- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
Others said the campaign had a darker side and stirred up fear of newcomers. Some backers of the Piddington referendum compared their fight against the asylum accommodation to the 1940 Battle of Britain against Nazi Germany.
Villager Herbert Owen, 76, said after voting on Tuesday that the independence referendum “isn’t just about Piddington,” adding: “It means everything our grandparents, our parents fought for. Today is the Battle of Britain.”
Comparing unauthorized immigration to an invasion has become increasingly common among politicians including Nigel Farage of Reform UK, and far-right groups that have been active in organizing and attending anti-immigrant protests.
What a bunch of assholes. From earlier in the article:
Residents of Piddington, which has a population of about 350…
That makes sense. Small town people need to have no say over issues pertaining to classes of people who are “different” from themselves. They’re too insulated and lack exposure to those who aren’t like them to properly recognize that they’re human beings in all the ways that they’d recognize if they knew someone from said class.
Brief story: decades ago, while I was on excellent drugs at a rave, my homophobia (thanks, Mom!) instantly disappeared when I realized the hilarious gay guy, in a group of us smoking cigarettes, was no different from me. “He just wants to take his drugs and have a good time on Saturday night,” I realized. He was no different from me!
Small town people need drugs and a good time with people unlike themselves.
You’re not being “cruel” by not allowing what you didn’t agree to in the first place. The government is cruel by not getting approval from people who actually live there. The government is cruel by telling the migrants they have a place to go, when they don’t. The government drops them off and goes “cool, good luck” into a community who doesn’t want them, then they act shocked when the migrants are treated like shit.
Nice fantasy you have there
Funny how the people that are treating the migrants like shit are somehow not the cruel ones even though they’re the cause of the main instigators of friction in every step there.
Paying human traffickers to try and bypass the visa system and lying about fleeing some war in france, also lying about your age, in order to claim benefits for people actually in need, tends to instigate friction.
Not only does this have nothing to do with the comment I replied to, it’s also a wild claim that seems extremely specific and can’t possibly apply across a large group of people to actually be a common problem.
Every channel crosser pays human traffickers to try and game the system. Instead of applying for a visa normally, they take a boat from an already safe country to get here. There have been some good BBC documentaries on it- essentially it’s advertised in places like Iraq “pay xyz (usually around £10k) and we’ll get you to Britain”. Typically the benefits the UK government gives you is part of the advertising material.
I can only speak anecdotally, but in estates where there’s asylum seekers placed, you get large groups of those men walking about, staring at you, and there’s been cases in the news regarding rape, I have a friend who witnessed them carrying knives attempting an attack on another group of men. Such a thing rarely happens with local people in these areas (not sure how proportionally it is with rape and violence, but when you’re in someone else’s country, you should be good as gold anyway. Especially if they’re giving you benefits and seriously considering an asylum claim. However, this data isn’t collected so we can only go off anecdotal evidence rather than lay the issue to rest).
Not all asylum seekers crossed the channel or the Irish border by the way. Plenty of good people already here have situations back home or personal circumstances change. I fully support our system protecting them and helping them, they’re the ones it should exist for. Not for people crossing the channel trying to find an easy way into the UK.
This still has nothing to do with the person above blaming everyone except the abusers for abuse. This isn’t a comment thread about defining who these migrants are, I’m specifically taking issue with saying the problem is with everyone except the people acting immorrally.
There is no free pass to abuse people just because you don’t like how they arrived or what other people in the neighbourhood they have to live in are doing.