Others said the campaign had a darker side and stirred up fear of newcomers. Some backers of the Piddington referendum compared their fight against the asylum accommodation to the 1940 Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany.
Villager Herbert Owen, 76, said after voting on Tuesday that the independence referendum “isn’t just about Piddington,” adding: “It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for. Today is the Battle of Britain.”
Comparing unauthorized immigration to an invasion has become increasingly common among politicians including Nigel Farage of Reform UK, and far-right groups that have been active in organizing and attending anti-immigrant protests.
What a bunch of assholes. From earlier in the article:
Residents of Piddington, which has a population of about 350…
That makes sense. Small town people need to have no say over issues pertaining to classes of people who are “different” from themselves. They’re too insulated and lack exposure to those who aren’t like them to properly recognize that they’re human beings in all the ways that they’d recognize if they knew someone from said class.
Brief story: decades ago, while I was on excellent drugs at a rave, my homophobia (thanks, Mom!) instantly disappeared when I realized the hilarious gay guy, in a group of us smoking cigarettes, was no different from me. “He just wants to take his drugs and have a good time on Saturday night,” I realized. He was no different from me!
Small town people need drugs and a good time with people unlike themselves.
The migrants are coming regardless, the only choice you have is whether to be humane or cruel.
no, the choice you have is to turn them away or admit them.
and i severely doubt you’d wnat them moving into your home. but as long as someone else has to deal with the problem what do you care really? you can sit back and judge them and feel superior about what you hypothetically think you would do.
Turn away to where? Human traffickers will get them onto land if that’s all it takes.
Wow, who would have known it was UK racism that outs the most blatant racists? Have I just dodge all of y’all before?
Being critical of immigration policy isn’t being a racist, but keep telling yourself that.
Because it involves you never having to think or address the issue in any significant way. You just get to stand on your high chair and shout racist at strangers who are protesting policy decisions they don’t like. Because you know better than them, no doubt!
What’s the problem exactly? Having immigrants at all?
Immigration is a complex social and economic problem.
And the problem is people dont’ want to acknowledge complexity because it’s hard. They’d rather vastly over simplify things, and call it bad or good. Without ever going into the policy details and their consequences.
And if you suggest that immigration is complex leftists call you racists, and rightoids think you want to exterminate the white race.
But it’s fine, it’s easier to grandstand on the internet and feel smug than actually discuss or examine the complexities of immigration, especially because it’s someone else’s problem.
But you simplified it to “the problem”. I was asking for specifics of what exactly the problem is.
the problem is how many/who immigration to allow in, and where they have to live, how much assistance/benefits will they get, etc.
then how to integrate them into your society, language learning etc.
and that’s legal immigration. and that already, has backlash, because why are these people getting so many social services that aren’t even available to your own citizens?
illegal immigration is a whole other thing. because by definition, that’s not-selective in either population, location, or anything else.
politically the problem the far left things open borders and infinite resources should exist, and the far right things immigration shoudl be disallowed entirely or only be for the rich, and no social services shoudl be given to immigrant.
Your reasoning is one of the worst thought ones I’ve read.
So your entire assertion above is assuming that everyone else doesn’t have to deal with the problem of immigration, so they can throw peanuts from afar without dealing with that problem?
I’m pretty sure everyone here lives somewhere with immigrants. So that’s a strange thing to accuse everyone else of.
There are special interest funds and help for all kinds of groups, private and public. Citizens have more social services that aren’t available to all immigrants by default. There has never been any data to support this assertion that immigrants receive the benefit of more social funds than citizens.
It’s particularly illegal immigrants. Essentially once someone disregards the immigration system, then their likelihood of disregarding other laws is dramatically increased.
Legal immigrants also hate this happening as well, as they work hard to get a visa and then their reputation gets annihilated by freeloaders and possibly criminals or nuisances escaping repercussions abroad.
Gonna need some citations on the claim that illegal immigrants break the law more than legal immigrants or even natural-born citizens.
Another citation for most illegal immigrants being freeloaders too considering their illegal status makes freeloading much more difficult.
Illegal immigrants are given benefits such as an allowance and accommodation.
https://fullfact.org/immigration/asylum-seeker-support-faqs/#one
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/major-law-change-to-criminalise-small-boat-smuggler-ads
The ONS doesn’t collect statistics on crime and immigration status
So then there’s no basis to paint the entire group as criminals if there is no data to support that claim.
And that benefit says it’s for asylum seekers, not illegal immigrants.
I have anecdotal experience. People who pay human traffickers to illegally bring them from one safe country to another, and then abuse the asylum system should be treated like criminals, yes.
Anecdotal experience is not enough to make a sweeping statement on a whole population.
Damn, you suck
Yeah, I believe in reality. Reality sucks. Therefore I suck.
You’re not being “cruel” by not allowing what you didn’t agree to in the first place. The government is cruel by not getting approval from people who actually live there. The government is cruel by telling the migrants they have a place to go, when they don’t. The government drops them off and goes “cool, good luck” into a community who doesn’t want them, then they act shocked when the migrants are treated like shit.
Funny how the people that are treating the migrants like shit are somehow not the cruel ones even though they’re the cause of the main instigators of friction in every step there.
Paying human traffickers to try and bypass the visa system and lying about fleeing some war in france, also lying about your age, in order to claim benefits for people actually in need, tends to instigate friction.
Not only does this have nothing to do with the comment I replied to, it’s also a wild claim that seems extremely specific and can’t possibly apply across a large group of people to actually be a common problem.
Every channel crosser pays human traffickers to try and game the system. Instead of applying for a visa normally, they take a boat from an already safe country to get here. There have been some good BBC documentaries on it- essentially it’s advertised in places like Iraq “pay xyz (usually around £10k) and we’ll get you to Britain”. Typically the benefits the UK government gives you is part of the advertising material.
I can only speak anecdotally, but in estates where there’s asylum seekers placed, you get large groups of those men walking about, staring at you, and there’s been cases in the news regarding rape, I have a friend who witnessed them carrying knives attempting an attack on another group of men. Such a thing rarely happens with local people in these areas (not sure how proportionally it is with rape and violence, but when you’re in someone else’s country, you should be good as gold anyway. Especially if they’re giving you benefits and seriously considering an asylum claim. However, this data isn’t collected so we can only go off anecdotal evidence rather than lay the issue to rest).
Not all asylum seekers crossed the channel or the Irish border by the way. Plenty of good people already here have situations back home or personal circumstances change. I fully support our system protecting them and helping them, they’re the ones it should exist for. Not for people crossing the channel trying to find an easy way into the UK.
This still has nothing to do with the person above blaming everyone except the abusers for abuse. This isn’t a comment thread about defining who these migrants are, I’m specifically taking issue with saying the problem is with everyone except the people acting immorrally.
There is no free pass to abuse people just because you don’t like how they arrived or what other people in the neighbourhood they have to live in are doing.
People who are criticising immigration aren’t a free pass to abuse them either.
Nice fantasy you have there