BBC man in darkest Dagenham.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8322626.stm

You will note the standard issue qualification before speaking about immigration is used:



Supporting the BNP and not being a racist? They always start “I’m not a racist” (or possibly “I’m not a racialist”) before launching into some tirade about immigrants.

Ever noticed that people who start with 'I'm not a racist, but...' usually go on to completely disprove that first statement, but when they say 'I'm not being funny, but...' they're unerringly accurate?

Ah, the 'some of my best friends are gay' argument....

Technically, I suppose it's possible to be worried about immigration without being racist - you could be worried about the number of people coming in from other countries who had the same colour of skin as you had. In reality in Bradford and the like it does seem to be the asian/Indian (etc) communities that are being harassed though. Even though the majority of recent immigrants are probably European...

Jon

In my experience, most immigration from the past 10 or so years is from the EU and therefore predominantly white. Black and brown people have mostly been here for a while. Immigration's bollocks anyway, we should all be free to come and go as we place - globally. But that would require time travel, or a lack of government barcoding everybody and tracking us all. Shame.

Racism and immigration aren't necessarily linked.

People could be worried about over population and abuse of the social security system by immigrants, without necessarily being racist.

I'm an immigrant over here. I must admit, at the language school I studied at, I was treated very differently from former Eastern Block or Chinese immigrants. In fact, I was so disgusted with the way some of the teachers treated the students that I went to the director and I walked out of the school when nothing was done - luckily I had learnt enough to be able to work in Germany.

Germany has a lot of immigration problems - mainly Turks who came over in the 80s and early 90s, who fail to integrate, Russian Germans are a big problem in some areas, mainly for their drink until you pass out attitude and that beer isn't alcohol, only vodka and high percentage drinks are alcohol; which means that a lot of alcohol related car accidents involve Russian Germans.

These aren't pure racism problems, they are a problem with the social attitude of the people moving into Germany, as opposed to acts of racism against these communities.

Now we are being flooded by East Europeans, much like the UK.

Yes, there is some racism, especially against the Turks, but a bigger problem is with immigration in general, where cheap labour is being imported illegally. This is where people have problems with immigration, without necessarily being racist.

Again, race doesn't play a part here, just the fact that people are moving into the country illegally.

One racial side to immigration that has been showing its head lately is the spate of "honour" killings among Muslims - mainly Afghani or Turkish - where the wives and daughters are adjusting to western society much better than their husbands / fathers / brothers and are being killed, because they bring dishonour to the family by wearing western clothes, working, having boyfriends who don't come from the "old country", having sex outside of marriage etc. In many cases, the men are arrested and don't understand why they are being arrested, because their behaviour is "accepted" in their home land, the problem is, they aren't in their homeland and haven't learnt the lessons that their women seem to have...

If I move to another country, I expect to have to obey their laws and observe their customs. If not, I assume I would get into trouble.

In the UK, politically correct councils and government do whatever they can to acommodate immigrants (legal or otherwise) at the expense of others. Some immigrants then learn to take advantage of the system whilst not making the effort to integrate.

I'm not surprised people are getting fed up, and hostile tensions are developing between these disparate communities.

It is daunting to integrate with another society, but I believe it is necessary in order to be allowed to stay.

Integration should be of the immigrants adapting to locals, not the other way around. Too many immigrant communities do not integrate very well. It in part may be down to councils providing services in their home language which means that they do not have to learn to integrate. It also costs local and national government a fortune to provide translators.

It's also against the law not to provide services in a number of languages.

I suspect the vast majority of those responsible for over-breeding and benefit abuse would consider themselves to be "White and Native".

Ironically, many of the people who are most guilty of this also complain the loudest about immigrants taking "our jobs" although they'd never actually work themselves.

True. As true as 1+1=2. (or 1+1=10 ) Some people react rather than think

I suspect that most people that don't work don't vote either.

Which leads me to suspect that most people that do actually vote BNP rather than just sympathise with them actually have jobs.

Which further leads me to suspect that they are most concerned with the risk of losing said job.

Apparently BNP support is highest in areas with the lowest rates of immigration...go figure

The BNP, like the National Front and Mosley's British Union of Fascists before it prey upon the fears of mainly relatively poor, disadvantaged people. Similar movements in other countries, and ultra-nationalist governments like those in Iran do the same. The fascists' message is always that there is not enough to go around (not enough food, enough oil, enough homes etc) so we must look after our "own". The truth is that this is a world of plenty, the problem is not scarcity, but inequitable distribution.

The crux of the "problem" is that in Europe we live a charmed life of luxury and wealth (or even of a decent few meals a week). We are protected from the daily reality of violence, murder, rape and abuse by the rule of law. Many millions probably billions do not get enough food, and\or are subject to existence in relatively "lawlwss" states.

The solution is to encourage world development and share our benefits with everyone else, not to create a "Fortress Europe" and try top hang-on to what we have. I'm sure many of us would have slightly less: a Mondeo, not a 3-Series, and so-on, but there is no need for us to be impoverished through sharing, and by chosing to share we will avoid the almost inevitable Wars and bloodshed that upcoming artificial resource scarcity will bring.
If living in Sudan is as safe and pleasant as Southend then there is very little incentive to immigrate....

When my wife's family moved here from Northern Cyprus, they asked to be housed amongst English people so they could learn the language. The council or whoever made the decision thought better and placed them amongst Turks. Big D brings up a good point about integration. My wife, her younger sister and brother and her youngest older brother are completely integrated. Their oldest brother is not and can barely speak English despite living here 20 years. He also wants them to act like they were still in their home village in Cyprus (not allowed to do anything, dress how they want as the village will gossip) but does not apply that standard to his own daughter. Double standards abound.

I can appreciate the EU languages but why all the rest? Otherwise people have no incentive to integrate.