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Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

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Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#121

Post by JetSetWilly »

mmarq wrote: post #111
JetSetWilly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Whatever hoops you have to jump through to get in or stay, I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Which is not so much the case in Brexitania. The UK is easily among the most tolerant and least racist of European countries. In i…

> The UK is easily among the most tolerant and least racist of European countries. In international studies, the UK scores very highly on all such measures, usually much better than continental European countries. The point is not that the British society is more or less tolerant than the Italian society (and it certainly is more tolerant). The problem is that as a European I’ve never experienced xenophobia until 201…

I'm sorry, I have extreme doubt to what extent these anecdotes are true and have no choice but to reject them when there's no corroborating evidence.

In my experience, I see about 100x as many people trying to shame folk with the "brexit=racist xenophobe" brush than I witness actual incidents of such behaviour.

At the end of the day it is all anecdotes from people who have an ideological axe to grind.

I'd be more interested to see actual data that suggests any permanent effect - like changes in all the many studies into the tolerance of countries towards immigrants, or even a substantial increase of hate crimes - but so far all that is strangely lacking and all we are left with is anecdotes.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#122

Post by biscotte_ »

collaborative wrote: post #108
biscotte_ wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Uk, i’m not British, and speak with a foreign accent. I was extremely surprised to see people complain of the « racist abuses »... until i read those few posts explaining that the « racists abuses » in question were the mere fact of being asked « what’s your accent ». Ok, if being asked what your accent is, is a « racial abuse », then yes, i guess i am a victim and should whine and maybe ask for money?…

Please don't pretend to reference the parent comment with what you say by falsely quoting "racial abuse" - the parent comment never said that. And we don't know what "racial abuse" referred to in the original comment.

« my children and wife started to experience a level of racially motivated abuse that we had not seen before.«

To which both people replied saying « same for us ».

You’re welcome.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#123

Post by mmarq »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #93
klelatti wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all countries have policies that have led to systematic deportation of significant numbers of their citizens who have the legal right to be in the country. You've provided a personal view of your own experience - fair enough - but it's not a 'reality check' on the point made in the comment you replied to.

Windrush is a diversion and strawman argument. The topic is the impact of Brexit and immigration procedures in general, and I believe I replied on point. I don't understand the level of emotional reactions which border on hysteria, frankly. Again, the UK has the right to control immigration like all countries have, and it is relatively straightforward and simple compared to many others. I am a EU citizen in the UK: y…

Windrush is not besides the point, because the UK government tried to repeat the same exercise with EU citizens. They even went as far as sending deportation letters to hundreds of random EU citizens, including doctors, university researchers, journalists and professionals (ie people with enough influence to get the attention of the press and with enough money to pay for a lawyer https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/23/home-office...).

I applied for the permanent resident status before the EU forced the UK to introduce the Settlement Scheme and I ended up sending kilograms of documentation to prove that I had lived in the UK for the previous 5 years. I could easily collect these documents because I only worked in FTSE companies, but my partner couldn’t because she worked for smaller firms that ceased activity and couldn’t provide reference letters. The process was clearly designed to prevent people from getting ILR, even if they had a right to it.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#124

Post by raxxorrax »

rich_sasha wrote: post #50
JetSetWilly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My impression is that another upside Silicon Valley has over the UK is that the US is genuinely a country of immigrants. Whatever hoops you have to jump through to get in or stay, I don't get the impression people are looked down on because they are foreign, once actually on the ground. Which is not so much the case in Brexitania. The UK is easily among the most tolerant and least racist of European countries. In i…

> I don't understand this compulsive need of pro-EU voters to construct massive straw men about brexit voters and Brexit Britain. It is possible and reasonable for a country to decide it doesn't want to be a part of the European "project" without being a racist xenophobic hellhole. No one is taking that right away. No one is saying UK is a xenophobic hellhole. But the "foreigners" en masse are saying they don't like…

From another EU country I don't feel represented by the EU commission at all. This has nothing to do with immigration and I think any potential immigrant would have to accept and understand that.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#125

Post by mytailorisrich »

gpderetta wrote: post #57
CyberRabbi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the entitlement people from other countries feel to live in my country. I don’t feel the same entitlement to live in their country. Also, just because they are rich or can start a tech company doesn’t make them any more entitled to live wherever they want any more than anyone else. Just a very bizarre stance IMO and it seems one-sided.

People from other EU countries were entitled to live in your (UK) country. Suddenly taking that right away did upend people lives.

The life of EU citizens in the UK was not upended.

For people who already qualified for permanent residence (i.e. who had been working in the UK for 5 years) nothing changed.

For people who were in the UK for less than 5 years the automatic right to stay disappeared by in reality I believe that they were given so-called "pre-settled status" until they reach the 5 year mark and can stay as long as they want, from what I understand.

Personally I like have proof of things so I had applied for proof of permanent residence (under EU law) before the UK actually left the EU (there was a gap of several years to do so after the referendum), which was quite straightforward, so moving to the new "settled status" only took a few minutes online.

Of course, EU citizens who have been in the UK for 6+ years and have permanent residence can also apply for citizenship and forget about all of this altogether.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#126

Post by thefounder »

JetSetWilly wrote: post #121
mmarq wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK is easily among the most tolerant and least racist of European countries. In international studies, the UK scores very highly on all such measures, usually much better than continental European countries. The point is not that the British society is more or less tolerant than the Italian society (and it certainly is more tolerant). The problem is that as a European I’ve never experienced xenophobia until 201…

I'm sorry, I have extreme doubt to what extent these anecdotes are true and have no choice but to reject them when there's no corroborating evidence. In my experience, I see about 100x as many people trying to shame folk with the "brexit=racist xenophobe" brush than I witness actual incidents of such behaviour. At the end of the day it is all anecdotes from people who have an ideological axe to grind. I'd be more int…

There are centainly some racist/xenophobe people and they were pretty loud during and after the Brexit campaign.

However the main issue is that the mainstream leadership took cues from them and the dialog about immigration has changed.

Now it's pretty much native vs immigrants, England vs Europe. It's no longer a family/love story.

"Once Britain is free of the EU’s shackles, there’s nothing it cannot achieve". This kind of slogans extend to simple immigrants as well because "they" are the reason UK is no longer an empire...(so they said).

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#127

Post by mytailorisrich »

mmarq wrote: post #123
mytailorisrich wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windrush is a diversion and strawman argument. The topic is the impact of Brexit and immigration procedures in general, and I believe I replied on point. I don't understand the level of emotional reactions which border on hysteria, frankly. Again, the UK has the right to control immigration like all countries have, and it is relatively straightforward and simple compared to many others. I am a EU citizen in the UK: y…

Windrush is not besides the point, because the UK government tried to repeat the same exercise with EU citizens. They even went as far as sending deportation letters to hundreds of random EU citizens, including doctors, university researchers, journalists and professionals (ie people with enough influence to get the attention of the press and with enough money to pay for a lawyer https://www.theguardian.com/politics/…

You're trying to make a mountain out of a mole-hill, and again I don't understand why.

An error to a few people (100 out of millions) and that resulted in nothing at all is not evidence of nefarious policy.

Sending payslips and council tax bills is hardly a problem for anyone who's been living and working in the UK, and that was a standard EU-wide procedure. It was not designed to be difficult or make people fail, it only required evidence that the applicant had been exercising "treaty rights", which is quit reasonable.

I was not in favour of Brexit but there is no reason to invent problems where there are none.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#128

Post by raxxorrax »

gambiting wrote: post #26
bb123 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> all the joy, happiness and hope seems to have drained from this land. That might have more to do with the 18 months of COIVD lockdown than Brexit.

The referendum was in 2016, 4 full years before covid hit, and as an EU immigrant to the UK I can confirm the same - very soon after the vote it feels like the entire atmosphere in the country changed to be far less welcoming to immigrants.

That is due to spite probably. Making Brexit about for/against discrimination was a serious media mistake in my opinion. I am not from the UK though, but I followed the discussions. I can also understand why people voted to leave.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#129

Post by raxxorrax »

rich_sasha wrote: post #23
biscotte_ wrote: post #6

Immigration was not the main reason of voting Brexit. UKIP is not 51% of the UK electorate. I am surprised to see that, years after that vote, there are still gross misinformation circulating around it.

I felt in most pro-Brexit messages, there was an undercurrent of "...because we are better" or "and then they won't steal your jobs". EU parliament? Full of foreigners. Immigration? All foreigners. What's wrong with the steel industry? Foreigners working cheaply in other countries, or undercutting honest British workers here in Britain. That's not to say there aren't adverse effects of internationalisation, or to bel…

There was the argument of sovereignty for example which was aggressively shot down as xenophobia, although it is pretty much true. Nobody within the EU ever denied that it to be a reality, it was openly talked about.

The argument was that there is a larger scope that is also relevant for international policy, but that wasn't even mentioned anymore.

So people were directly and obviously lied to and their argument was misconstrued and people just didn't buy it. If the lie wouldn't have been created, maybe the EU would be larger today.

Perhaps it wasn't a smart move to leave. But the advertising for remaining in the EU was extremely incompetent. To reduce it to xenophobia is still reductive like that.

Re: Post-Brexit immigration: mission accomplished?

#130

Post by w_t_payne »

biscotte_ wrote: post #103
w_t_payne wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it wasn't, then why did the Brexit referendum unleash such a torrent of racist abuse?

By « racist abuses », i guess you meant the simple fact of being asked what your accent is ?! (Cf. Previous posts)

My children being physically assaulted and called racial slurs.
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