is confirming that this is insane, xenophobic, and fanatical, as do all the experts whose opinions have been ridiculed for months, but Leavers keep denying any evidence and rallying around the bunch of psychopaths who are, unbelievably, now running this country. This is an affront to everything I hold dear and value, and everything I adore about he great city I made my home. This is my last post here.

Ghastly opportunist human rights lawyers, like the ones who assisted in the prosecution of British soldiers for driving a pair of teenage looters to a canal, forcing them both into the water at gunpoint and then walking away while one, aged 15, drowned because he couldn't swim.

Cross posted with you Red, and see you too have an anecdote about a friends grandchild which involves racism.
This is where it get difficult. The current mood is bad, and people have been emboldened to sat and do things they wouldn't have done a year ago.

But that doesn't mean the reaction isn't extreme or even at times hysterical.
This sort of reaction does NOTHING to stop these things happening.

It creates an even bigger them and us division and makes people act even more agressively and/or defensively

Psychopaths? Really?