Are the Brits excited about Donald Trump's visit planned for this July?
Sadly, few people are excited about Donald Trump’s visit to the UK for all the reasons mentioned below - he is not a man to be admired, respected or liked; in fact, I can’t think of a single positive word to say about him. For most of the time he seems barely literate and has trouble stringing more than a few words together - and most of those he does manage to get out make little sense to the listener. He speaks without engaging his brain and forgets what he has said moments later, so could well be inherently dangerous; he also tells extraordinary lies, lies that can easily be proved to be lies (his victory, voting numbers, numbers attending his inauguration - on, and on and on they go).But, and this is a very big BUT, he is still leader of the American people and, like it or not, more than 57 million people voted for him to be President (OK, that’s only 28.5% of the eligible voters but it’s nearly the population of the UK).So, disliked by many - if not most - in my (reluctant) opinion, he should still be accorded the respect that his position holds, as representative of the USA.The irony of it all is that, in the past, many cruel dictators have come to Britain - and have been accorded a State visit - yet no-one has demonstrated against them. Since her accession, on the recommendation of her government of the day, the Queen has met, and hosted - among others - Nicolae Ceausescu (Romania), Bashar Al-Assad (Syria), Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire), Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe), Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan), Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Idi Amin (Uganda 1971).And now we have Trump, who is a sleazeball; who, most of the time, behaves in an extremely unpleasant way yet, as far as I know, has not killed or tortured his enemies, nor gone to war on his people, or done any of the terrible things all of the above have done - and yet his visit is polarizing the nation.For what it is worth, I don’t think there should be any demonstrations against the man, whatever sort of character he has (and I can’t stand him, even his voice makes me cringe), because he is President of the USA and, as such, deserves respect.
Why is there so much more anti-immigrant sentiment in the US and UK than on continental Europe, even though there are more immigrants in continental Europe?
"Why is there so much more anti-immigrant sentiment in the US and UK than on continental Europe, even though there are more immigrants in continental Europe?"There aren't, at least in the U.S. Germany had 473 attacks on immigrants and foreigners by right-wing extremists, and 1,110 by left-wing extremists last year Germany reports 20% rise in attacks on foreigners - BBC News This is compared to 418 attacks total on Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. Table 5. 220 by whites against Hispanic immigrants and 98 by blacks against Hispanic immigrants. We don't record political affiliation by attack, but instead the race of the attacker and victim.I often hear Europeans talking about how bad race relations are in the U.S. when they are way worse in Europe in almost every country. Open discrimination against ethnic minorities like Gypsies is even worse, where some EU countries literally evict their Gypsies and they then become migrants in other EU countries. And then the other EU countries do the same thing And then the immigrants in Berlin move into a school, and the police force them out againhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=... In the U.S. anti-immigrant sentiment and violence is also more of a border-state thing, and is not so common on either coasts. In Europe it seems to be prevalent in every political ideology, except for the center left where people focus a lot on rights for immigrants for Middle Eastern immigrants, while not noticing the obvious and even worse discrimination and human rights violations against other immigrant groups right under their noses.
Is excessive UK immigration the main reason for Brexit?
The main reason for the Leave win in the Brexit referendum is the London bubble.London is a world of its own, where people live in a kind of parallel universe. They have no comprehension of what life is like ‘outside the walls’ in a place like Hull or Barnsley - or worse still 20 miles outside those places.A London politician represents the peak of isolation in modern Britain: a person who has no clue. The degree of isolation and stupidity can be gauged by the fact one of them bet a huge amount on the outcome of a straight yes/no vote by all the population on whether or not they thought the current system is working well.There are any number of issues resulting from the utter incompetence and corruption inherent in the current system, and uncontrolled immigration is one of those, for some people. It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for those most affected if they have no job, no prospect of ever having a job, belong to a family in which no one has ever had a job, can’t get a doctor’s appointment, and know that immigration runs at around 400,000 a year and must have some influence on their situation.On the other hand there are a whole bunch of issues connected with EU membership. Some areas have been completely destroyed by it, such as Cornwall, since the local economy depended on fishing and now there is virtually none.Business owners are another category of protesters. Here is a blog by a business owner who is overjoyed to be out of the EU (if that ever materialises, of course). He employs around 50 people, his firm generates a lot of tax every year, and buys hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of goods and services, so I guess you could say he is a stakeholder with a right to be heard.#Brexit Fallout | Dick PuddlecoteHe’s got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about the massive numbers of spongers on the economy such as the Public Health industry, but just ignore that.It’s up to you which opinion you value the most: that of the people who generate the money and jobs and tax; or the poor, whining, butthurt urban socialist elites who see their gravy train evaporating, and are so deceitful and fearful of finding genuine reasons that might hurt their argument they label everyone who voted Leave as racists, when all that many of those people wanted was to just get rid of all the insanely corrupt EU legislation.All the noise is coming from the angry urban elite. That doesn’t make it right.
Is Brexit more about racism than economics?
The desire for Britain to leave the EU has absolutely nothing to do with economics and everything to do with the existential angst of nationalists.There is some racism involved because nationalism requires some other to contrast against the nation, and that deliberately unfavourable comparison can easily lead to open racism.More accurately, it is xenophobia, the irrational fear of foreigners, that was expressed in the campaign for Brexit.The best analysis I have found to explain what looks like the total irrationality of Brexiters is Fintan O’Toole’s book, Heroic Failure - Brexit and the politics of pain.The first chapter describes the pleasures of self-pity. The two elements of which is a presumption of superiority and a resentment of others success. That nicely explains English exceptionalism and the ludicrous claims about the nature and actions of the EU. My own analysis was that Brexiters had a victim complex, but O’Toole’s explanation now seems better to me.From there we have some of the cheerleaders talking as though the EU were the enemy, and even comparing it to the Third Reich. Besides being utterly unhelpful it is wildly inaccurate. We are talking about trading partners, not an enemy or going on a war footing. But it is the need to demonise this supposed enemy which has led to the most intemperate of language and open racism.The single largest issue for Brexit voters was immigration; all immigration. It did not matter that we could always control the largest share, which is non-EU incomers, or that it was only a lack of a tracking system which prevented us making sure that EU incomers had a limited stay if they had no job. The hatred of immigrants was a central plank in most Leave discussions before the referendum. That was pure and unalloyed racism stoked by a rabble-rousing press.
Why did the British people vote to leave the E.U.? What factors led to the Brexit outcome?
52% of the voting population (the ones who count I guess, in a democracy) went with the 'leave the EU' option. Politically I believe the government MUST follow this through, and David Cameron is resigning as prime minister.David Cameron to resign as Prime Minister over EU referendum resultThe main reasons put forward by the LEAVE campaign seemed to resonate aroundimmigration reaching a breaking pointUncapped migration of workforce between European union members, over which 'Britain is not able to make its own laws or controls' due to the European Union MembershipLosing control of setting British rules/laws/quotas, to 'Brussels'Amount of British money being sent to the EU (£350m/week was the amount quoted by Nigel Farage)A couple of 'sour grapes' points,If the entire electorate had voted, I believe the remain vote would have held the majority.A lot of on-the-fence LEAVE voters felt remorse following the referendum results to actually LEAVE the European Union. Furious Leave voters want to change their decision because they didn't think UK would actually leaveThe entire campaign and media coverage seemed to focus entirely on immigration, and not on the longstanding economic ramifications of so called 'BREXIT' (which admittedly neither side committed to a prediction) ... Leaving a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" effect.As a general observation, although media were generally 'pro remain', there didn’t seem to be any passionate or extrordinarily convincing leadership or case for the REMAIN case, not so for the LEAVE campaign which had been building up fervour and momentum for months and months.I do hope we as a nation have made the right choice in the long run, the Brexit proponents seem to have such strong views, which are hopefully founded upon common sense and intelligence, rather than just passion and bias.
How do white citizens of Great Britain refer to black citizens of Great Britain?
I once saw an American female comedy special on Netflix - I forget who - claiming that she spoke to someone from Britain and asked this exact question. She then claimed that the answer was “We just call them…” and then used a word beginning with N that I can neither say nor type. Let’s deal with that right now: this is not true; it is a slander. That word is as sensitive here as it is in America.I tend to use words like “Steve”, “Andy” and so on. I find it helpful in general as it distinguishes which person you are talking about.If there is a need to subdivide the British population by race, and I almost never feel that need, then I would use either Black or sometimes Afro-Caribbean. The latter is a bit dated now, but I do it specifically to annoy certain right wingers who use black as an insult.Mostly, we don’t talk about race. There is some suggestion that we should. It would be a lie to claim that Britain is a haven of racial equality where every problem is solved. There are certainly problems of equality of opportunity - white kids tend on average to have more opportunities despite generally achieving less academically than other ethnic groups.If I were presented two people who do the same job in the same place, it would not occur to me to distinguish them by race. If they are of different genders I would mention that before race.Lastly, we rarely do the thing of prefixing citizenship with origin. There are no African-Britons. You do sometimes hear people talk about the “British Asian” community, which refers to people whose family came to Britain in the last few hundred years from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh (not Japan, as Asian would imply in America).