But it's the only evidence we have of open borders. You're using a lack of evidence to say you're right, which isn't the most robust of positions.
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But it's the only evidence we have of open borders. You're using a lack of evidence to say you're right, which isn't the most robust of positions.
roydo
in memoriam - 1965-2024
You could bring it closer to home. The UK is essentially a mini EU. Common currency, freedom of movement, central governments, sort of.
Worked ok for a few centuries. By and large.
dholliday
deconstructed rep
i'm using common sense and a working knowledge of how the world works.
Global open borders would be total chaos when there's so much poverty in poorer regions still. Evidence? Those poor dead souls who sink in overloaded boats trying to reach Italy. Utopian idealism only sounds good on a placard.
Smaller steps required: for example i support a United States of Africa.
Blues Harp
Player Valuation: £60m
I certainly agree with the point that not everyone who voted leave is racist. I don't think that voters on both sides were absolutely clear on what the terms of leaving were (as has been proved by the government's abject failure to negotiate their way out of a paper bag). What people like Yaxley-Lennon and groups like the EDL prey upon is fear of what individuals see as "invading their culture". You only have to look at some of the comments on sites which support these people to see horrible racist comments based on the colour of a person's skin, and as with Trump in the USA, it seems to be becoming more "acceptable" to do so. As an atheist myself I will debate and argue about any religion be it Protestant, Catholic, Islam, etc etc but while still accepting an individuals own personal faith. What I cannot stand is the thinly disguised hatred of any one who has a different skin colour.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Strangely enough I agree with you. It is disgraceful to judge anyone based on skin colour or indeed background. We are what we are, good or bad, colour is no definition.......
I've enjoyed reading the different views in this thread and tried to see the arguments from all sides, whilst at the same time keeping out of it as I don't particularly enjoy "getting into politics" on a football forum, but this post really piqued my attention.
In you're opinion Bruce, you're saying that anybody who voted Leave, perhaps due to genuine concerns over how a relatively small island nation with finite employment opportunities, social welfare and housing resources, could support an unlimited influx of people, is a "racist"?
I remember the good old days (and I'm only 38), when the term "racist" was used when somebody held a belief that one particular human race was superior to another. Of which the above is absolutely nothing of the sort.
Nowadays the term is thrown around way too casually and IMO does absolutely nothing for the left's argument.
Well nationality is included in the official legal definition of racism, and you're saying one nationality is allowed to be here whilst others aren't. If you had a shop that said no Poles were allowed in, you would be prosecuted for racism. If a school barred anyone from France from attending, it would be prosecuted for racism. For clarification, I have said that anyone who has said that we should leave the EU on the grounds of migration has had racist intent, for they haven't specified their local concerns in the sense of population movement as a whole, but purely population movement involving foreigners. You've specified the kind of people you don't want in your town and implied that things would be a ok if 100,000 Londoners moved in tomorrow. Presumably you'd be equally happy if the 1.3 million British expats living in Europe returned home tomorrow, as they're British?
If that doesn't make you happy, then perhaps people should have framed their debate in terms of making the government better at helping local councils adapt to changes in their population, whether that's having a more flexible system of doling out money than the ten year census, or being less centralised. Maybe even tap into the EU fund specifically designed for that. Maybe encourage less NIMBYism to actually get new houses built. But no, none of that happened. Instead it boiled down to a simplistic "we want less foreigners here". I challenge you to take that same attitude in your line of work and see how long before someone takes you to court for discrimination.
I've just this minute finished a 12 hour shift so will try and keep this short lol
It seems like a lot of that was directed at me personally (apologies if it wasn't), if it was, you have no idea how I voted in the EU referendum or what my own views on the subject are.
You mention the Race Relations Act, I don't know a great deal about it but isn't that explicitly for how individuals are treated with regards to employment and social issues etc within the UK? If so I'm not sure how that is relevent to whether or not people are actually granted entry to the country.
Also, the government themselves do not allow free movement to non-EU nationals (US, Canada, Australia, India i.e. every other country outside the EU). Therefore by your argument, the government themselves are being "racist" to them and therefore breaking their own Act. Why do you think EU residents should have free movement when others don't? Or do you think we should have truly open borders into our country with absolutely zero entry requirements for the entire world?
I agree that if someone's argument is to exclude a specific nationality or people based on the colour of their skin then yes, that's a crap argument, but I know lots of people who are concerned as immigration as a whole, irrelevant of their origin.
You clearly stated that anyone who voted Leave based on immigration is a racist (not just "racist intent" as you're now not diluting it down to). I strongly disagree with that view.
It seems like a lot of that was directed at me personally (apologies if it wasn't), if it was, you have no idea how I voted in the EU referendum or what my own views on the subject are.
You mention the Race Relations Act, I don't know a great deal about it but isn't that explicitly for how individuals are treated with regards to employment and social issues etc within the UK? If so I'm not sure how that is relevent to whether or not people are actually granted entry to the country.
Also, the government themselves do not allow free movement to non-EU nationals (US, Canada, Australia, India i.e. every other country outside the EU). Therefore by your argument, the government themselves are being "racist" to them and therefore breaking their own Act. Why do you think EU residents should have free movement when others don't? Or do you think we should have truly open borders into our country with absolutely zero entry requirements for the entire world?
I agree that if someone's argument is to exclude a specific nationality or people based on the colour of their skin then yes, that's a crap argument, but I know lots of people who are concerned as immigration as a whole, irrelevant of their origin.
You clearly stated that anyone who voted Leave based on immigration is a racist (not just "racist intent" as you're now not diluting it down to). I strongly disagree with that view.
I've just this minute finished a 12 hour shift so will try and keep this short lol
It seems like a lot of that was directed at me personally (apologies if it wasn't), if it was, you have no idea how I voted in the EU referendum or what my own views on the subject are.
You mention the Race Relations Act, I don't know a great deal about it but isn't that explicitly for how individuals are treated with regards to employment and social issues etc within the UK? If so I'm not sure how that is relevent to whether or not people are actually granted entry to the country.
Also, the government themselves do not allow free movement to non-EU nationals (US, Canada, Australia, India i.e. every other country outside the EU). Therefore by your argument, the government themselves are being "racist" to them and therefore breaking their own Act. Why do you think EU residents should have free movement when others don't? Or do you think we should have truly open borders into our country with absolutely zero entry requirements for the entire world?
I agree that if someone's argument is to exclude a specific nationality or people based on the colour of their skin then yes, that's a crap argument, but I know lots of people who are concerned as immigration as a whole, irrelevant of their origin.
You clearly stated that anyone who voted Leave based on immigration is a racist (not just "racist intent" as you're now not diluting it down to). I strongly disagree with that view.
Firstly, not directed at you at all mate. I mentioned the Race Relations Act as it provides a legal definition of racism in this country. If such behaviors are right and proper on a micro level, I'm not sure how they aren't right and proper on a macro level too, and yes, I don't believe it's right for us to limit migration from other countries either. We're strangling our ability to compete globally.
As I said, we are in a situation at the moment where you would be quite happy for the entire population of Belfast to move to your town, but would restrict the entire population of Dublin to do likewise. The only real difference is the nationality of whom you're denying entry, which is under the legal definition racism. Had people been petitioning for greater government support for population changes as a whole, regardless of nationality, then I'd support that wholeheartedly, but they didn't.
Think we will just have to agree to disagree on this one mate lol
I totally agree with your point about refusing to serve a Polish person solely on the fact that they're Polish etc being racist, but to extrapolate that into wanting controls on immigration as being racist too, nah I'm not having that.
My gripe was your assertion that anyone who voted Leave based on immigration was a racist. To try and use the Race Relations Act definition to back up that claim is just wrong in my eyes. I've just had a quick read up on the 2013 amendment and that Act has literally nothing to do with immigration whatsoever.
I sort of understand your Belfast / Dublin analogy, but I'm sure lots of people would say that irrespective of where people are coming from, they wouldn't want an unmanageable influx of people into their town, whether they're from Northern Ireland, Eire, Scotland, the next town along the road or Outer Mongolia. That's just common sense.
We can't mitigate against that influx happening from within the UK, but the people were given an option to mitigate against it from outside the UK, and they decided to take that option. I'm sure if you asked the vast majority of Leave voters if they would be happy for the population of Belfast, Edinburgh, Cardiff then they would say "of course I wouldn't want that". But that wasn't on the ballot was it.
People were given the option of being able to vote to leave the EU which would (among other things) allow the government greater control over free movement (something which I don't think was even part of the vote when we decided to join the common market in the 70's, though I may be wrong).
The UK leaving the EU should in theory give the government greater control over this at least from people from outside the UK borders. And that is why many people voted Leave (among other things). Not because they are "racist".
Yes there are people who voted Leave "cos of them damn Poles", and yes they are racist, but not everyone who voted Leave in part due to immigration is of that mindset, and should not be tarred with the same brush or called "racist".
I guess that's my point. There are a lot of things that the government could do to make local communities better able to adapt to changes in their population, regardless of the origins of that change. In a world where labour mobility is a fundamentally good thing, we should have been pushing the government to do that, but instead we've fallen into the trap of blaming the faults of our government on foreigners. It's absurd.
abelard
Player Valuation: £35m
lol @dholliday's audition for #economistbookreviews
he thinks he's being extremely equanimous and wise, but it's really just incompetent sophistry
he thinks he's being extremely equanimous and wise, but it's really just incompetent sophistry
dholliday
deconstructed rep
The above is simplistic & irrelevant equivalency to my argument in this thread. Each topic deserves its own analysis.
On another note and off-topic here, but i found it amusing re: the last tweet on 1984's Oceania...Aldous Huxley effectively predicted (decades before 1984's publishing) that we would choose to have Orwell's telescreens rather than have them forced upon us:
probably deserves its own thread...i know people who are over 30 years old who have no problems with Alexa and will love this. Dystopic sci-fi got it wrong the whole time...we happily seek machine dominance!
So yeah, sort of on-topic to your weird argument above: maybe life was actually worse in Oceania before 1984, maybe Winston's perspective is entirely biased and distorted, until he took the soma and loved Big Brother after all.
Each topic deserves its own analysis.
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