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UK Politics: Spaffed up the wall while chuntering from a sedentary position


Chaircat Meow

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7 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

He was dreadful in most of the debates for Tory leader as well, and if you watch any of his speeches they are often rambling nonsense with humour thrown in to cover his gaps.

The big But here is that it doesn’t seem to matter. He still won Tory leadership and has been very popular since he’s been in power.

Its been known he’s like this for many years. People who like him don’t mind this stuff and people who hate him are incensed by it. So while you might rage at that video, it doesn’t change anything.

He could have turned up drunk and half-naked to the Tory leadership debates and still won a landslide. 

Let's see how he gets on, face-to-face with Corbyn, when he tries to act as if the Tories have been in opposition for the past decade.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

He could have turned up drunk and half-naked to the Tory leadership debates and still won a landslide. 

Let's see how he gets on, face to face with Corbyn, when he tries to act as if the Tories have been in opposition for the past decade.

 

Maybe though it’s telling that the torys numbers have rocketed since he’s been in charge.

Corbyn I have no doubt will make Boris fluster and trip over himself, but again I highly doubt it matters at all. The only way Labour get anywhere in this election is they can make people forget Brexit is a thing and forget their messed up position  on it

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15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Just couldn't help myself. :P

Was seriously waiting for someone to make that knee jerk response - a response which merely proves the point.

If the disadvantage of becoming a minority in one’s country is then self evident as you so aptly pointed out, it should clearly be avoided at all costs.

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It's extremely disingenuous to directly compare immigrants to invaders and colonisers. Entirely different activities, undertaken by entirely different groups of people, with entirely different relative levels of power, for entirely different reasons.

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1 minute ago, Liffguard said:

It's extremely disingenuous to directly compare immigrants to invaders and colonisers. Entirely different activities, undertaken by entirely different groups of people, with entirely different relative levels of power, for entirely different reasons.

Yet that is often the exact argument used by those defending immigration into Britain. 
 

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Bloody Beaker folk. Coming over here, rowing up the Tagus Estuary from the Iberian Peninsula in improvised rafts. Coming here with their drinking vessels. What's wrong with just cupping up the water in your hands and licking it up like a cat?

- Stewart Lee

 

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12 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Yet that is often the exact argument used by those defending immigration into Britain. 
 

Sorry, I don't understand. Are you saying that defenders of immigration are equating immigration with invasion, and that they're saying this is a good thing? Because I can't recall ever seeing that argument being made.

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23 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

It's extremely disingenuous to directly compare immigrants to invaders and colonisers. Entirely different activities, undertaken by entirely different groups of people, with entirely different relative levels of power, for entirely different reasons.

Why, if the ultimate outcome is the same? Most of the migration into Fiji was for economic reasons. Does that make a difference to the native Fijians who once ruled their land and are now a minority?

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Why, if the ultimate outcome is the same? Most of the migration into Fiji was for economic reasons. Does that make a difference to the native Fijians who once ruled their land and are now a minority?

Begging the question. The outcomes are very much not the same. The UK in the 21st century is not Fiji in the 19th, and the nature of immigration into the UK in the 21st century is qualitatively and quantitavely (in a relative sense) different to the nature of immigration into Fiji.

I've seen this argument a lot - "It was bad when [technologically advanced colonial power] overwhelmed [tehcnologically less advanced indigenous culture] therefore it's equally bad when [people from less prosperous modern nation] move to [more prosperous modern nation]."

The argument doesn't hold. Besides the commonality of movement of people, the situations aren't remotely the same.

 

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30 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

Sorry, I don't understand. Are you saying that defenders of immigration are equating immigration with invasion, and that they're saying this is a good thing? Because I can't recall ever seeing that argument being made.

The argument often used is that Brits shouldn’t so offended by immigration, British culture isn’t a thing, we are a nation of immigrants. I mean what is a Brit? Are they Anglo Saxons? Norman’s, Viking’s , Roman? Picts or Celts etc etc 

This has been something said on this very board a couple of times in fact and it’s a pretty terrible argument in favour of immigrant as you point out 

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1 minute ago, Heartofice said:

The argument often used is that Brits shouldn’t so offended by immigration, British culture isn’t a thing, we are a nation of immigrants. I mean what is a Brit? Are they Anglo Saxons? Norman’s, Viking’s , Roman? Picts or Celts etc etc 

This has been something said on this very board a couple of times in fact and it’s a pretty terrible argument in favour of immigrant as you point out 

I'll concede that the argument that there's no such thing as British culture isn't particularly valid, though insofar as there's a "British" culture, it's pretty broad and heterogenous. But even allowing for the existence of British culture, it's under absolutely no threat from immigration.

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People who bang on about brown people taking over and/ or immigrants eventually being the majority have zero idea how demography works.

Nothing to see here except for the resident trolls going on about things they haven't bothered to actually study or look up.

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1 hour ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Was seriously waiting for someone to make that knee jerk response - a response which merely proves the point.

If the disadvantage of becoming a minority in one’s country is then self evident as you so aptly pointed out, it should clearly be avoided at all costs.

In 1776, majority of Americans was of British descent. Today, when you combine Americans of self-declared English, Scottish, Welsh and Scots-Irish descent, you get around 11% of population.

And yet, no one sane would argue that America was in better condition in 1776 than in 2019, or that individual Americans of British descent had better quality of life then compared to today.

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15 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Yes, I think conservatism, natiolism and xenophobia are intrinsically linked. 

Yes, exactly. But the fault lines on the left in the UK could be about to be exposed as well with McCluskey  now calling out Labour on the conference motion backing immigration, a motion I thought was confusing at the time. If you back a customs union, close alignment with the single market and are completely ok with free movement, then you should be explicitly backing Remain, right?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/13/mccluskey-tells-corbyn-defy-calls-extend-freedom-of-movement

15 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I assume you don't include openly racist parties like the AfD in that category. There I must say, I think right now Johnson would be pretty much to the right of them

I didn't think of AfD as being in the mainstream, yes. It's been a few years since I left Germany and I have followed recent events only from the outside. At the start of this conversation it didn't occur to me that May was actually one of traditional types of conservative European politician I was thinking of, in fact she is probably too far to the right of most them herself if anything. So, I'll leave other European parties out of it from now on completely for simplicity.

 

So, you have Trump who talks racist and does racist at the complete extreme of the spectrum.

Then you have May, who does not say anything openly racist, while talking a lot about immigration, which could be code, but does not  openly offend non-white races with her language (unlike Trump). And then she goes out and treats immigrants with no  human dignity I.e. in a completely rabidly racist way, but FWIW still not as bad as ICE not that that is any consolation. 

 Cameron seemed a decent sort of chap, but May was doing her thing as  his home secretary, so he has to take the responsibility for that as well. 

Now we come to Boris. The language in his Telegraph  articles was appalling. Yes, he was using code to ingratiate himself with the party faithful to win the nomination. It's fair enough to criticize him for that. He should be taken to task for a lot of other things too. In a normal state of affairs he should not be considered as a candidate for PM. But to paint him as a 'posh racist', strikes me as a bit misleading. That's actually Rees-Mogg & co. As an additional data point, while he wasn't exactly being faithful to her, Boris was married to Marina Wheeler for many years, and she's of half-Indian heritage.  Of course that doesn't absolve him of anything by itself, but adds to the other data points of cabinet appointments. So, sure he was saying racist things, but it's misleading to kind of paint him as another Trump or some BNP type.

I completely agree it's not on to be dog whistling to the extreme elements of the party, even if you are - or completely irrespective of - simultaneously trying to pick up socially conservative minority votes (well the non-Muslim ones at least) - but this is a key difference from the US really, the 'BAME' vote here is not as homegenous as AA and Hispanics in the US.

And all the talk of empire is piffle paffle (to use Boris' own vocabulary) and everybody knows it. Heck, even May was willing to do her best to get a trade deal with India. :lmao:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3917380/amp/Barefoot-Theresa-takes-Sam-Cam-s-sari-style.html

 

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3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Just couldn't help myself. :P

Huh, I was about to make a comment on that.  Hardly any American moaning about the levels of immigration brings up European’s colonization  and then acquisition of the land of Native Americans. Hell, I’ve even seen people complain “What if the Native Americans wanted to keep people out of their lands” as if their lands hadn’t been colonized and forcefully acquisitioned by the Euro-Americans in North-America already. And proceed to(totally not race related), moan about the Latin America and Mexican immigration levels. It’d be bad if in a couple decades if most of the US’ citizens are of non-white Hispanic and Asian descent due to immigration because...culture. It’s just happens the only way to maintain that culture is to make sure the majority is of the country is still white. And go on to say no one  wants to be a minority in their own country. Almost like their deliberating ignoring all the racial and ethnic groups that already exist in their society.  Like as a black iI would still be a minority in my own country even if whites are no longer the majority. Hell, based on their arguments all minorities currently in the US should endeavor to increase the flow of migrants from certain continents and countries to help aid in their quest in not being a minority in their own country. But then many of these same people complaining about immigration levels would cry identity politics. 

Also, Fiji is the perfect example of British colonialism, subjugating a place introducing ethnic conflict in it through literally pitting those who they see as inferiors in competition against each other for the resources Britain ultimately has it’s hands on  and having that fester over the course of decades.

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Why, if the ultimate outcome is the same? Most of the migration into Fiji was for economic reasons. Does that make a difference to the native Fijians who once ruled their land and are now a minority?

Indigenous Fijians have not been a minority in Fiji for literally over a decade. 

https://www.britannica.com/place/Fiji-republic-Pacific-Ocean/People

And, for the record most Indo-Fijians today are descended from indentured servants which really often were often practically no more than slaves,  given most couldn’t read the contract they were signing, were lied to about where they were going, and threatened with death should they try to go home, even if they fulfilled the obligations in their contract. Like, you literally might as well use all the death that had been caused by the Atlantic slave and subsequent assimilation and brutalization of millions for why long-term immigration is bad. 

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1 hour ago, Raja said:

People who bang on about brown people taking over and/ or immigrants eventually being the majority have zero idea how demography works.

Nothing to see here except for the resident trolls going on about things they haven't bothered to actually study or look up.

Please it’s all about protecting culture. What specific parts of the culture? How are they threatened by the immigrants being complained about? Who cares. All you need to know foreigners entering this country makes me feel queasy and angry, and that I don’t want to be called a xenophobe or racist when I can’t articulate why I feel this way. 

I’m being sarcastic.

Also, I have to object to the  classification of mere trolls. I’m sure most are very genuine in their quite frankly I think stupid beliefs and think they’re putting forth rational arguments. 

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1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

People who hate Boris say nasty things about him says Deputy editor of the Guardian. 
 

Is this news?

If he's so popular with the people, why hasn't he been able find a place where he can go on walkabout without getting seriously heckled and being forced to run away, tail between his legs? Heckled, I should say, by normal, regular people, the sort of people he needs votes from in order to pursue his idiotic and dangerous agenda.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

If he's so popular with the people, why hasn't he been able find a place where he can go on walkabout without getting seriously heckled and being forced to run away, tail between his legs? Heckled, I should say, by normal, regular people, the sort of people he needs votes from in order to pursue his idiotic and dangerous agenda.

 

 

Bit of a dilemma isn’t it. People hate him, yet Tories are leading in the polls. Must be be frustrating for you 

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