This is Priceless

Brasidas wrote:Are you as fed up as I am with what passes for a "debate" over immigration in this country? With the utter falsehoods and lazy generalisations? With the fact-free premises and contorted conclusions?

There are two statements (assumptions?) in particular, repeated incessantly by people on the left and right alike, that make me want to pound my head against a brick wall.

The first is the rather specious claim that critiquing, or even discussing, immigration is some sort of inviolable taboo in modern, multicultural and PC-obsessed Britain. "Just because immigration is deeply controversial," wrote Labour's David Blunkett in - where else? - the Daily Mail on 27 October, "that cannot mean that we should avoid talking about it."

Sorry, but is our former home secretary having a laugh? We talk of little else. Consider the past few weeks: Blunkett's article was prompted by the Tory defence secretary Michael Fallon's claim on 26 October that migrants from the EU were laying "siege" to the UK and "swamping" British towns. (Fallon himself, incidentally, was only echoing Blunkett's own use of the word "swamping", 12 years earlier, to refer to the children of asylum seekers; while Blunkett, lest we forget, was echoing Margaret Thatcher's dog whistle, a full 23 years earlier, about the UK being "swamped by an alien culture".)

The day after Blunkett's column, the Tory business minister Nick Boles said in a magazine interview that "we can't control" immigration from the EU. The following day, Ed Miliband and David Cameron clashed in the House of Commons over - yes, you guessed it - immigration and, specifically, the PM's failure to reduce net migration to "tens of thousands" a year. Then, on 1 November, the Labour MP Ian Austin, a former adviser to Gordon Brown, said his party should "be honest" and "say sorry" for opening the borders to eastern European migrants in 2004.

The second claim that makes me want to tear my hair out relates to racism. Or the supposed lack of racism in this so-called debate. Right-wingers, in fits of faux outrage, denounce the left for crying "racism". Left-wingers, wrote the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, in January, call "everyone who wants a proper debate on immigration 'a racist'". Lefties, meanwhile, bend over backwards to avoid using the R-word. "It is not prejudiced to worry about immigration," Miliband declared, after Ukip's triumph in the European elections in May. "It is understandable."

Maybe. But to pretend racism doesn't play a role in generating hostility towards, and anxiety over, immigration is naive, if not disingenuous. Those who piously claim that opposition to immigration in the UK isn't driven by prejudice, bigotry and hysteria, but rather by "legitimate concerns" over rising migrant numbers and a growing pressure on public services, should try answering the following five questions.

First, why, as Ipsos MORI's managing director for public affairs, Bobby Duffy, has pointed out, has it "long been recognised in studies of attitudes to immigration that the areas with the lowest immigrant numbers are often those that express the greatest concern about immigration"? And, on a related note, why, in the words of Manchester University's Robert Ford, an expert on Ukip, does support for Farage's party tend to be "strongest in areas with relatively low migrant populations", such as Clacton?

perhaps because those in areas with high immigrant populations have given up all hope...what with corrupt councils, compliant councils bending overe backward to "accomodate" and avoid " social conflict" (C.F rotherham) councils threatening and silencing dissent (again e.g. rotherham) it not surprising is it....and of course
this is disingenious anyway....higher immigrant %ages has GOT to mean lower immigration dissent hasnt it???


Second, why, when "net migration is down a quarter from its peak under Labour and... from outside the European Union is down to its lowest level since 1998" - as Cameron boasted at PMQs on 29 October - has concern about immigration continued to skyrocket, to a point where it now tops the list of voters' priorities, ahead of the economy and the NHS?


Perhaps because the "tolerance level" has been breached and more people are feeling jittery about it, not to mention that people now no longer beleive "figures" from ANY govt and will thus automatically assume things are worse...the politicians own fault for blatantly lying in the past...they have sown the wind........


Third, why do people think that far more immigrants live in the UK than actually do? (According to Ipsos MORI, Britons believe immigrants make up 24% of the population. The real figure is 13%)

because they make disproportionately more visible trouble of a more concerning nature than "natives" ?

Fourth, why was 70% of the public telling Gallup as long ago as 1978 that Britain was "being swamped" by people with different cultures, even though net migration at the time was negative - more people were leaving the UK than were arriving - and had been so for more than a decade?

because those leaving were white ??? and those comming in were not??? thus the perception was still of incomming +ve migration?????


Fifth, perhaps crucially and chillingly, why do a quarter (26%) of Britons - and, tellingly, a majority (51%) of Ukip supporters - think the government "should encourage immigrants and their families to leave Britain (including family members who were born in Britain)", according to a YouGov poll in April? Isn't the (voluntary) repatriation of immigrants, including the British-born children of immigrants, a hallmark of good ol' fashioned far-right, racist politics? A policy advocated only by the BNP?

anther failure of the politicians....folks are fed up..simples.....and wrong though it is this is seen as an "easy answer"


Yet politicians and pundits continue to hold their tongues. Take Ukip, a political party whose leader publicly worries about Romanians moving in next door and brags about taking "a third" of the BNP's voters; which allies with a far-right Hitler admirer from Poland in the European Parliament. But don't call them racist. The truth is, as the former Tory MP Matthew Parris has admitted, that "it need not be racist to talk about immigration but many who do are". Or as another former Tory MP, the late Eric Forth, once put it, much more bluntly: "There are millions of people in this country who are white, Anglo-Saxon and bigoted and they need to be represented."

Perhaps. I just wish our two main parties weren't competing with one another to do so. It's time to stand up to the bigots, not excuse, indulge or woo them.


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/immigration-racism_b_6132138.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

Brasidas wrote:Tolerance level?
What level, again a view where others think of themselves and from areas where there is mainly low immigration.
This article was spot on the money.
You have no reason to become intolerant, that is your own making Victors not anyone else s, you decide to lose tolerance as nobody makes you.

Brasidas wrote:Yes I know you are talking that Victor, only you can feel intolerant towards others, which is your choosing. Nobody makes someone intolerant, they become intolerant themselves of others through their own views.

victorisnotamused wrote:

Brasidas wrote:Yes I know you are talking that Victor, only you can feel intolerant towards others, which is your choosing. Nobody makes someone intolerant, they become intolerant themselves of others through their own views.

very poor psychology

agreed people only become intolerant because of their views.....but views dont change at random (well not usually....you never met my ex..... ) something (which usually requires someone elses action) has to happen to change those views

one then has to look at what has changed and why.....so yes ...some one CAN make someone else intolerant.....

Brasidas wrote:

victorisnotamused wrote:

very poor psychology

agreed people only become intolerant because of their views.....but views dont change at random (well not usually....you never met my ex..... ) something (which usually requires someone elses action) has to happen to change those views

one then has to look at what has changed and why.....so yes ...some one CAN make someone else intolerant.....

It is bang on psychology, did the intolerance of the Jews start with the rise of the Nazis?
No
Did the intolerance of Muslims start with extremism in the late 20th century?
No
Did the intolerance of black people start in the 1950's with immigration to the UK?
No


They were all formed far earlier.

victorisnotamused wrote:

Brasidas wrote:


It is bang on psychology, did the intolerance of the Jews start with the rise of the Nazis?
No
Did the intolerance of Muslims start with extremism in the late 20th century?
No
Did the intolerance of black people start in the 1950's with immigration to the UK?
No


They were all formed far earlier.

and??

Brasidas wrote:Everything has cause and affect, but are the grounds for the after affects justified Victor,?

the answer to that I suspect, depends on whether you are inside or outside the argument,,,,the outsider looking in may well hold his hands up in horror and scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO but those involved will likey have 10,000 reasons to go ahead and do something hmmmm...uncivilised....

As all that happens, is if the intolerance is allowed to grow unchecked, we see the worst persecution, and the best example of this is ISIS.

agreed 100% but the answer to intolerance isnt yet more intolerance of the intolerant if you take my meaning, Nor is mere education (ie "diversity boot camps") the answer.
wat is needed is a dose of much needed honesty from the politicians and recognition from the left in particular that people DO have concerns and that screaming "racist" at every turn aint gonna cut the wood.

a good case... halal... now how long has that been an issue??? (dont get me wrong...they can feckin strangle it for all I care in reality as long as they do it quick...dead is dead after all, MY issue is the labelling one)

NOW ...It could have been avoided really easily many many years ago...either by a blunt refusal to allow it (since a Muslim can eat non halal if halal isnt available) but that seems a bit "off" to me OR there could have been imposed a labeling requirement, to allow people to make their own decision (which would have been entirely reasonable) Either would have killed the deabte stone dead in the water...

As you say the system is at fault and the lefts intolerant view of both intolerance AND dissent is little better than the rights intolerance on what is mostly very feeble grounds....




ISIS grew out of more the persecutions of Sunnis, being fed the hate filled doctrine of wahhabism, which led to further intolerance of which this doctrine teaches. All you need is disaffected people, torn by conflict in their country for years to be susceptible to an argument of hate and to point the finger of blame at others.
This more than anything is a prime example of how intolerance grows and spreads if again allowed to go unchecked

Again agreed and here's the rub...I dont think you need to be torn by years of conflict...all you need is sufficient disaffection...and to my mind what the left is doing and its attitude to those who even so much as dare question them is creating the greatest part of the disaffection in this country....which of course the right then feeds off and amplifies....
I dont say I have an answer....I have a horrible feeling that something is going to "give" sooner or later....one bomb too many...in the wrong place....... is all it will take to unleash something terrible..it may not be immediate or instantly spectacular...but for instance could easily pave the way for an extreme R/W govt
or of course you could end up with Enochs nightmare.

Brasidas wrote:The point is I think there has been much debate on people having issues, but to me what issues do they have? You make some very interesting points Victor but to me and there is no doubt here half of those who hold views on immigration are based on concerns based around the infrastructure of the country, whilst the other half is based around nothing more than xenophobic ideals.

You thus have a problem, where the two become seen as one, which is where one of the problems is of seperating the two, where genuine discusing is had, which will be difficult as seen. As I have said before it wil be those who hold racist or xenophobic beliefs that will always stiffle actual debate on the topic.

As to the view on this country will give at some point is to me far from happenning. Even with the IRA which did see reprisals, of which we also see with Muslims, it has not reached a point of no return where people are being murdered, with some exceptions. I think if this was say Greece or some other European nations, then maybe yes, but there is some reserve with people in this country, even though we have had riots, they tend to be off the back of outrage at authorities, eg the police as a body, not people as a group.

I think this mainly happens, because there is more Unilateral at a body commiting wrong that the notion of a group of people doing wrong. Yes this is odd, because the same should apply that not all the Police are like this but because of instituional racism, this has allowed for people to form distrust and anger, which the same is rising with Muslims, though not at the same level. So I think it will take far more for such intolerance to grow in this country and hope it never does. I think though why it rises is because people do not see enough Muslims being vocal, of course some are but to some people their silence is concerning, where they need to dispell these fears. It does not help we see young Muslims being drawn to ISIS, as this plays heavily on all that why would young people brought up with moral values, turn their back on all this and embrace barbarity. Time will tell on this and[color=#ff0000] I hope you do not mind that I hope your views are not right in this instance.