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They've just won two seats in the European Parliament, with 120,000 in Yorkshire voting BNP.

So two questions - first of all, why would anybody ever support the BNP? And secondly, how is such an incredibly racist party allowed to exist? Surely what they do is illegal?

Nick Griffin comes out with shit like "the most tragic victims of a multi-racial society are the mixed race children it produces". I thought promoting racial hatred was illegal, no?

Not to sound like an ignorant yank...  But what is the BNP?

-Bill

The Big Nose Pony?  :=

Anway, googling gave me this (http://bnp.org.uk/).

Right wing extremists has advanced throughout Europe, along with Christian parties and, thankfully, Green parties (although to a lesser degree).

It's very sad to see nationalist parties gain popularity, when the majority of their members are pure racists and often sentenced for hate-related crimes.

Can't start banning political parties. Otherwise we're no better than they are. As much as you or I might dislike him, Nick Griiffin isn't fostering racial hatred; he's exercising his right to free speech.

Interesting fact is that the BNP didn't actually get more support than in 2004. The reason they won two seats this time was entirely due to the appaling turnout, (less than 35%). Another 1200 people voting for UKIP or 5000 for the Green Party in the North West region could have prevented them from winning that seat.

And that's why you can't throw hissyfits when the government doesn't do what you want, there are awful people out there who'll take advantage while you're busy sulking in the corner.

This is true; voter apathy is to blame. I still find it incredible that 120,000 people in Yorkshire voted BNP. I hope all of you who could, did vote...

Also I recognise that people have the right to free speech, however I thought it WAS illegal to promote racial hatred in the UK and as far as I can see, there has been plenty of evidence of them doing just that. It's crossing the line between free speech and hate-mongering.

Quote
We bang on about Islam. Why? ...If we were to attack some other ethnic group â€" some people say we should attack the Jews … But … we've got to get to power. And if that was an issue we chose to bang on about when the press don't talk about it … the public would just think...'oh, you're attacking Jews just because you want to attack Jews. You're attacking this group of powerful Zionists just because you want to take poor Manny Cohen the tailor and shove him in a gas chamber.' That's what the public would think. It wouldn't get us anywhere other than stepping backwards...And we wouldn't get power.

QuoteSuggested policies to help police this "threat to all of us" include a Muslim no-fly policy, which would ban Muslims from flying in and out of the UK.

QuoteFounder John Tyndall proclaimed that "Mein Kampf is my bible".

I don't think they're promoting it so much as articulating it; I'm certainly not won over. You can't solve the worlds problems by telling people to shut up.

Here's another choice quote from an ex BNP minister, though:

QuoteRape is simply sex (I am talking about ‘husband-rape’ here, for those who deliberately seek to misunderstand me). Women enjoy sex, so this type of ‘rape’ cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal. To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched.

Nothing to do with their policies, just more evidence that it's an institution exclusively run and supported by dickheads. Odd coincidence, that.

Holy shit.

Nationalism is all the rage again these days. We ourselfs got our "white knight" Geert Wilders from the dutch party PVV (translates to Party For Freedom). And according to the latest voting outcome, people actually listen to this platina blonde loudmouth. Go figure

I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is any different from black people voting for Obama.
And parties like the BNP and UKIP are atleast upfront about their policies and intentions, and people have the freedom to vote for whoever they choose - which goes for people of all races and religions and that's the way it should be.
Personally I didn't vote, because I feel there isn't a single political party that puts the public before their own interests (be they political or financial...).
And I really do agree with what Reggie D Hunter said on Have I Got News For You the other week; Discrimination is just bad, whether it's against racists or black people, it's still discrimination.

But as usual, as I have disagreed with you you're going to completely ignore what I just said and continue to think what you want anyway. You should change your name to Sheepster.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Mon 08/06/2009 13:45:19
I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is any different from black people voting for Obama.

We-ll I don't think Obama ever expressly said "Death to the Whities", "America for African Americans", or anything like that.

I'm not happy about the BNP getting seats but... people did vote for them so.. clearly someone wants them. Not allowed to stop them being a party because I disagree with their politics. Good old democracy.

I have to admit that personally, I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is in any way similar to black people voting for Obama?

Quote from: BOYD1981I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is any different from black people voting for Obama.

Of course there's a difference! It's such a ridiculous position to take that I'm not sure it's even worth refuting! Surely you must be trolling with statements such as this!?

UKIP is entirely different from the BNP, it's a legitimate party and it's unfair to lump it in with them. I just think voting for them is a bit of a waste because the only reason they stand for these things is to take up a seat so nobody else can use it, (they'd rather we weren't part of the EU at all). But still, voting UKIP would have been better than not voting at all.

@Meowster: According to Wikipedia, Nick Griffin has twice been prosecuted for incitement to racial hatred but found guilty only once, in 1998, for publicising material that denied the holocaust.

Well if you want to see it as trolling that's entirely up to you, but it's not.
And it would probably be absolutely futile to try explain the reasoning behind what I said, so I'll just say this: both are part of the problem, not the solution.

Back when I still lived in london, there were Indians who were voting BNP, too.  Mostly as they were sick of my Borough's efforts to take in as many Kosovan Refugees as possible.

I'm all for immigration, if the people are willing to work, but those Kosovan's were forming gangs, who'd then spend their time drinking, claiming benefits and mugging old ladies.  My town voted in a BNP guy, I think.

I guess some people are willing to ignore the racism issues, if they think they'll get a better life out of it.  The Indian's are also some of the most racist people I know, due to them arguing over religions from the same country.  They've had racism against them in that town for years, and the BNP's racism is like a Diet version to what they're used to.

And no, I didn't vote.  It's not so much apathy, as the fact that all the parties are bad.  I also refuse to acknowledge Gordon Brown as the Prime Minister, as people voted for Tony Blair, not him.  I understand that it's a vote for the party, but if it was solely to do with party and not person, then pretty much every vote in history should be recounted.

Also, Mein Kampf isn't just about hating Jews.  Take out the racism side of the Nazis, and they actually had good policies, rebuilding Germany, giving people jobs, making life better.  If people want to read that from Mein Kampf, then I've no problem with it.

UKIP and BNP may be different, but Robert Kilroy Silk was UKIP, and was in a racism scandal.  So it's fair to say they both have racist problems.

Obama was voted for by African Americans because of his skin color.  Sure, he's probably the best thing that's happened to the country in years, he's an intelligent man, a great orator, and he's compassionate.  But that doesn't mean that people didn't vote for him just because he was black.  Black people can be racist, too.  Racism doesn't just cover the negatives, it also cover people who are pro-race.

Some of the blacks voted for a black guy, just on this occassion they came out in droves.  Whites will inevitably do the same, they vote based on who the person is, and whether they feel a connection.  People voted Labour/Tony Blair, as he made himself out to be a likeable, average guy, and not some posh, rich suit with no personality.

Everyone is to some extent a racist, I include myself in this.  I don't like it about myself, but it's not something I can change.  It's to do with how I was raised, and events in my life.  I personally abhor racism, being on the receiving end of six people attacking me, for having Indian friends.  I took a beating, so they could get away.  That doesn't mean that I don't have Issues with Islam, the French or Kosovans.  And it's naive to think that anyone's not partly racist.

Also, Patriotism is a form of racism.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Mon 08/06/2009 13:45:19
I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is any different from black people voting for Obama.
And parties like the BNP and UKIP are atleast upfront about their policies and intentions, and people have the freedom to vote for whoever they choose - which goes for people of all races and religions and that's the way it should be.
Personally I didn't vote, because I feel there isn't a single political party that puts the public before their own interests (be they political or financial...).
And I really do agree with what Reggie D Hunter said on Have I Got News For You the other week; Discrimination is just bad, whether it's against racists or black people, it's still discrimination.

But as usual, as I have disagreed with you you're going to completely ignore what I just said and continue to think what you want anyway. You should change your name to Sheepster.

Yuster always gets very passionate about things she believes in. Things that piss her off. You should know this by now? How does this make her a sheep? Just because your opinion on the subject matter differs Boyd, does not make you right. It doesn't make Yufster right either. My opinion of the BNP is that they are a racist bunch of inbred fools and no facts you may present me will change that opinion.

The reason it happened is people living in the English countryside are very intolerant of people not like them. Also, if you don't like what is happening in English politics, you are in your right to set up a political party. You may not get voted in, but it's a right.

It's not the fact she gets passionate about things and then starts threads here, it's the fact she totally ignores anybody that disagrees, which doesn't make for a very interesting discussion, and seems to have tendancy to (although it is by no means restricted to just her) go with what she's told rather than really examining all the information available and making her own mind up about it. The world is full of sheep all just following the rest of the herd.

And can you actually back up your claim that people living in the English countryside are intolerant of people "not like them"? Do you have any data that suggests that the majority of the BNP votes were from people who lived in the countryside?
To paraphrase: Just because your opinion on the subject matter differs, does not make you right.

And also, I completely agree with what Spleen said. There seems to be an almost universal belief that white people are the only ones capable of being racists. And I also believe that racial waryness and tension is a natural human reaction to something which is different/unfamiliar which too many people try pretending doesn't exist which is also part of the problem. I remember a few years back I was in a town with a large black population, much larger than my town, and I felt intimidated. And although absolutely nothing happened, intimidation is something pretty much every creature on earth is programmed to respond to with either aggression or fear.
And to be honest, I don't think that there is much hope for a multi-racial society while people of the same race can't even get on with eachother - and this goes for whites, asians, blacks, eastern europeans etc

The government and the most of the UK won't give a monkey's arse about the BNP, as long as they don't do anything. We are British, it's our native tradition the complain and whine but do nothing whatsoever.

Boyd, I'm a little confused by your posts... What's your interpretation of the Obama situation? That he has some kind of secret anti-white agenda that's going to come into play? It sounds unlikely that that's a thing someone would think so could you clarify?

I think it's pretty dangerous to be all wolly about the BNP by saying "it's not racial hatred, it's just free speech even though it's pretty appaling free speech", it sort of gives them a certain degree of validation that they shouldn't be getting. No matter how they try and spin it they represent everything that is rephrensible about British (or any) culture, and even the tiniest hint that they're gaining momentum should worry every single clear minded person currently living in the UK.

QuoteBack when I still lived in london, there were Indians who were voting BNP, too.  Mostly as they were sick of my Borough's efforts to take in as many Kosovan Refugees as possible.

This is both hilarious and kind of sad, because these are the kind of people that would vote the BNP in to power and then, as made evident by Nick Griffin's comments this very morning, find themselves being shut out by the very party they wanted in government because of their ethnicity and skin colour.

It's sad, yes. But I can completely understand their mentality. They, for the most part, liked their town, and the Labour councillors were doing a bang up job of ruining things.  Youth clubs, social buildings, other things for the people were all closed down, and had the refugees sleeping in them.  They 'tried' to make it seem better than it was, paying a few of the immigrants to actually spray paint the floor gold.  They got bored, and only did random slabs here and there, and probably clobbered some old biddies with the paint cans.

They also had a big campaign about how they were putting 300+ more bins in the area.  They failed to empty the bins we had, and the new bins were overflowing within days.  There was rubbish everywhere.

The police? The whole area had 1 police car at night, and it's a rough area.  Gangs, stabbings, drug-crimes, the works.

The council's answer? Take in more immigrants, as they were getting money for each one they 'housed'.  When a proper, non-racist party screws things up, where else would people turn to?  They might be shut out by the party they elect, but at least they don't have to watch the town they love go even further down the crapper.

(For the record, I've moved away from there a couple of years ago.  I wouldn't even want to go back to visit, as it's horrible.  Walking to work was a risk of stabbing everyday).

"White" people didn't vote for the BNP - racists did.

Making distinctions along racial lines is racism. There are no "Whites", "Blacks", "Indians" etc. That's the chief problem of the BNP.

- Huw

Quote from: Eggie on Mon 08/06/2009 18:17:58
Boyd, I'm a little confused by your posts... What's your interpretation of the Obama situation? That he has some kind of secret anti-white agenda that's going to come into play? It sounds unlikely that that's a thing someone would think so could you clarify?

I have no interpretation of the situation, but I do think it would be possible for certain sub-educated black and white people to allow themselves to think that because of the colour of his skin he will put black interests first (plus there was that speech he made). The stupid thing about that though ofcourse is that he is both black AND white, but people don't seem to take that into consideration.

I still prefer Bush though; politics just isn't as funny without his constant gaffs and gurning.

Quote from: Renal Shutdown on Mon 08/06/2009 18:54:35
It's sad, yes. But I can completely understand their mentality. They, for the most part, liked their town, and the Labour councillors were doing a bang up job of ruining things.

Exactly -- most people who vote BNP probably don't believe in their racist policies, but rather see the BNP as the only party that is willing to challenge the status quo on immigration (for example). In the sort of situation like you describe, it's easy to see why people would become disillusioned with the mainstream parties who weren't doing anything about their local issues, and vote for a radical party that promised to do something radical to sort it out.

What the mainstream parties need to do is stop blaming people for voting BNP, and start paying attention to what it is that people want that the government is not delivering, and therefore driving people to vote BNP out of desparation.

Exactly the same thing has been happening here over the weekend.

You have the ruling party(s) taking a kicking because voters are fed up with what they perceive to be a lack of leadership or a lack of ability to govern. Just as the Conservatives have slaughtered Labour in the UK, Ireland's ruling parties, Fianna Fail and the Green Party, have lost a large chunk of seats to the main opposition parties of Fine Gael and Labour. The Green Party (or rather our Green Party) showed themselves to be nothing more than a group of ineffectual "yes men" when they went into partnership with FF, and have been hemorrhaging seats like a paper-skinned hemophiliac in a knife fight.

And in these situations, you usually get seats trickling down to what would normally be thought of as the wild card parties.

I would never entertain the thought of voting for something as horrendously vile as the BNP, though.

But that's just me.

Whoa, a little unprovoked aggression/trolling from Boyd? Dude there was hardly a need for any of that. Closet BNP supporter? ;)

Anyways, the issue with the BNP isn't just racism either - there's a whole lot wrong with that party besides simply racism.

Pumaman, I'm not so sure that most people vote for the BNP out of desperation. I met a couple of old English people in Spain once, they'd retired together out there, had plenty of money, but had grown up with the idea that immigrants are all troublemakers, blacks are all thieves, England isn't what it used to be, yadda yadda yadda... and I remember having to sit in silence biting my lip hard while they talked about the BNP having the right idea trying to get rid of the blacks and immigrants. They also read the Daily Mail like it was the best news source on the planet ;) I do truly believe that there are people out there who still think in this way and believe that the BNP are great.

A friend of mine dated a girl for four years and she hid it from her parents because they would never accept a white non-muslim man into their family; another friend had a similar story but was not accepted by her family because he was black. And all this in the UK which we all think is pretty forward-thinking until we meet people like this and realise perhaps it's not all quite so...

I think the people you are speaking of who vote "out of desperation" are probably also mislead by BNP campaigns into believing that immigrants are responsible for all the UKs problems, etc etc. I got a BNP leaflet through my door a few weeks back that essentially said this. So yeah, I guess I can see why people with only half a brain would believe this  unquestionably. Still though, it's epicly disappointing for me... I think the final figures were 900,000ish votes for BNP throughout the whole of the UK. That's an awful lot of fuckwits.

EDIT: Actually I just thought I'd throw in - I've been doing a lot of work with a certain group of disadvantaged people recently. Most of them are homeless or in shabby council housing, have drug habits and alcohol problems etc. Most came from lower class but reasonable backgrounds, with an education and married parents, stable enough home environment etc. However they've fallen into the position they are in life because of various problems such as drugs, too unintelligent to look after themselves, crime, etc. In many of the cases you could argue that the reason they're where they are is primarily their own fault (this is particular to the group I work with).

Most of them are white men or women from the local area, born and bred in Brighton which is an incredibly open-minded and laid-back place where you can be gay, straight, or transgender, black white or anything inbetween... whoever you want, and nobody will care.

However, they're mostly all very racist and narrow minded people. They often blame others for their problems - they blame the fact they can't find a job on immigrants. They heard this somewhere, I guess, and then repeat it back to other people to excuse the fact they're too lazy/stupid/on drugs to find anything themselves, until the point where they really start to believe it I think. They blame black people on the fact they can't get council housing - and not the fact that they got kicked out of every council house they were in for smashing down doors/windows. And if you ask them why they can't articulate why very well... "because they come in and take our jobs innit, them blacks what are working in McDonalds and that like" etc etc. Blame blame blame blame, and they all have little toddlers that come in with them, learning what they see/hear. :(

As a British voter, I just have to say, it's *embarassing* that so much of the Right got voted in this time. It's this kind of thing that gives me qualms about proportional representation in elections.

I don't see what all the fuss is about.  They seem like good guys to me.  Now excuse me while I go home and rape my wife.

(Where's the emoticon for "holy fracking barf?")

Quote from: Meowster on Mon 08/06/2009 20:49:56
They blame black people on the fact they can't get council housing - and not the fact that they got kicked out of every council house they were in for smashing down doors/windows.

I appreciated the fact you started this thread Meowster. We heard different opinions from different people (personally I found Renal Shutdown's posts very interesting).

Still, sentences like the one above feel a bit rushed to me (they is a peferct word to depict a grotesque caricature and not a person).

Anyway, let's talk about serious business

Quote from: Layabout on Mon 08/06/2009 16:39:57
Yuster always gets very passionate about things she believes in.

I think yufster is a dude.

                          -bicilotti (bringing european politics to meaningful questions, like, errr, "asl?")

Well I won't apologise for any offense I may have caused because it's unintended and therefore not my fault if you're offended by it. And I already said it isn't trolling, it's just you have a tendancy to start threads like this and contribute very little towards them, so if anything I'm guilty of getting you to respond with a longer post that you've obviously spent some time thinking about.
Which, believe or not, was my goal.
So go me!

But I'm getting offtopic, which I don't want to do.

Honestly Boyd... wtf? I hate to rise to trolling, but I would like you to take another look at the post I made. I alluded to you only briefly to point out that there was no need for your anger, the rest of the reply was because of the other intelligent discussion on the thread and primarily in reply to Pumaman and Renal and absolutely nothing to do with your trollish replies. I don't want you to be under any delusion that your trollish replies caused me to somehow magically post something worthwhile, as that was your apparent alterior motive for being a bit of a dick. Also I wasn't offended particularly, but this sentence still doesn't make sense:

QuoteI won't apologise for any offense I may have caused because it's unintended and therefore not my fault if you're offended by it.

It's the fault of the person who was offended so long as the offence was unintentional? Do I even need to explain why this is a ridiculous statement?


bicilotti - that was pretty much a direct story from a guy I spoke to last week, hence I used it as an example as it was at the forefront of my memory. Honestly, wasn't a rushed sentence. I hear many many variations of the same excuse, it can be incredibly depressing. Notice though that I pointed out that this is behaviour particular to the group of people I work with, who are people who have befallen a very particular set of circumstances. I didn't want anyone to think I was talking about all poor/lower class/disadvantaged/etc people.  :)

Slightly off-topic now... Where I'm currently working, almost every day there will be at least two or three people late for their appointments here and when they are refused entry, will fly into (sometimes violent) rages. "It wasn't my fault I was late, I got arrested for shoplifted, it was the fucking coppers fault I was late" is usually the excuse used. I wonder whether it's the tendancy to blame others for all of lifes problems that puts these people where they are in life, or the fact that they are where they are that puts them in this position where they feel they have to blame others? Whatever it is, I've noticed that it is commonly linked with racism and this belief that it's the fault of immigrants that they are where they are.

Also after writing all of this I've just realised... My summer job sucks :(

So yeah I think it's sad that the mainstream parties are so rubbish with so little backbone that people feel disallusioned by them and vote BNP. But also I think that it's more than that - there is a small but unpleasant undercurrent of ignorance, racism, misogynism, religious hatred etc in the UK, and it's just really sad to see an actual figure like this I guess.

Quote from: Adamski on Mon 08/06/2009 18:37:08
I think it's pretty dangerous to be all wolly about the BNP by saying "it's not racial hatred, it's just free speech even though it's pretty appaling free speech", it sort of gives them a certain degree of validation that they shouldn't be getting. No matter how they try and spin it they represent everything that is rephrensible about British (or any) culture, and even the tiniest hint that they're gaining momentum should worry every single clear minded person currently living in the UK.

Ahhh also, I agree with this. I am kinda torn as although I would love them to be outlawed as a party, some people point out it's not right to simply "shut up" people who have views I don't like - fair enough. But you've worded it well there.

However, apparently they're not gaining momentum particularly - I read somewhere that they got less votes than in 2004, but the low voter turnout caused them to get seats this time. Not sure how true that is but if it's true, it makes me a bit happier... at least idiot non-voters are to blame, instead of there being some sudden explosion of fuckwits in the UK.

Quote from: Meowster on Mon 08/06/2009 20:49:56
I met a couple of old English people in Spain once, they'd retired together out there, had plenty of money, but had grown up with the idea that immigrants are all troublemakers, blacks are all thieves, England isn't what it used to be, yadda yadda yadda...

Haha, they're sick of the immigrants in England so they migrate to Spain. That's the spirit.

But I agree to those saying that nationalist parties are gaining popularity whenever the people are fed up with the mayor parties or when there are hard times coming and some dumbass politicians who weren't elected before promise heaven on earth.. or at least another, better way to solve the problems.

Of course there ARE people who stand behind those parties. Both in Italy and here in Germany, the post fascist parties are getting votes and Nazis are walkin around... fortunately not too many.

[EDIT:]

I'm no friend of banning those parties too. Well, I don't care if the NPD (the Nationalist Party) in Germany would get prohibited (two attempts failed til now), but the problem would persist. You can't get weird thoughts and ideologies out of peoples minds by forbidding things. Instead I guess that would make it worse..

There are hundreds of reasons for anybody in here to hate the BNP. Such as the founder saying that Mein Kampf was his bible. Such as the BNP having a list of "Trade union people to deal with" once they get elected. Such as the former leader who explained that it isn't rape if its with your wife and women enjoy sex anyway so...

The sad fact is that anti-BNP fights always end up punching jelly, because the people who believe in life along racial borders will always be there. The campaigns are almost always that the BNP are "bad" but not why.

- Huw

Another good reason not to try and silence organisations like the BNP: Don't give them the opportunity to play the 'victim' card.
The sight of them playing the victim card would be supremely vomit-inducing. Actual vomit would be induced.

Heh, I got one of those card thingies through the door from the British Nazi Party, with a little form attached. I wondered what would happen if I put Muslim O'Gunbomb down as my name?

What people are scared of is the fact that, in short, they're cunts, and its not like something like this has never been voted into a country before. Look at Germany in the 1930s-1940s.

Personally I didn't vote this year, just like I havent voted for the 4 years I have been able to. Lets face it, there are only 3 parties powerful enough to actually get into number 10 (Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem). The other parties just seem to be lacking something to allow them to compete with these guys.

Personally I think Monster Raving Loony Party are probably the most qualified to do the job at the moment. I mean, who DOESN'T want a 99p coin? ;)

Immigration is a cause for concern, however I don't think the situation can be resolved by purging people from the country. We should just refuse to let anyone else in until some of them have left.

Unfortunately I think the only way the problem is going to be solved is when immigrants take all the jobs that pikey chavs should be getting off their arses to do instead of scrounging off the dole, bleed the country dry, and the bugger off to another country to repeat the process.

Forgive me if that sounds racist. To be honest my argument would be to deport all the scroungers (not unemployed people, scroungers - there is a difference) and replaced them with the hard working immigrants. If they are willing to work thats fine with me, but we gotta throw someone out.

Quote from: Technocrat on Mon 08/06/2009 21:19:15
As a British voter, I just have to say, it's *embarassing* that so much of the Right got voted in this time. It's this kind of thing that gives me qualms about proportional representation in elections.

As a British voter, I'm embarassed about the voter turn-out more than anything else. That more people would rather vote for who should win Britain's Got Talent than who should represent them in the European Parliament is a terrible state of affairs.

35% turnout is just so unbelievably shameful. Part of that blame lies with the major parties for not being appealing enough and with the minor parties for not being vocal enough about what they stand for and who they represent. Part of the blame also lies with the proliferation of exactly this mindset:

Quote from: Stee on Tue 09/06/2009 02:29:45
Lets face it, there are only 3 parties powerful enough to actually get into number 10 (Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem). The other parties just seem to be lacking something to allow them to compete with these guys.

What they're lacking is votes, and the reason they're not getting votes is down to the belief that voting for smaller parties is "throwing your vote away". Well, the people who voted for the BNP didn't throw their votes away - there are now two MEPs from that party. The people who voted for UKIP didn't throw their votes away either.

Quote from: Eggie on Tue 09/06/2009 02:01:29
Another good reason not to try and silence organisations like the BNP: Don't give them the opportunity to play the 'victim' card.

Well said.

But what happens when the immigrants are scroungers, too?

And I'd say Lib Dem's a pretty long shot, and in recent times, they're doing a fine job of making themselves less votable.

Quote
I think the final figures were 900,000ish votes for BNP throughout the whole of the UK. That's an awful lot of f*ckwits.

It's 900k that are willing to try and make a change*, though (albeit it a bad one).  Most people affliate themselves with a party, and vote regardless.  If they're Labour they only vote Labour.  They'd rather not vote than vote Tory.  Sometimes they switch from one party to another, but generally, they don't.

I should really vote to abstain (as far as I know, this is possible), as if I don't vote, I've no legal standing to complain about who's in power.  Personally, I dislike the system itself so I choose to avoid it entirely.  If I could afford to emigrate to a better country, I would.  That stems from various reasons, not just lack of trust in the government.

How many people voted Labour, by the way? As they've pretty much ballsed things up over the last two terms.  The country's suffering economically, we were roped into a war we shouldn't have been part of, the NHS still seems incompetent, education doesn't seem all that great, and crime seems worse than ever.  But still, people vote for Labour.  Personally, I'd class a Labour vote as a f*ckwit vote, too.

There's a good thing that'll hopefully come from the BNP getting votes.  With any luck the serious parties will take note of the turn out, realise they're losing voters, and subsequently get their collective sh*t together and start doing stuff to please the people.

*Obama was voted in due to many people wanting to make a change, heck that was his main campaign ideal.  Despite being an unlikely candidate to begin with,  he made people believe their votes counted for something.

As for your work with the disadvantaged folk, Yuffie, it's not surprising they're racist.  They're going to want to blame someone other than themselves.  It's human nature to shift blame, and it's rare that someone's willing to throw their hands up and admit 'I f*cked up'.  People usually have to hit rock bottom before they realise, and quite often they do something stupid before getting that low.

Racism's an easy thing to blame their difficulties on.  It's a pretty generic target, and it's not something personal to them.  But at the same time, it's not just the disadvantaged, it's everyone.  They're brought up with racist comments at home and from their peers, and they're slowly indoctrinated into believing it.

My parents did the same with me, as did some of the people in my school.  But, part of me rebelled against them, and part of me saw thru the bullsh*t.  I can't really believe the racist comments, when my white friends were in the minority.  Maybe you had an easy-going upbringing, or maybe you saw thru the comments, too.  You can't expect most people to do it, though.  People don't change views very often, so if they're brought up racist, they'll stay that way until they have a revelation.  They'll rarely change on their own accord.

Most people just aren't that intelligent.

Meowster, I think you not wanting them into the parliament(that's what I get) is racism too. You're being a racist against racists. We're supposed to have democracy (supposed to), so it's good to hear all thoughts. Even the bad ones. Even the racist ones.

What do you have against Banque Nationale de Paris???

Quote from: Dualnames on Tue 09/06/2009 11:16:12
Meowster, I think you not wanting them into the parliament(that's what I get) is racism too. You're being a racist against racists. We're supposed to have democracy (supposed to), so it's good to hear all thoughts. Even the bad ones. Even the racist ones.

Well, it would be discrimination rather than racism, because the BNP don't belong to any particular race (putting aside the fact that you have to be white to be a member).

Yes, it is fine to give a platform to racist viewpoints provided they are heard in the context of balanced debate, which they (hopefully) will be in the European Parliament.

Quote from: Nacho on Tue 09/06/2009 12:50:01
What do you have against Banque Nationale de Paris???

I guess it's racism against the French (language)...

Appaling as this may be, I believe it'll be temporary. It's the old "easy answers to complicated questions" fallacy ("Immigrants stole my job! I behave the way I do because I have self-diagnosed Asperger's!" ) and especially if the established parties are (or look) unable to properly adress a given situation, people seem to be likely to fall for it. Let's give the established party leaders some time to stop being nitwits and listen to the PR guys, and the BNP will hopefully fall back into obscurity (although it won't vanish, some people are just idiots).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8091605.stm

Hahaha.

QuoteBNP leader Nick Griffin has been pelted with eggs and forced to abandon a press conference outside Parliament.

Dozens of protesters disrupted the event, which follows the British National Party winning its first two seats in the European Parliament.

Chanting anti-Nazi slogans and holding placards they surrounded Mr Griffin as he was bundled into a car.

That's actually more pathetic than it is funny, violence isn't the way to protest and is hardly going to get any of the BNP supporters to change their tune is it?

Also, no matter what his beliefs this is true:

Quote
"It's a very, very sad day for British democracy," he said.

"People should be entitled to hear what we have to say and to hear journalists question us robustly."

He described protesters as an "organised mob that's backed by all three main parties to stop us getting our message across to the public" and added: "It does not represent ordinary people."

It would actually have been much better to let the media handle the event, watching politicians squirm and repeatedly ignore questions is more damaging than seeing them chased off by a mob as it make them look like fools, not cowards.

The majority of people voted for the BNP probably don't consider themselves racist.  Before the elections, someone close to me said (and I paraphrase), "I think I'm gonna vote for the BNP... I never thought of myself as racist, but I'm really worried, Stu.  Worried that us British are gonna end up being a minority in our own country.".

These are clearly the words of someone who reads too many tabloids and has fallen for the Party's emotive and pseudo-logical way with word's.  And unfortunately, the ignorant people who fall for this kind of guff are always among the small percentage who feel the need to vote.

I didn't vote because I'm fully aware of my ignorance about politics and didn't want to make an uninformed decision.  The majority of people who vote for the BNP are unaware of their ignorance, and honestly beleive they have their country's best interests at heart.  It's sad really.

I think people should worry about the results of the elections before people vote. Having an active participation in the democracy game, asking people to vote this party or the other is, as far as I know, considered legal.

Doing it after is, in my opinion, not... Actually, if I am not mistaken, going against what people vote is just the opposite to democracy... Democracy is allow people to talk, and hear what they say. They say "BNP"? Okay, let' s start working from today so next time they won't say it.

But, honestly, if the only act people do about it is express their rage in some forums in the internet then that sounds to me like a childish tantrum.

Dude, I disagree that internet forum discussion is just having a childish tantrum (necessarily) and/or pointless. The more discussion there is about this the better as far as I can see - maybe next time the voter turnout won't be so ridiculously low. Hopefully all the media attention from all this will show people how important it is that they vote, instead of having the attitude that it doesn't matter or somehow doesn't affect them. Same goes for the internet. Forum discussions ftw, I say!

Is that going to happen by a forum discussion?

WOW!

I don't want to break your bubble but posting about things do not sollute them. I am sorry, I know that regularilly bringing stuff like that here calms your conscience but it actually works for... nothing.

No, forum discussions aren't going to save the world, but they do help people sort out their beliefs and try to defend them intelligently, just like face-to-face discussions.  Forums may not make a huge dent in voter turnout, but hey, it always helps to have more informed people in the world.

I've just learned something, anyhow.  I didn't know anything about the BNP before reading this thread.  Doesn't sound like a group of nice people to me - too reactionary and exclusive.

A forum discussion is going to have next to zero impact on the next election.  Chances are, most (potential) British voters here, either:

1. Didn't bother voting for various reasons.  (top three reasons, i'd hazard a guess at couldn't be bothered, couldn't decide or didn't know it happened*).
2. Did vote, but didn't vote BNP, as they either agreed with another party's policies, or disagreed with the BNPs'.

It's preaching to the choir and maybe a couple of folk who walked in on practice.  We mostly agree that the BNP's not the best choice.  We might not vote, but we're not in agreement with the evil that some people believe parties like this represent.

At best, if the entire forum became british, and subsequently went out and voted next chance we had, then what? A couple of hundred more votes for a mixture of parties.  If we all lived in the same yorkshire (or east london) area, we'd dent the BNP votes at something like 1%.

Not that big a difference, is it?  Sure, you could do the same routine in a few other forums, but you'd still fail to make any impact on future elections.

I'm not saying having the discussion's pointless, as it MIGHT make someone rethink their opinion.  I don't want you having any allusions that this thread might make the world a better place, though.  Chances are pretty high that it won't.  If you really want to make a difference, you need to aim a heck of a lot higher than us lot.

Yuffie, have you ever actually thought about going into politics?  You're still young enough to get your foot in the door, and you're both intelligent and likeable enough to stand a pretty fair chance in a council/local election.  You seem to care about the issues, and it'd be a shame to waste that sort of passion.  (Saying that, I'm obviously unaware of any possible restrictions you might face, due to nationality).  My point is, you could probably make a difference on a much larger scale than you've thought of, but only IF you're willing to put the effort in.

*(Also, for the record, I'll admit that I didn't realise the voting was happening until the day after.  My fault entirely, partly due to apathy, but also due to my disbelief in the whole system in general.  If I had a chance right now to cast my vote, even by clicking one button online, I wouldn't).


From the BBC site:

Quote
A tourist who was caught up in the melee was treated in an ambulance, after suffering an injured leg.

Not only is a pretty small demonstration (dozens of protesters, huge turn-out there), who have the ever-so original idea of throwing eggs, they can't even coordinate themselves as to not hurt passer-bys?  To me they've just managed to make themselves look like amateurish, adolenscent pranksters rather than a proper protest.  I wouldn't be surprised if the placards they were carrying had spelling mistakes.  'No to BPN!' or 'Racesm is BAD'.  I hate to say it, but on this particular occassion, they're the dicks and the BNP are the sensible ones.  If you're going to campaign against something, a modicum of thought and dignity should be present.

Quote from: Renal Shutdown on Tue 09/06/2009 23:35:28
I'm not saying having the discussion's pointless, as it MIGHT make someone rethink their opinion.  I don't want you having any allusions that this thread might make the world a better place, though.  

No, and I'm not saying or hoping it will, that is not my goal here (though if it makes a couple of non-voters feel ashamed then that is excellent ;) ), but I still want to discuss it with people whether or not it "makes a difference". It makes for an interesting discussion and also I think that though one thread will obviously not make a noticeable difference, in general the more things like this are discussed by people, the better. An awful lot of UKers really don't care about politics enough to vote, maybe heated discussions and debates can over time, spark a little bit more interest in it for people. It can only be a good thing to get people talking about things like this.

I disagree strongly with Nacho saying that it's a childish tantrum or anything similar to bring this topic to an internet forum... forums are here for discussions and this is as good a discussion as any other. Intelligent heated discussion over political issues, Nacho, is not pointless or equivelent to throwing a childish tantrum no matter whether it makes a difference or not. It certainly makes a difference for me to see others viewpoints and opinions. :)

As for getting into politics - haha, thanks, but although I get quite passionate about things etc., I'm not the kind of personality that would do well in politics. Additionally, most details of politics bore me greatly, except the part where I get everything on expenses of course.

The details of the protest are a little sad. I'm glad that people did protest, but it seems these things always get out of hand due to a few idiots. In Brighton recently there were some protests against an arms manufacturer, and although most people were peaceful and really cared about what they were protesting, I met a few people who really were just there for the mayhem. I was trying to figure out what the protest was about by asking people, and one chap replied "I dunno, I came down here from Cambridge 'cos I just love the mayhem to be honest!". He also told me stories about how he'd kicked in a police car and tried to break the window of a McDonalds just for fun... what an ass. It's unfortunate that most protests seem to get lumped with chaps like that :(

Actually my point is that my point is that taking a shit about politics before people vote and complaining after the election is done is a childish tantrum... I was not directly accussing you of that because I have no way of knowing how involved you are in politics, but I know there are a lot of people who like to have this "anti-system spirit", not getting involved in politics or even not voting, living happy and proud of "not giving a shit about that useless social conventionalisms like voting"...

And when people votes and people says something they don't like, they complain.

Undemocratic and childish, imo.

Being interested before and after the elections is ok.
Not being interested before and after the elections is ok.
Not being interested before and getting interested after the elections is childish, undemocratic and hypocrital.

Quote from: Nacho on Wed 10/06/2009 07:42:24
Actually my point is that my point is that taking a shit about politics before people vote and complaining after the election is done is a childish tantrum... I was not directly accussing you of that because I have no way of knowing how involved you are in politics, but I know there are a lot of people who like to have this "anti-system spirit", not getting involved in politics or even not voting, living happy and proud of "not giving a shit about that useless social conventionalisms like voting"...

And when people votes and people says something they don't like, they complain.

Undemocratic and childish, imo.

Being interested before and after the elections is ok.
Not being interested before and after the elections is ok.
Not being interested before and getting interested after the elections is childish, undemocratic and hypocrital.

I don't really think it's 'childish' to express their opinions on the state of political affairs of a country in an internet forum. To use an analogy, it would be much the same as going into a pub or around the office watercooler (do people do that?) and someone pipes up with 'Hey, what is happening with this country! 900k people voted for the BNP in the Euro elections. That's fucked up!'. Everyone in the surrounding area who perhaps would like to talk about this event all add their input to the discussion. Unfortunatly, there is always one guy who likes to disagree because he can, resorting to name calling and general tomfoolery.

It's called human interaction. We all like to do it. We all like to talk about issues that effect us, issues that don't etc.

And to what you say Nacho, about people voting and then complaining about the current powerholders of Government, I totally disagree with you there. Voting for your selected party with them failing to win in your constituancy/ the whole shebang gives you the right to be upset with the current political situation. NOT voting at all gives you no right to complain about politics, even though so many do.

Reply to paragraph 2)

Hey, that' s what I said! Voting gives you power to complain, because you PARTICIPATED in the political live... Of course, taking that complains too far away would enter into the terrain of antimocracy, but sensible complains are Ok.

Not voting at all gives you no right to complain.

Reply to paragraph 1) I think that if you do something with no right to do it (Complaining about politics if you had not voted) you are being childish. You don't agree? Okay, no probs! :)

Yeah! That's what I said! Sorry Nacho, from your post it looks like you were saying the opposite! No worries.

I like the juxtaposition between how Nick Griffin reacted to having eggs thrown at him and how John Prescott reacted.  ;D

On the other way, Mr. Layabout, while I agree that "if you participated in the democracy game" you do have the right to complain about the results if your party does not win, pushing that right too far might make you fall into an antidemocratic terrain.

People must respect what majority says, at least in a certain degree...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/audio/2009/jun/09/bnp-barnsley-european-election

Some of the people in this audio clip make me feel so sad.

More interesting reading: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23470426-details/Women+more+troubled+by+bag+theft+than+rape,+BNP+candidate+claims/article.do

And finally, they're actually breaking discrimination laws with their membership criteria which states only white people are allowed to join... http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/08/bnp-legal-challenges

I'm not a supporter, but the BNP have some fairly decent issues to raise that other Governments won't. I don't like their racism or even most of their views towards race, but hey, as a Brit, and someone who knows Brits of all ages - there are definitely a lot of concerns amongst the Brits that only the BNP seem to be willing to tackle. I'm no fan of foreigners who can't speak the English language having jobs where they have to deal with customers, and I'm not a huge fan of the Polish taking a lot of our jobs. I didn't vote the other day, I forgot - but I would've voted Conservative. The fact Cameron is a local man is one reason, but just to see a change in Government would be great, and the Tories are the most likely party to obtain that. Although people say all parties should collaborate, I don't, I just reckon each party should have a maximum of 1 year in power, after which, it's all change. This way the ball keeps rolling, never gets stuck & the public can look at fresh policies and old ones with more confidence each year, rather than every 3, or 13 - as G. Brown might have it.

Yea. It's hard to see that the BNP got in; it's disgraceful but then again fair. They are a legitimate political party and in the words of James Bovard - "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

Quote
I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is any different from black people voting for Obama.

Good gravy, Boyd, this really takes the prize

Quote from: Mods on Wed 10/06/2009 18:22:36
I'm not a huge fan of the Polish taking a lot of our jobs.

People say that a lot but I don't get it. They take jobs that nobody else wants to do for the most part; there is a skills shortage in the areas where the Polish are mainly employed, (construction and maintenance trades), and, for the most part, appear to have a stronger work ethic than most British people.

If you personally have lost out in some way to a Polish person, I sympathise with you, but otherwise I don't see a problem with immigrants who are happy to work within our economy.

Hudders, that' s quite true in a good economical situation. Situation is soooo good that people say: "Hey, I could work in job which requires no skills... But I don't really need it, my dad has money, he can pay a bit to me, I have two rented appartments, the government has money and can pay to me every month... I can wait a bit till I find something I like, or I can go on studying till have the necessary skills for applying for something better!"

When the economy is not that good, that people want the "no skill required jobs". What happens then? That jobs are occuppied by foreign people... Or even worse. That foreign people becomes unemployed, and they start to receive money from the government... Which is seen as non sensible by BNP voters.

*Warning*I am not saying their opinion is the correct one, I am just saying WHICH is their opinion.


On the other hand, there' s something weird about inmigration... I mean, imagine you want to build a golf club... You are three partners who like golf, and you discover that, for building the club, you need 100,000,000 $.

You need to build the terrain, pay to the builders, pay the machines... After the initial investment, you decide that every month every partner will have to pay 100 bucks as a membership fee.

And now imagine one of the partners says "33,000,000 $?!?!?! That' s a lot! I am not going to pay! Golf is not worth of paying that cypher!" and he leaves the society.

And two months after the golf course is done, ather two of the partners paid 50,000,000 $ each, he comes back, and says "Hey... I like golf! May I join in? I will pay that monthly 100 bucks, of course!"

What would you reply to him? Exactly.

Same happens with inmigration... Every society paid a big price for being as it is. Every citizen of that country, or its ancestors paid a price. Wars, revolutions, taxes... Honestly, I don't see fair that everyone can come to my country and have my same rights... As I would never expect to go to a wealthier country than mine and ask for the same rights as every citizen of that place from the first day.

While the inmigrant works (A bit of his work is going for social care, I think is fair he can receive assistance if he pays for it) it' s okay, but if he gets uneployed, many people think he should leave the country... That's what happened when we (Spanish people) emigrated to Germany, we went there with a contract, and when it was over we became illegals.

It's difficult for me to see the logic in people coming here, without contract, and start receiving money from the social care, a social care system that my granddad, my father, my mother, suffered to create.

And what I can't uderstad at all is inmigrats having MORE RIGHTS that the citizens of the country! Here, foreign people have some kind of "Compensative Advantages for inmigrants". I don't know if it' s a way of saying "welcome" or what, but if you are an inmigrant here you have free lenguaje classes, free uneployment (no matter if you worked or not), free social care for babies, advantages for nurseries (You automatically enter into a public nursery if you are foreign... result=public nuerseries have 70-80-90% of foreign kids...) Are we becoming crazy or what???

So... I would never vote for BNP... But I would never dare to say they are stupids, or that their message is not valid, or anti-democratic. It' s a message, period! It's like "the greens". Some of the things they say are so stupid (Some of those parties basically advocate for going back to the middle age...) But some people vote them, not because "they agree 100% with the message" but because they think "maybe having a parliament with 10% of people deffending an extreme message will work for the powerfull people to, at least, make something..."

Nacho, are you getting immigrants and asylum seekers confused? I'm just wondering. I have no idea about how it works in Spain but your examples sound rather one sided and extreme... as in, I'm sure there must be a reason (whether it's valid or not) that such policies are in place - are they trying to encourage skilled immigrants to come to Spain or something?

In the UK immigrants certainly do not have more rights than citizens, but there is a common misperception (generally by the BNP-voting types I would imagine) that they do. "They come over here stealing our jobs and living off our benefits" = more rights somehow, even though immigrants aren't even allowed benefits unless they have a two year working history here... by which time they've actually earned the benefits they might receive far more than the UK person complaining about it who has lived on benefits their whole life.

QuoteSame happens with inmigration... Every society paid a big price for being as it is. Every citizen of that country, or its ancestors paid a price. Wars, revolutions, taxes... Honestly, I don't see fair that everyone can come to my country and have my same rights... As I would never expect to go to a wealthier country than mine and ask for the same rights as every citizen of that place from the first day.

You did not take part in any war or revolution yourself, Nacho, so I find it strange you use that as an example for why immigrants should not have the same rights as you. Also, you are assuming these people came from a less wealthy country - I'm not sure why that's an important detail to you, but I'm guessing you're mixing up immigrants and asylum seekers or something? What about all the immigrants who can speak Spanish and work decent jobs and integrate into society? Then again I don't know Spain that well, maybe that doesn't happen over there so much as it does in the UK.

Also what rights are you talking about exactly, rights to benefits etc?

Additionally... isn't that what being part of the EU is about? I'm sure Spanish people avail of the ability to move freely between EU countries and avail of good levels of support as much as any other EU citizens :)

IMO the award for the worst and most frequent cases of abuse of the system in the UK go to the UK citizens themselves. There have recently been changes made to the benefits system in an attempt to stop people from living their entire lives on benefits without once getting a job. There are so many cases of very young girls having babies at 15 so they can move out of home and "start their own life", then spend their whole life on benefits and defend themselves by saying "being a mother is a full time job". I once saw a documentary where some guys were standing outside the jobcentre (to the foreign people: where you get your benefits) drinking cheap lager, waiting for their turn to go inside, when the cameraman asked them why they were unemployed. The usual "foreign people tekkin' our jobs innit!" chat occurred, and then the camera said that he had a job for them for £8 an hour picking strawberries. They all turned it down because they didn't want to pick strawberries.

On the other hand, all of the immigrants I know have exactly the opposite attitude. I suppose they're very driven and ambitious people anyway - they were ambitious enough to immigrate abroad for their career in the first place. Hey, I'm an immigrant and I'm working in the worst place you could imagine just to earn some extra cash for my course in September... my UK boyfriend at no point considering lowering himself to that point because he was too proud to take steps backward in his career, if even just for a short while... he would rather have lived on the benefits he felt he was entitled to until he found a new job (which he did, but still I think the attitude is a generally a bad one).

Provided you're willing to work and contribute to taxes, etc, I don't think anyone has more rights to live in a particular country than anybody else. Diversity is by no means a bad thing.

The three people I work closest with at work are an Indian, a Sri Lankan and a Romanian. All are well educated and skilled and do their jobs as well as any English person could. The reason they got these jobs is because they were the best candidates to apply for the positions, regardless of nationality or race. Which is exactly how it should be.

Well guys.... Maybe your leaders are sensitive and give to the inmigrants what they deserve... ^_^ My dear president Zapatero gives them more.  :)

Quote from: Hudders on Thu 11/06/2009 14:28:07
Provided you're willing to work and contribute to taxes, etc, I don't think anyone has more rights to live in a particular country than anybody else. Diversity is by no means a bad thing.

The three people I work closest with at work are an Indian, a Sri Lankan and a Romanian. All are well educated and skilled and do their jobs as well as any English person could. The reason they got these jobs is because they were the best candidates to apply for the positions, regardless of nationality or race. Which is exactly how it should be.

To that, an unreserved aye. Location of birth, the amount of melanin in the outer layer of skin and so on are incredibly stupid things to judge people by.

[EDIT: Now with a little more grammar.]

QuotePeople say that a lot but I don't get it. They take jobs that nobody else wants to do for the most part;

A statement with no evidence I'm afraid - there is no proof the Brits don't want these jobs.  Just because they're not filled by a Brit doesn't mean the British don't want them, sorry.

Quote from: Mods on Fri 12/06/2009 03:48:28

QuotePeople say that a lot but I don't get it. They take jobs that nobody else wants to do for the most part;

A statement with no evidence I'm afraid - there is no proof the Brits don't want these jobs.  Just because they're not filled by a Brit doesn't mean the British don't want them, sorry.

There's as much evidence for my statement as there is for yours. Yours just has the backing of the tabloids. Papers about how immigrants are contributing nicely to society don't sell very well unfortunately.

The jobs are there for everyone to apply for. Things such as cleaning jobs, service industry jobs were always minimum wage/low paid even before immigrants started to come here in any significant number. If there are more foreign people in such jobs it just suggests that more foreign people than UK people applied, which is fitting with the UK "I'm not prepared to do that!" attitude. People don't get preference for minimum wage jobs based on whether they're foreign or not. At least that's the way it is in Brighton....

Maybe not in Brighton, but there area where my parents live, it's a different story.  There's van loads of immigrants working on the farms for less than minimum wage.  That £8 an hour for picking strawberries is overpaid, and I'd have personally gone for it in an instant.  They're picking cabbages in Lincolnshire for a quarter of that.

Currently, I'm unemployed.  I'm not pleased about it, and I spend most of my time trying to get a job.  Due to past issues, I'm not exactly a great candidate.  I got ill during my A-Levels which meant I couldn't work for 5 or so years*, and then stuck the same cack job for about 5 years, then had nervous breakdown and went into hiding for 2 years.

So now, I'm pushing 30, have almost no experience, and only GCSEs as qualifications.  I don't personally care what the job is, I did one that was over-worked, under-paid and labour intensive for years, and I was the only one who'd be willing to do 18 hour shifts, despite not getting proper overtime wages.  I busted my ass for that company doing 4 peoples work because they couldn't afford more staff, and I got crapped on when the management changed.  So crap jobs don't bother me.

I've applied to cleaning jobs, I've applied to laboring ones, I've applied for pretty much anything that I'd stand a vague chance of getting.  Just because some of the losers on the dole don't want to work a shitty job, doesn't mean that no British person does.  I can't blame the immigrants as readily as some areas, as there's just not as many of them up here in the North East.  There is a 2 bedroom house on my street with 9 foreigners (Poles and Turks, I think) living in, and they're all working though.  I think one of those foreigners is a drug dealer, or so I'm told.

Back in London, though, the crappy section of jobs were mostly either chavs or immigrants, and the chavs didn't work very hard, whilst most of the immigrants would actually try to work hard.  The immigrants I worked with had the problem of not being too great with English, so they'd end up screwing up tasks, and making me redo their work again.  The chavs just did stuff slow, so I'd have to finish their tasks for them.  Either way, it meant more work for me.  By the time I left that job, it was me and two other non-chavvy Brits doing a 12 person shift, whilst 4 other people dicked about and made things harder.  (Even if they bothered working, we were still under-staffed).

I think I may have lost my train of thought here.  I've just got home from signing on again, so I'm rather pissed off.  Apologies for coherence issues.

*(The government said I couldn't work, I couldn't even sign on.  Was on Incapacity Benefit for years, because the doctor's were still running tests, and couldn't bump it to a Disablity Benefit.  Which meant I had to get a new doctor's note each month, which was probably more degrading to me than signing on).

Quote from: Andail on Thu 11/06/2009 08:40:45

Quote
I really do fail to see how white people voting for the BNP or UKIP is any different from black people voting for Obama.

Good gravy, Boyd, this really takes the prize

I already explained what I meant by that, but as I'm in a good mood I'll explain it again, a lot simpler this time.
If black american people can and will vote for people whom they believe have their best interests at heart, why can't white british people vote for those whom they think have their best interests at heart?
Got that? Okay, then that's the last thing I'm going to say on that matter because people obviously want to brand me a racist.

The difference is that Obama isn't a "black supremicist" and the Democrats aren't looking to close America's borders to people who aren't black.

Employers paying less than the minimum wage are breaking the law. The immigrants that work for those wages aren't to blame, they likely aren't aware of employment regulations and see nothing wrong with the jobs. Their wages go further as they live in larger groups and subsist on cheaper foodstuffs than the average Brit. £2 an hour is enough for them to get by, especially when the job requires no experience, no paperwork and probably not even the ability to speak English.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Fri 12/06/2009 14:47:31
If black american people can and will vote for people whom they believe have their best interests at heart, why can't white british people vote for those whom they think have their best interests at heart?

The reason people are having trouble with this is because you're lumping together everyone from certain racial groups under a single banner. There are plenty of white people who think Obama has their best interests at heart. there are plenty of black people who don't. You've boiled both situations down to race, but whilst that might be at the heart of the matter when describing the BNP, it's certainly not the case with Obama.

Quote from: Mr Flibble on Fri 12/06/2009 14:58:19
The difference is that Obama isn't a "black supremicist" and the Democrats aren't looking to close America's borders to people who aren't black.

Also, the democratic party doesn't have a "no-whites" policy.

Other peoples' problems with it isn't my problem, I've explained twice now what I meant by it but if you want to keep trying to twist it around with your ifs and buts that's your choice. But you're ignoring the fact that some americans, be they black, white, asian or any other "minority" you want to label people with will have voted for Obama simply based on the colour of his skin. And yes, some will have NOT voted for him for the same reason, and what I'm trying to get at is that both of those things are bad.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Fri 12/06/2009 15:28:50
Other peoples' problems with it isn't my problem, I've explained twice now what I meant by it but if you want to keep trying to twist it around with your ifs and buts that's your choice. But you're ignoring the fact that some americans, be they black, white, asian or any other "minority" you want to label people with will have voted for Obama simply based on the colour of his skin. And yes, some will have NOT voted for him for the same reason, and what I'm trying to get at is that both of those things are bad.

Agreed.

Its like Big Brother these days when it comes to elections. You had the retarded one (Bush), Now you've got the black one (Obama), next you'll get a woman, then a transvestite.....



In all fairness what did McCain have to offer? Bill Clinton already did the dirty old bastard sleeping with the younger woman. Try something new.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Fri 12/06/2009 15:28:50
Other peoples' problems with it isn't my problem, I've explained twice now what I meant by it but if you want to keep trying to twist it around with your ifs and buts that's your choice. But you're ignoring the fact that some americans, be they black, white, asian or any other "minority" you want to label people with will have voted for Obama simply based on the colour of his skin. And yes, some will have NOT voted for him for the same reason, and what I'm trying to get at is that both of those things are bad.

Well that makes more sense than your original statement.

Who would I rather have in my country. A man who has traveled half way across Europe, learned a foreign language to survive here and has the drive to want to better their life...

... or the man who believes that, because he views himself as "better" than the immigrants - which has to happen for him to then think he deserves more than the immigrants - he has the "right" to a job.

A migrant worker is the greatest economic event that can happen to a country. It brings in new wealth, new ideas and new people. There cannot be grounds to distinguish between the man who has been here two weeks and the man who has been here all his life. If anyone cannot find a job, it is their own fault. Unemployment - cyclical or structural - can only be resolved by the actions of the unemployed. When somebody says "I'm unemployed (in a non-frictional way) because of somebody else", in all but a tiny amount of occurences that is merely because they do not want to change their lives to get that job. Jobs are always there, somewhere. The migrant workers did the obvious thing - moved to where there are jobs. Why can't the unemployed Brit do that?

- Huw

I'd actually tipped Hilary for the top spot before the campaigning started, and no doubt she'd have got votes purely on the fact that she's female.  People can't help but feel an affinity or a dislike of a certain politician, regardless of what policies they're waving about.

And McCain appealed to loads of people, as he's Republican, he's white, he's ex-military (i think), he's experienced.  The Americans have that whole College voting system thing going on, and a first past the post dealie, too.  The number of actual votes weren't that far apart for most states that I watched, but the system meant that Obama won.  (California for example has 55 college votes, and if 51% of the people vote Obama, he then gets all 55 in the college section.  Too be honest, as far as democracy goes, it's a pretty daft system).

As for the Black/Obama and White/BNP issue. 

Obama's not a Black Panther or anything like that, he's probably the best thing that's happened to America in years, but you can't say that he didn't get votes based on the color of his skin.  A large part of his campaign was getting the minorities to actually bother voting.  It's great that they took part, but if Obama was white, would the campaign have been as effective?

But still, their were minorities that voted for him based on policies and not skin color, because they thought that out of the options of McCain and Obama, Obama would be the most sympathetic to their wants and needs.

The same can be said of the Brits, some people would have thought that the BNP offered the best policies, in regards to how they felt Britain should be represented in the European Parliament.  They're likely sick of Labour, have bad memories of the Tories, and didn't like the other options.  Logically, they then pick the BNP.  If they didn't, wouldn't they just be lumped in with the rest of the people who couldn't be bothered to vote?

Also, Yuffie's mentioned Brighton quite a few times.  It's a lovely place, I saw her there a while back.  And in the weekend I was there, I was also almost involved in a race-related scuffle.  (Some drunk chav moron insulted me, I ignored him, he then insulted a swede and I saw red).  That said, Brighton's still a laid-back, multi-national, multi-racial area, so I'm assuming I just happened upon a rare incident.

The votes for the BNP weren't from Brighton, though.  They were from up north.  I'm currently living in the North East of England, and to be honest, I've not actually seen that many people of ethnic origins.  There's the Chinese takeaway, the Indian takeaway, the Kebab shop, and a guy in a cornershop who I'd guess has an Indian grandparent.  I can't actually remember the last time I saw a black guy.

There was a few mentioned in the area from before I was here, and they weren't exactly nice guys.  I can see they weren't a fair representation of that skin color, but the situations polarised the community against them.   Suppose for example, you take 3 people from a place, and they all share the same traits, it's logical to assume that it's a common trait.  100% so far, so what's to say it's not the norm?  Sure, it could be that you meant the only 3 albino midgets to ever live there, but that's quite an unlikely statistic.  Even if proved false, you're likely to greet each new person with 'Oh, you're taller than I expected'.

The extremes naturally stick in peoples' minds for longer than the average.  It's not great, but if someone's had a bad incident with a person of minority, that incident will be far more prominent in their minds than the rest of the folk they meet.  In multi-racial areas, if there's a bad person it's likely only just one guy in a thousand, up here if there's a bad guy, it's more like one in five.

There's also the fact that the already polarised community will then perpetuate the myth that all the people of his color are bad, and until they're proven otherwise, they'll raise their kids believing it too.  (My friends with racist parents are usually far more racist than those with laid back parents, both here and down south).

So yes, they're likely racist, and they voted BNP, but honestly, it's not entirely their fault.  If no-ones said to them 'hey! that's racism! and it's bad! you're parents were wrong!' can you really blame them for voting that way?  It's all well and good people condemning racism, but are they going to try and educate the racists? Or are they content to sit on their high horses and just pass judgement on them?  Isn't that just hypocrisy and yet more discrimination?

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..learned a foreign language to survive here..

That's not always the case.
And where would you suggest the unemployed Brit move to?

Hm, am I the only one unconditionally supporting every kind of immigration regardless of "the usefulness" of the migrating people?

Of course there are talented/educated/skilled people who don't have a chance to use their knowledge and skills in their home country, and yes, they are an enrichement for their new country.

But especially those who aren't skilled and don't have the possibility to get education or work in their home country are in need of emigrating and they do have the right to do so imo.

I will never cotton up to the fact that a government decides about what people can live in "their country" (an artificial entity, an area without natural borders but borders that were often set by war profiteers). Every human has to right to travel the world and to settle down where he or she wants to!

And where the heck lies the difference between a lazy german who doesn't work and gets all social and health benefits and a migrant who comes to the country and does the very same? The luck of the german to be born in Germany? That's a rather vicious, egoistic reason.

Opposing immigration is - at every time - only a cheap but far ranging attempt of the government to disguise the real reasons for the wealth gap and other social problems. It's an excuse for their own shitty politics. If they're continiously cutting down expenses for the poor/unemployed while continiously giving investors and employers tax shelters - then there's no question why the social situation is bad, but is has nothing to do with immigrants, may they be useful* or not.

*Oh, what an inhumane term to describe a human being, but it's strongly anchored in peoples' minds I'm afraid.

;)
(http://fc00.deviantart.com/fs42/f/2009/092/f/d/Immigration_stamp_xD_by_Shinigi.png)

Quote from: Huw Dawson on Fri 12/06/2009 17:12:58
A migrant worker is the greatest economic event that can happen to a country. It brings in new wealth, new ideas and new people.

I'd have to strongly disagree with that statement, often these migrant workers do not keep their money in british bank accounts which does not help the economy, they also qualify for benefit which is paid with tax payer money, which again does not help the economy.
And not all these new people are nice honest caring people, some of them are violent criminals and I very much doubt that criminal record checks are done before they're allowed to enter the country either.
To be honest with you I don't blame the migrant workers for flocking here for work, I blame the government for allowing it to get so out of hand to the point where they do not accurately know just how many immigrants there are in this country.

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Who would I rather have in my country. A man who has traveled half way across Europe, learned a foreign language to survive here and has the drive to want to better their life...

You are assuming that such a people desire to adopt your values, culture, and way of life.  You would perhaps not be so eager to welcome large numbers of people into your country who desire to impose their values, culture, and way of life on the residents of your country.

Quote from: RickJ on Fri 12/06/2009 18:38:20
You are assuming that such a people desire to adopt your values, culture, and way of life.  You would perhaps not be so eager to welcome large numbers of people into your country who desire to impose their values, culture, and way of life on the residents of your country.

You're implying that everyone living in a country shares the same values, culture and way of life. That's just not true, a country is not that homogene.

If you're referring to very general things, in my experience most of the people from other cultures settle in well. Yes, some don't but that's the same thing with natives...

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You're implying that everyone living in a country shares the same values, culture and way of life. That's just not true, a country is not that homogene.

I disagree.  While it is true that in any given country/culture there will be a variety of opinions/beliefs about  how one should live one's life, how things  ought to be etc, but it's people will have more in common with each other than they will with people of some other country/culture.     

Quote
If you're referring to very general things, in my experience most of the people from other cultures settle in well. Yes, some don't but that's the same thing with natives...

Well I had the spread of Sharia law throughout Europe in mind.   

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2009/05/germany-islamic-groups-want-sharia-law.html       
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1535478/Sharia-law-is-spreading-as-authority-wanes.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/feb/08/uk.religion

But we do really want inmigrants to settle? When I ask to some people about their opinions about little girls wearing Chaddor no matter if they want or not, the answer I use to receive is something like: "It' s their culture! A millenarian one! Who are you to judge them? Who are you to assume that our costumes are better than theirs? Respect them!!!"

So... Do we want integrated inmigrants or not? Because some arguments here are quite contradictory...

Some people here claim that inmigrants settle well...

When that very people is prooved that they do not they answer "No problem... They have their right of not settle, if they don' t want!".

I don' t understand...

I remember my half-Spanish friend mentioning the Muslims in one of the cities in Spain a few years back.  They came in, en masse, and pretty much sectioned off streets to live on, tramp-style.  A couple of months later, they were demanding a mosque be built for them, and that laws were changed to accomodate their religious beliefs.  I think, in fact I hope, the Spanish officials told them were to shove it.

They and the other Sharia law types left countries behind, why do they suddenly think they can change the laws of wherever they decide to live?  Are the laws and cultures of their new homes not good enough for them?  If not, why did they bother going there?

If I was homeless, and someone gave me a bed for the night, I wouldn't then demand they change the wallpaper.  I don't see what right these types of immigrants think they have.  If you emigrate to another country, it's only right to accept their customs, and live by their laws, and not try to make it into a copy of the country you left behind.  If they feel that strongly about their cultures, maybe their time would be better spent improving their own country, not just for them, but for future generations, too.

Maybe moving to a new place is actually the easy way out, and they're laziest of their folk.  That doesn't say much for the natives that won't work, though.

Maybe the spanish case is a bit extreme, because our government is mainly supported by PSOE, which has a long history of alliance with islamism (No matter if moderate of not) anti-christianism and anti-semitism.

So, yes, Islam here basically has letter of Marque.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Fri 12/06/2009 18:09:16

Quote from: Huw Dawson on Fri 12/06/2009 17:12:58
A migrant worker is the greatest economic event that can happen to a country. It brings in new wealth, new ideas and new people.

I'd have to strongly disagree with that statement, often these migrant workers do not keep their money in british bank accounts which does not help the economy, they also qualify for benefit which is paid with tax payer money, which again does not help the economy.
And not all these new people are nice honest caring people, some of them are violent criminals and I very much doubt that criminal record checks are done before they're allowed to enter the country either.
To be honest with you I don't blame the migrant workers for flocking here for work, I blame the government for allowing it to get so out of hand to the point where they do not accurately know just how many immigrants there are in this country.

There are plenty of British people with those exact traits. But yet you single out immigrants?

Equally, there are plenty of immigrants that don't conform to this stereotype. Plenty of tax revenue coming from immigrants also.

Quote from: Nacho on Fri 12/06/2009 20:20:26
But we do really want inmigrants to settle? When I ask to some people about their opinions about little girls wearing Chaddor no matter if they want or not, the answer I use to receive is something like: "It' s their culture! A millenarian one! Who are you to judge them? Who are you to assume that our costumes are better than theirs? Respect them!!!"

If the girls are forced to wear the chaddor then I'm all against them wearing it, naturally. If they do really want to wear it because it's part of their religion or culture, then there's no problem. But both has little to do with them living in another country.

Quote from: Nacho on Fri 12/06/2009 20:20:26
So... Do we want integrated inmigrants or not? Because some arguments here are quite contradictory...

Hm, integrated to a certain point. Of course there's the problem of parallel societies where immigrants live only with themselves. One must show them how fortunate it is to learn the mother language of the country they're in for example and that's why I think it's very productive to give them free courses and stuff, the things you talked about, Nacho, regarding the treatment of immigrants/refugees in Spain.

Quote from: Nacho on Fri 12/06/2009 20:20:26
Some people here claim that inmigrants settle well...

When that very people is prooved that they do not they answer "No problem... They have their right of not settle, if they don' t want!".

Yep, exactly that. For the following reasons:

1. They Do have the right to live wherever they want. I know, most people will disagree, but I dispute governments to decide who can live in the country and who doesn't.. like I mentioned before. To quote The Doors: "Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown." Nobody is able to decide where he's born and what country he starts to live in. So he should be able to decide where he wants to live, may it be Argentinia or North Corea.

2. Some "native" citizens behave as bad as "not-integrated" immigrants. What should we do with them? Throw them out of the country? How can we dare to privilege the people who were born in a country and don't let other people in. How can we prefer the ones to the others?

Quote from: RickJ on Fri 12/06/2009 19:41:39

Quote
If you're referring to very general things, in my experience most of the people from other cultures settle in well. Yes, some don't but that's the same thing with natives...

Well I had the spread of Sharia law throughout Europe in mind.   

Yeah, okay. I'm all against changing the law according to muslim beliefs just like I'm all against having law being influenced by religion in general. But I was talking about immigration in general and it includes muslims of course. But they just can't demand changes in law according to their religion.

I have nothing against them building up mosques cause there's no difference to having churches or synagoges. I'm an atheist and don't care much about religion as long as it's a people's "hobby", I mean, as long as it stays out of courts, schools and any official institutions.

Quote from: Renal Shutdown on Fri 12/06/2009 12:09:26
Maybe not in Brighton, but there area where my parents live, it's a different story.  There's van loads of immigrants working on the farms for less than minimum wage.  That £8 an hour for picking strawberries is overpaid, and I'd have personally gone for it in an instant.  They're picking cabbages in Lincolnshire for a quarter of that.

Currently, I'm unemployed.  I'm not pleased about it, and I spend most of my time trying to get a job.  Due to past issues, I'm not exactly a great candidate.  I got ill during my A-Levels which meant I couldn't work for 5 or so years*, and then stuck the same cack job for about 5 years, then had nervous breakdown and went into hiding for 2 years.

So now, I'm pushing 30, have almost no experience, and only GCSEs as qualifications.  I don't personally care what the job is, I did one that was over-worked, under-paid and labour intensive for years, and I was the only one who'd be willing to do 18 hour shifts, despite not getting proper overtime wages.  I busted my ass for that company doing 4 peoples work because they couldn't afford more staff, and I got crapped on when the management changed.  So crap jobs don't bother me.

I've applied to cleaning jobs, I've applied to laboring ones, I've applied for pretty much anything that I'd stand a vague chance of getting.  Just because some of the losers on the dole don't want to work a shitty job, doesn't mean that no British person does.  I can't blame the immigrants as readily as some areas, as there's just not as many of them up here in the North East.  There is a 2 bedroom house on my street with 9 foreigners (Poles and Turks, I think) living in, and they're all working though.  I think one of those foreigners is a drug dealer, or so I'm told.

Back in London, though, the crappy section of jobs were mostly either chavs or immigrants, and the chavs didn't work very hard, whilst most of the immigrants would actually try to work hard.  The immigrants I worked with had the problem of not being too great with English, so they'd end up screwing up tasks, and making me redo their work again.  The chavs just did stuff slow, so I'd have to finish their tasks for them.  Either way, it meant more work for me.  By the time I left that job, it was me and two other non-chavvy Brits doing a 12 person shift, whilst 4 other people dicked about and made things harder.  (Even if they bothered working, we were still under-staffed).

I think I may have lost my train of thought here.  I've just got home from signing on again, so I'm rather pissed off.  Apologies for coherence issues.

*(The government said I couldn't work, I couldn't even sign on.  Was on Incapacity Benefit for years, because the doctor's were still running tests, and couldn't bump it to a Disablity Benefit.  Which meant I had to get a new doctor's note each month, which was probably more degrading to me than signing on).

the £8 an hour was just a point to prove that this particular group of people claiming they couldn't get jobs because of foreigners were actually just lazy and wouldn't accept something that was even quite substantially above minimum wage. There are of course loads of people (particularly recently) who are struggling to find work due to the recession... but there still exists a huge portion of english people who mistreat the benefits system and then jump on the "they're tekkin' our jobs!!!" bandwagon which they really don't  understand anyway.

It sounds like it can be very different in different parts of the UK. I'm sorry you saw something kicking off in Brighton... I was once with a German friend when someone started on him for having a foreign accent. Unfortunately there are assholes everywhere, but at least in Brighton they are far and few between and we usually laugh them off the streets pretty quickly :)


Also:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFG2P-toC6k

They took errr jerbs!

Quote
Of course there's the problem of parallel societies where immigrants live only with themselves.

They'll naturally head this way, though.  You get concentrated areas of one type of immigrant, it's been happening for years.  The various Chinatowns, for example.  You can't expect people to distribute themselves evenly across the land, they'll generally go to where they fit in faster, and they'll stay there.  Even in London, which is multi-cultural, there's areas that are more specific to a certain background.  Southall for Sikhs, I think, Brixton is mostly black, Edgware Road for Middle Easterns, Chinatown for the Chinese, the racists are mostly East London, especially heading towards Essex.

But, those communities will continue to seperate, and they'll want to get their way.  I completely missed the whole British Sharia thing that RickJ linked, as I was netless/TVless at the time, and it wasn't heavily publicised.  Personally, I'm disgusted by it.  British laws aren't good enough for them?  Emigrate, then.  Don't impose another country's customs onto a place you're technically a guest in.  For the people born here who want the same laws, you're free to leave to find somewhere better.  Just because you want a law change, doesn't mean that the rest of a nation does.

Sharia law is also sexiest, so by accepting it, we're slowly undoing all the rights women fought for years for.  And where does it end?  The clothes Muslim women wear might be optional now, but what if in the future it becomes imposed for those women?  What if they then start demanding that all women dress that way?  If we cave into some of their demands, where do we draw the line?  When we eventually draw a line, they'll just claim it's religious persecution, and we'll side with politcal correctness.

They're also moving towards smaller criminal cases.  So, sure an small Muslim vs. Muslim is settled out of court, within the community.  Who decides how much authority they have?  If it was a Muslim vs. Muslim murder trial, would we eventually let them run that too?  How long before they equal or higher than the proper courts?

Now that Sharia law has it's foot in the door, and some Somali community also had the same sort of thing (from the above links), where it was based on their culture, not religion, how long before every immigrant community demands that they police themselves?  What if a certain community believes in the death penalty?  Who decides which community should be in charge, in a case that covered two law types? (eg. The Muslims vs. the Somalis).  Sure, these sorts of questions might be unlikely, worst case scenarios now, but that doesn't rule them out as possible events in the future.

Immigration is such a grey area, and there needs to be some sort of long term planning and debating encompassing everything it affects.  I'm not saying close the borders, I'm not saying take no one in.  I'm saying that it affects so much, most people think in the here and now, and don't look far enough into the future.  It's all well and good basing it on whether they have a right to live wherever they want, but think how that might affect future generations.

Quote
I'm an atheist and don't care much about religion as long as it's a people's "hobby", I mean, as long as it stays out of courts, schools and any official institutions.

In Britain, Christianity is already in courts, schools and official institutions.  It has been for centuries.  Religion will always be a large part of society, and taking on immigrants often makes groups of seperate societies, which I can only see as a bad thing.  That's not integration, that's just well hidden, long-term segregation.

I sorta understand ghettos, and I don't think inmigrants are 100% guilty of that... I think they are forced to live there, somehow.

Honestly, I don' t think nobody (Pro-"everybody is welcome, no matter if they deserve it or not" or the pro-"nobody's welcome, no matter if they deserve to be welcomed or not") has the complete truth in this discussion but what really annoys me is that the "everybody' s welcome"'s  posture is so popular that they are not able to hear the other side, or consider that they are not 100% right.

Does anyone remember the story about the woman who was refused the Morning After pill because the muslim chemist chappy was within his rights to refuse to give it to her on religious grounds? That was appalling and afaik it is still perfectly within their right to do so. I think that kind of softy approach (such as adopting aspects of sharia law that clearly have the capacity to put women in this country at risk) is pretty bad. I would find it hard not to be resentful of this if I was refused the morning after pill in order to protect the religious rights of the chemist - what about my rights as a woman? Why do his religious rights get preference over my rights?

Renal, I read about Sharia law a long time ago when it was introduced so I forget the finer details, but I do remember seeing aspects of it that really shocked me, because essentially it creates an opportunity for women under sharia law to be treated differently and have different (and lesser) rights than other UK women. I also remember reading that the reason is got in in the first place was because there is already a Jewish version of it that was developed decades ago - is that right? Something like this? I'm not sure of the details of Jewish courts but I am pretty sure they exist, hence they could not refuse the request for Sharia Law. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong because obviously I'm sketchy with the details as I'm old now (my second wisdom tooth emerged yesterday), and my memory fails me frequently in my old and wise age.

Quote from: Nacho on Sat 13/06/2009 15:35:47
Honestly, I don' t think nobody (Pro-"everybody is welcome, no matter if they deserve it or not" or the pro-"nobody's welcome, no matter if they deserve to be welcomed or not") has the complete truth in this discussion but what really annoys me is that the "everybody' s welcome"'s  posture is so popular that they are not able to hear the other side, or consider that they are not 100% right.

1. I think I'm the only "pro-everyone" guy here (yet). And I don't think my opinion is quite popular.

2. Don't infer that I'm "not able" to hear the other side. I certainly do!

3. There's no such thing as truth about that topic, it's a matter of opinion and one's view on mankind and the world, definitely a very general thing.

I don't know what to do with your term "deserve". The people who are born in a certain country "deserve" to live there and others don't, is that what you mean? That's a view I can't get used to.

Honestly, Matti, I haven't read this thread deeply... I was not aiming to anyone in particular, so, don' t get "offended". Anyway, my thoughts were not directed to you when I was thinking in the "welcome everyone" group, or to anyone in the forums in particual, but to some people I met during my real life.

Said that...

My idea is that people has the right to be welcomed in a country when their want to get integrated, when they learn the lenguaje asap, follow the laws of the hosting country and do not want to impose outer costumes. Keeping their costumes sounds perfect to me, I actually think it' s nice to see "arabian week" or "Latin friday" in my city, because I have the right to go there or not (I usually pop up there to take a look)... When they FORCE me to be "arabic", "latin", "asian" or whatever you can imagine I don't like it that much.

Quote from: Nacho on Sat 13/06/2009 16:38:43
Honestly, Matti, I haven't read this thread deeply... I was not aiming to anyone in particular, so, don' t get "offended". Anyway, my thoughts were not directed to you when I was thinking in the "welcome everyone" group, or to anyone in the forums in particual, but to some people I met during my real life.

No offense taken  ;). It just seemed you were referring to me.

Quote from: Nacho on Sat 13/06/2009 16:38:43
My idea is that people has the right to be welcomed in a country when their want to get integrated, when they learn the lenguaje asap, follow the laws of the hosting country and do not want to impose outer costumes. Keeping their costumes sounds perfect to me, I actually think it' s nice to see "arabian week" or "Latin friday" in my city, because I have the right to go there or not (I usually pop up there to take a look)... When they FORCE me to be "arabic", "latin", "asian" or whatever you can imagine I don't like it that much.

Yeah, I agree in general. It's just that I can't stand it if people say, the immigrants have to be productive, educated.. well, "useful" to be welcomed in a country. That's not why they migrate, they (most) migrate to flee from starvation, persecution, dictatorships etc. and they all have the right and a damn good reason to do so. Not letting them into the country cause they're no enrichement for the economy is just.. well, perverse.

Well, the cases I know is (inmigration) because they want to be richer. And as they are used to live with less, they can send some money to their families in their original country, which is a currency hemorragy... It' s something there' s no way to fight (in a democratic way) but it' s still a problem...

Also, I am not a monster... I would like everyone to be here, to work here, and if they get uneployed, to use our social services... But those services are not unlimited, and in crisis period, when those savings are jeopardised I *don't* see the problem in being those uneployed inmigrants to be the first ones to lose those social cares.

If someone can explain me where is the problem in my thinking, please, tell to me... Because one thing is being "good person"... the other is kill everybody in the boat for not having the guts to release some extra weight. (Yes, sounds horrible... but crisis periods are horrible).

I agree with Nacho.

Also

Quote from: Mr Matti on Sat 13/06/2009 17:05:35
Yeah, I agree in general. It's just that I can't stand it if people say, the immigrants have to be productive, educated.. well, "useful" to be welcomed in a country. That's not why they migrate, they (most) migrate to flee from starvation, persecution, dictatorships etc. and they all have the right and a damn good reason to do so. Not letting them into the country cause they're no enrichement for the economy is just.. well, perverse.

They're are called Asylum Seekers. Whilst all asylum seekers are immigrants, not all immigrants are asylum seekers.

Just thought I'd point that out. And I am almost certain that "most" immigrants are not asylum seekers.

So...

"most" do not migrate to flee from starvation,persecution, dictatorships etc.

Reason's I believe most migrate:

Education: We arguably have one of the best education systems in the world (although, im starting to think otherwise with all these chavs growing in number). I don't know about other areas other than bristol where i study (i migrated from north to south  ;D), you go to the university and see how many foreign students there are compared to english ones. Thats even with the international fee's set at £15000/year (roughly 5 times the price of a national/european student). Once you are in the country 5 years you can claim nationality. Expensive route, but easiest.

Work: We have so many people moaning about the fact that there are no jobs (which normally translates to no jobs they are willing to do), that we have a nice foreign source coming into the country willing to take these shitty jobs that mr chav doesn't want to get off his benefits for, called the poles (and many other eastern countries). Eventually companies decide that they can exploit this market by offering foreign workers the jobs at smaller pay (lower than national minimum). We get more over here because this lower wage for foreigners is still higher than what they earn in their own country, so they save it up and send it home so their families can live like kings. Of course we get refused these jobs and the economy declines. In short the problem stems from the chav at the start of the paragraph.

Benefits: Some come in under the pretense that they are Asylum seekers (im not denying that there are a lot of genuine ones), in order to reap the benefits of the.... Benefit system. Chavs get pissed off because there are now other people scrounging off the taxpayer as well as them, which "affects their benefits". Benefits should be there for the people that need them, not for some inbred to misuse them. Im not against people taking benefits, as long as it is a genuine need, and lets face it so many people either abuse it, or intentionally put themselves into the situation where they need it (another form of abuse?).


Asylum: Of course they are a very select minority that come here seeking asylum. Funny thing is we are taking in so many, and then we got arrogant little cunts like the U.S Government who refuse to take so many. Problem is that its that Government putting us into so many wars (lets face it the uk is a bitch) and then leaving us to clean up your mess (taking in the asylum seekers). I mean its America's war, so they should take the responsibility for the causes of it (nb: I know not all asylums are iraqi's, afghani's etc, but theres no denying an increase since noses were poked into the east).

Regardless of which, the day the BNP gets voted in, is the day I leave the country (my country), and I hope their leader shares the same fate as Hitler (one testicle and a bullet in the head).

What's it like in the US anyway, jobwise? I might use my magical Visa Waiver program to "immigrate" and get a job.

Okay, I'm too fuckin drunk right now, but I'll answer soon.  :=

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Okay, I'm too fuckin drunk right now, but I'll answer soon.  :=

Hehe..., Matti, you have restored my faith in humanity   ;D

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Reason's I believe most migrate:...

You left out conquest!
[edit]
http://www.meforum.org/687/the-muslim-brotherhoods-conquest-of-europe
http://www.globalpolitician.com/24345-islamism-multiculturalism-european-immigration
http://www.aina.org/news/20060511113048.htm

Quote from: Hudders on Sat 13/06/2009 00:39:30
There are plenty of British people with those exact traits. But yet you single out immigrants?

Equally, there are plenty of immigrants that don't conform to this stereotype. Plenty of tax revenue coming from immigrants also.

So you think that because we already have people on benefits in this country (family members of which have most likely paid taxes towards for all their lives) that it's okay to import people to jump straight on to benefits they have never contributed anything towards?
Sorry but that's really a fucking STUPID way of looking at it Hudders.

I don't think it is a stupid way of looking at things, could you elaborate on why you think so a little more? Also dude, there was no need to be so rude.

Boyd, (legal) immigrants are entitled to nothing at all until their first two years of a working history in the UK, by which point they have paid taxes and contributed towards their own benefit allowance (should they ever need it). This is more than a lot of UK families who have contributed precisely nothing for their entire lives, whether or not other people (family members or otherwise) are "paying for them" or however you want to phrase it.

When is it that you think immigrants are jumped straight onto benefits? The only time I know of this to happen is when the immigrants are asylum seekers and then it is done in order to protect them. Sure some of them are probably not truly asylum seekers and take advantage of the system (I've met one) but that's the same as how UK individuals can do the same thing (I've met several).

Anyway the point is that immigrants (unless under special circumstances ie asylum granted) do not get benefits until they have contributed at least two years working history in the UK. And as for the argument that someone mentioned earlier about them making money here and then taking their savings back and spending it in their own country - that works both ways you know ;)

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Sun 14/06/2009 13:39:16

Quote from: Hudders on Sat 13/06/2009 00:39:30
There are plenty of British people with those exact traits. But yet you single out immigrants?

Equally, there are plenty of immigrants that don't conform to this stereotype. Plenty of tax revenue coming from immigrants also.

So you think that because we already have people on benefits in this country (family members of which have most likely paid taxes towards for all their lives) that it's okay to import people to jump straight on to benefits they have never contributed anything towards?
Sorry but that's really a fucking STUPID way of looking at it Hudders.

Yeah right...

Do you have any idea how many brits I've met who are milking out tax credits? Give me a fucking break (since you like this kind of language)!

It's nice to know the Brits have such low faith to their systems and laws. ;)

I like how this thread has turned from a discussion on the validation of a "fringe" political party, to whether or not everything wrong with the UK really is the fault of pesky immigrants.

If UK citizens focused more on the fact that your country appears to be run by people who are clearly insane (Moats and HDTVs paid for by the taxpayer, incessant "database" compiling/misplacing, police enforcing laws that don't actually exist, government-approved campaigns urging you to spy on your neighbor, etc) and less on immigrants stealing jobs that a considerable amount of British people on social welfare (or Irish people, it has to be said) would run a mile from if offered, then things might change.

Blaming the alien is a popular scapegoat for most of society's problems, and not just in the UK. It doesn't require a lot of effort, it's great political misdirection, and a healthy chunk of people are dull/selfish enough to buy into it.

Quote from: Nikolas on Sun 14/06/2009 21:28:03

Do you have any idea how many brits I've met who are milking out tax credits? Give me a fucking break (since you like this kind of language)!

It's nice to know the Brits have such low faith to their systems and laws. ;)

That's kind of my point Nikolas, there are already so many people doing it in this country we don't need to import them too.

Quote from: Meowster on Sun 14/06/2009 20:10:19
I don't think it is a stupid way of looking at things, could you elaborate on why you think so a little more? Also dude, there was no need to be so rude.

Boyd, (legal) immigrants are entitled to nothing at all until their first two years of a working history in the UK, by which point they have paid taxes and contributed towards their own benefit allowance (should they ever need it).

Bla bla bla....

First off, not trying to be rude with the bla bla bla, just you said a lot of other stuff and I don't really need to quote the entire post.
Second off, I'm not entirely sure that this is true of those migrant workers who become pregnant, there has actually been a baby boom amongst the immigrants in my town of late. Including one woman who lives near me who seems to have suddenly acquired a baby, seemingly without ever being pregnant.

And yeh, I know a lot of british people do that too, but in most cases they wait until retirement age to do it, and you do ofcourse have these british celebrities who claim to love the country but decide to keep their millions in offshore accounts or just not live here at all, so that the tax man doesn't get his cut. I am kind of divided on that one though, one one hand it's money they've earned fairly so why should the government take a big chunk of it? And on the other hand they earned that money really easily and with their accumulated millions they can afford to pay 40% tax.

Also, LimpingFish brings up a valid point; the discussion does seem to have wandered a bit off of the original topic. But these are the reasons that people are turning away from the main political parties to those such as BNP and UKIP. And although it may be true that immigrants don't really do much harm other than make us feel uncomfortable (after all, when an animal pisses all over it's home it's not too happy when some other animal comes along - and we really have pissed all over our country here) but can anyone really argue that it does any good when because of them the BNP gets more seats and supporters? And also gets us all blaming them instead of actually trying to sort the country out?
My dad has worked alongside a lot of immigrants - including one Lithuanian woman who by her own admission hated the english, asians and any other eastern european - and the vast majority of them really do miss their homes, which makes me think they would really be better off trying to fix the problems with their own countries instead of running all across the EU. And although you could argue that because a lot of them do seem to send money across to their families that it is helping their own economy get stronger it isn't really that affective.

Why dont we just trade all the scroungers for the immigrants? Anyone caught benefit cheating gets shipped off to a country in place for someone whose coming in.

imho if it weren't for the the religous extremists blowing our country to pieces we wouldn't have political extremists like the BNP (or at least they wouldn't get the widespread attention they are at the moment). But ffs, lets not get on a topic about religion.

Besides Im considering following suit and immigrating elsewhere (once I have money and a job). As I stated earlier I'd love to see the states, and it makes you wonder how you'd feel if you travelled elsewhere and got the response we give these immigrants (even if you do hate them).

Hehe... And who is going to receive the scroungers? The originary country of the inmigrant? What a business...

Quote from: Stee on Mon 15/06/2009 02:56:58
Why dont we just trade all the scroungers for the immigrants? Anyone caught benefit cheating gets shipped off to a country in place for someone whose coming in.

imho if it weren't for the the religous extremists blowing our country to pieces we wouldn't have political extremists like the BNP (or at least they wouldn't get the widespread attention they are at the moment). But ffs, lets not get on a topic about religion.

Besides Im considering following suit and immigrating elsewhere (once I have money and a job). As I stated earlier I'd love to see the states, and it makes you wonder how you'd feel if you travelled elsewhere and got the response we give these immigrants (even if you do hate them).

It's not as easy for us in the EU to get job in a non-EU country, as far as I'm aware you can't just move there and get a simple old boring job, you have to have a trade, setup your own business or have a unique skill.
And yeh, I've thought about moving country too, I wanted to go live in Finland and did a lot of research, I also planned to save up atleast £10,000 before I did it as I read that you have live in the country for 6 months before you can work there. And if I hadn't been able to find a job I would have just come back home, but as it is I'm having a hard enough time finding a job in my own country right now and the answer isn't just moving somewhere else where there are jobs. Atleast not for me.

Quote from: BOYD1981 on Sun 14/06/2009 13:39:16

Quote from: Hudders on Sat 13/06/2009 00:39:30
There are plenty of British people with those exact traits. But yet you single out immigrants?

Equally, there are plenty of immigrants that don't conform to this stereotype. Plenty of tax revenue coming from immigrants also.

So you think that because we already have people on benefits in this country (family members of which have most likely paid taxes towards for all their lives) that it's okay to import people to jump straight on to benefits they have never contributed anything towards?
Sorry but that's really a fucking STUPID way of looking at it Hudders.

No, that's not what I think at all. It would be foolish to suggest that we should open our borders to people who simply want to come and claim benefits without doing any work whatsoever.

But, equally, it is foolish to suggest that every immigrant that enters the UK is on benefits and hasn't paid into the system that is supporting them.

Open letter from the British Legion to the BNP: http://bit.ly/fCx1l