Thanks for raising your concerns.
Racism - or any hate speech - is absolutely not tolerated on Mumsnet. Posts that break our rules in this way are removed when reported, and posters who persist are banned. We rely on reports to help us catch anything that slips through and we’re grateful to those who take the time to get in touch with us. Compared to many other large platforms, Mumsnet takes a much firmer and faster approach to removing hate speech and posts that cross the line are often removed within minutes of being reported.
Immigration is a major political and national issue. Allowing people to talk about these issues openly and within the rules is not the same as endorsing prejudice, and we believe thoughtful, good-faith discussion is far more constructive than driving it underground, which ultimately just leads to more division - and we think there’s more than enough of that at the moment in our society.
We don’t assume that everyone who has concerns about immigration is racist (or indeed white and British), and we don’t believe that creating a separate board for such conversations would help. Much like in political debate, it’s often by allowing people to express opinions - even uncomfortable ones - that those views can be challenged, debated, and sometimes even changed.
No one is obliged to engage with threads they find offensive - scrolling past or hiding is always an option. And if a post does cross the line, please do report it so we can take a look. We have deleted many posts (and banned several users) in recent weeks thanks to your reports.
We’ll continue to do our best to strike the balance between open discussion and keeping the site one of the few civil places online to have these difficult conversations.