UKIP poster boy is a racist immigrant, film at 11

[Martinus]

Wait, what? I missed the "flags and vans" thing but what I now read makes me think I misunderstood it somehow.

My - obviously misunderstood - understanding is that a MP posted a picture of a house with flags and a white van in front of it, and titled it "image from Rochester".

And then everybody had a bout of collective insanity.

[Sheilbh]

Yep. Basically.

We've moved to a new stage of political correctness that is based on what we think she was thinking when she sent that message. As Miliband has 'never been so angry' she had to go.

[The Brain]

I don't understand anymore.

[Tamas]

Yep. Basically.

We've moved to a new stage of political correctness that is based on what we think she was thinking when she sent that message. As Miliband has 'never been so angry' she had to go.

The nasty thing about these things is that often when person A attacks person B for the "true" meaning of person B's comment, what is being revealed for sure are person A's true opinions on the matter.

[Agelastus]

Wait, what? I missed the "flags and vans" thing but what I now read makes me think I misunderstood it somehow.

My - obviously misunderstood - understanding is that a MP posted a picture of a house with flags and a white van in front of it, and titled it "image from Rochester".

"White van" = "white van man" = "Sun reader" (due to an old column IIRC) = "uneducated white trash".

"English Flag" = "English Nationalist" = "Racist".

"Image from Rochester" = "Image from the right wing section of the constituency" = "Hey, even if UKIP/The Tories win it's only because they're uneducated racist scumbags."

Probably anyway.

And then everybody had a bout of collective insanity.

Yep. Collective Total Insanity.

Especially (as has been pointed out) since there was an England-Scotland match a few days ago; football seems to be the one time that English people are not being racist when they put out the Cross of St. George. Allegedly.

[Not that I'd ever consider putting out the flag myself...that's for those overexpressive Scottish Oiks, not for a reserved Briton like me... ]

[Gups]

Yep. Basically.

We've moved to a new stage of political correctness that is based on what we think she was thinking when she sent that message. As Miliband has 'never been so angry' she had to go.

C'mon, there can't be any doubt what message she intended to convey even though it's obviously trivial it absolutely plays up to the narrative of Lab pols hating on the white working class. They had to do something once the Sun put it on their front page and probably resignation/sacking was the only way to lance it. But then you say -  she cocked up, she's resigned, that's the end of it. You don't make transparently false attempts to identify yourself with white van man.

[derspiess]

Fascinating.

[Tamas]

I think all this concentrating on idiotic issues is in a big part because true choice in mainstream politics have diead.

When you look at mainstream political parties you have choices between a mild welfare state and a slightly less mild welfare state, with no real ideological difference.

[Zanza]

I think all this concentrating on idiotic issues is in a big part because true choice in mainstream politics have diead.

When you look at mainstream political parties you have choices between a mild welfare state and a slightly less mild welfare state, with no real ideological difference.

There is no sensible alternative to a mild welfare state, so obviously all mainstream parties agree on the general policy.

[Duque de Bragança]

Sheilbh is strongly tempted by them.

No, he is not. Sheilbh just has a fetish for weird politics.

And basing an entire identity and lifestyle on a fetish is bad, Mart?

 

[Jacob]

I think all this concentrating on idiotic issues is in a big part because true choice in mainstream politics have diead.

When you look at mainstream political parties you have choices between a mild welfare state and a slightly less mild welfare state, with no real ideological difference.

There does seem to be a desire for choice on what to do about Hungarian immigrants et. al., even if there's a general consensus on the mild welfare state.

[Sheilbh]

I saw two white vans on the high street today. My heart swelled with pride and respect

[Richard Hakluyt]

Ed needs to book his Yorkie bar scoffing photo-op asap ........

[garbon]

I saw two white vans on the high street today. My heart swelled with pride and respect

[Warspite]

I'm sure she was just an avid white van spotter. Come on chaps, there was a clear implication in that tweet.

Back on the EU: I was discussing this with a Spanish (anglophile) scholar yesterday. He is terrified the UK will leave because in his mind, it actually unravels the entire European project, as Britain is a counterweight to Franco-German competition.

I'm now starting to think that the debate on EU membership - in the form we are having it, dominated by immigation - is actually poisonous in a way we don't realise. Why? Because it's distracting from the real problems in the country.

So mass immigration causes inevitable problems, we are told.

For example, house prices shooting up. But in what way is the free movement of EU labour linked to a failed housing policy of the last twenty years, particularly in the South East? The movement of Poles and Lithuanians to London has been completely unrelated to the inability of either the private or public sector to build good quality housing in sufficient quantity. Even as it came as a surprise in the post 2004 period, we have had over a decade to tackle the shortage of housing stock (which was a problem BEFORE mass EU migration, anyhow). We know the problems; archaic planning legislation, NIMBYism, a London green belt that suits the realities of the 1920s and not the 2020s, land hoarding and councils that can't build public housing. None of these are EU problems.

Or let's take pressure on public services. Now, we know that EU migrants have paid their way so far, so there is no argument that they have been a fiscal drain. So the real issue is why the various levels of government have not tackled the pressure on the capacity public services at the local level. Beyond the fact that the influx was a result of other EU states not opening their borders, is this completely an EU problem - or is a long running problem of the centralisation of the British state in which the levels of government most in contact with the realities of an area do not have the autonomy, especially in terms of budgets, to respond to demand? Given we know that these immigrants have paid their way, we have to ask where that money went, and why it has not been used to sufficiently address the capacity issues of public services, or why local authorities have not responded to this movement in the appropriate manner. (Incidentally, a lot of our local services rely on immigration, particularly health for aged Britons. Let's not forget that.)

And if we are talking about the unique pressure the SE of England has faced, well there you're getting into the problem that has afflicted England and the rest of the UK for decades upon decades - the festering north-south divide. If there were more centres of prosperity in Britain - if Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds had all been as appealing as London for migrants - there the pressure points will have been reduced. Yet the inability of the UK to achieve a regional balance to its economy is not the fault of the EU. On the contrary, EU development funds have gone to the poorest parts of the UK precisely to address this problem. And indeed for what centres of manufacturing remain, access to the single market is relatively more developed for goods than services, which is the advantage of the SE. And you know what, if we leave the EU, it's going to be a damn sight harder to address this divide. (But don't worry - the rich in London will stay rich.)

I'd be very interested to hear which of these deep structural problems, whether economic, legal or political, will be resolved by departing the EU. Because aside from part of the pressure on local services, I do not see how the EU is actually the real cause of these problems. They are British problems that the British have failed to address.

Like Gups and Shelf I know there are big problems with the EU, particularly over the implications of Eurozone integration for the rest, and the continuing alienation of average Europeans from the EU itself. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that the way the problems of immigration and European integration have manifested themselves will actually be solved by skipping out of the EU. Particularly as we are then in a situation where we have even less influence on continental legislation.