I'm an England fan and heart broken today ….

This morning on the radio (LBC) a German Lady was in tears, she has lived here for 43 years and she told a horrid tale.

Yesterday she has had dog shit smeared over her front door, while the neighbours in her middle class street have turned their backs on her.

Sadly we’ve all heard stories like this in the last few days…. I’m sure you are as angry as me, whichever way you voted.

I want our country back … My welcoming, open-minded, mixed race/ethnicity, tolerant society that WAS the envy of the world.

As I’ve walked across town, I hated the fact that people may be walking beside me in fear… In fear of their country, in fear of their fellow citizen, maybe in fear of me.

I wanted to tell the Spanish dude who served me in Pret, that he was welcome.

Of course I didn’t, British reserve and all that.

But I had a thought …. How about if I was wearing a badge? A badge that let him know I supported a society that was pulling together for EVERYONE …. ( We’ve been told to pull together have we not ?)

So is there such a badge or symbol ?

If not … should we/could we make one ??

It needs to be inclusive for all good people, who voted either way….. so an EU flag is a no no.

The last time people started wearing badges like that, it didn’t end well for them…

Great idea. I’m all for it. I know exactly how you feel. (Rubbish thread title though; thought it was about football, pleasantly surprised)

The last time people started wearing badges like that, it didn’t end well for them…

I think the rainbow badge worked quite well, shame it has been taken it would be perfect for this occasion.

Shop round the corner put this out at the weekend:

It’d be a shame to let the ignorant racists take this vote as some kind of affirmation

My contribution to this is printing out the EU flag and placing it in my front window

Also ordered a badge.

As I’ve walked across town, I hated the fact that people may be walking beside me in fear… In fear of their country, in fear of their fellow citizen, maybe in fear of me.

I felt something very similar when I walked in to town yesterday. The snidey veiled racism that has always existed seems to have been legitimised by the referendum vote and it’s a sorry state of affairs.

Not sure about the badge but I agree that this needs to be challenged somehow because that really isn’t a society that i want any part of.

I think the rainbow badge worked quite well, shame it has been taken it would be perfect for this occasion.

It’s not my symbol to adopt but I’d be willing to put good money on the majority of xenophobes also being homophobes.

C4 News had some footage of an older gentleman who tearfully took flowers into the Polish Cultural Centre in London (earlier defaced with hate-filled graffiti). It’s easy to think that all our values have been washed away by recent events, but hopefully people from the EU and beyond living and working in our country will see examples of this rather than the racism and threats.

the very thing we as a nation fought against.
What an angry, fearful, paranoid little island this has become.

Don’t confuse a small % of d*cks with the country at large.

I’m going with an EU badge as well, in the absence of anything else it’s an easily recognized and understood symbol.

The trouble is that the small (is it really?) % of racist dicks now believe they are in the majority and have a mandate to behave like this, i hope i get the chance to confront such racists.

Don’t confuse a small % of d*cks with the country at large.

That’s the problem, the referendum result has done exactly that, it’s given the ‘d*cks’ the impression they speak for the ‘silent majority’ and that they’re now free to act accordingly.

It’s going to be a hell of a task convincing the world they don’t.

Ro5ey, well said. I don’t do social media or the suchlike but really feel the need for the world to know that I am not a part of what is being seen across the globe. That I wanted to be a part of an inclusive society and in no way does Farage et al speak for me.
I like the idea of a badge on a local level I just wish there was a way to shout it out to the world.
I guess the key thing is to not ignore what is going on, to be able to face up to bigotry and in tolerance and say “NOT IN MY NAME”, easier said than done I know, but why should it be easy for me when others are unfairly picked on.

I said similar the day after the vote. I can live with the result, and if we do leave then I’m sure some very smart people will do the best they can for us to give us a chance to recover our economy.

But I also learnt that our country is far from the caring compassionate multicultural place i thought it was. Sure, there has always been a nasty underbelly, but I didn’t know quite how far the ‘passive’ element ran.

It was possible to choose Leave for reasons other than ‘immigration’ but face facts, that has been the deciding factor for many Leave voters and we risk it being seen as the only factor now that these attacks are starting in the wake of the referendum.

Good article here on the debate in general

https://katyboo1.wordpress.com/2016/06/27/happy-now/

but my feelings absolutely are in Part 6

Sixthly: I am watching, over the last few days, in absolute horror as the far right start to move out of the shadows and back into centre stage again. My time line has been pinging with people reporting hate crime. There’s even a Twitter feed for it where they are gathering information in order to report it. It’s appearing in reports on my community Facebook page. It’s in my daughter’s school. It’s like someone took the lid off Pandora’s Box. Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating. Don’t tell me that reports can be twisted. Maybe they can, but it’s being taken seriously enough by everyone that matters and it is tabled for discussion in the House of Commons this week. It’s not as if they haven’t got other things to talk about. It’s happening and I’m appalled but sadly, not surprised.

Apropos of this, please do not tell me: ‘I’m not a racist’ if you voted leave. I get that, but I said that it would open the door to the far right, and it has and to pretend it hasn’t, and to not look or think about it is cowardly. And to say ‘I’m not a racist,’ is to imply that I’m making all this about you. I’m not, but I have a right to get angry and upset about the consequences of a decision you were a part of, however noble your intentions.

Honest decent people from both sides of the vote need to come together to condemn these vile attacks. If you don’t, particularly those from the leave side of the debate you are risking being lumped in with the people who are perpetuating them.

It’ll be tough to get Leave supporters to adopt the EU badge, and Remain supporters wearing it, it’ll just be lost as a Pro-EU symbol. How about one of those coloured ribbons, in Blue and Yellow?

My concern too.

There’s going to be a lot of nasty xenophobic folks who are going to feel VERY empowered by this result.

I hope those of you who voted to Leave are happy with that!

now believe they are in the majority and have a mandate to behave like this,

They aren’t and they don’t. Both sides need to rise above it and act properly and let anyone who isn’t be dealt with appropriately and no one resort to taking things into their own hands. Boris did yesterday praise immigrants for their contribution to the UK, hopefully we’ll see similar messages again, and things will die down once the dust settles.

Inspired by the Rainbow

what do you think ?

Get it started on Face Book as a profile pic and lets take it from there ?

Happy to wait from a better idea

edit … I didn’t realise from where I pulled this pic but see here …. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25222891 …. 4th paragraph

I hope those of you who voted to Leave are happy with that!

That’s too harsh. many many Leave supporters had their reasons other than xenophobia and will be as appalled. I disagree that they are to ‘blame’ for what we’re seeing but I think they need to take an active step away from that side of it.

things will die down once the dust settles.

I’m not convinced it will. In fact I’m worried about the opposite, when the racists see that nothing’s likely to change for all the people already here – whether they be legally migrated EU citizens living / working / studying in the UK, or the many generations of British-Asians or British-Caribbean or whoever – I don’t think they’ll become more accepting and tolerant, there’ll be a active backlash because they haven’t all been sent ‘home’ like they thought they were promised.

I’ve seen a lot of teenagers going round in hoodies with “Leavers 2016” emblazoned on them. Heartless Bastards.

That’s too harsh.

Really?

A possible consequence of voting Leave is the empowerment of right wing politics that previously didn’t have the courage to show themselves.

Y or N?

Nothing harsh there – just a statement of fact.

I think if your action has the potential to bring about something distasteful then that must bear on your thinking. As you also must take some responsibility for those consequences.

I share your sadness Ro5ey – and it is not something we should tolerate in this country. As others have said, we need to rise above this and make it clear to the majority of immigrants in the country that they are still welcome, that they are still human beings that we share this planet with and that we are happ to live side by side with them. I say most, because a small number are not welcome. But that’s also true of a chunk of our own native inhabitants too.

For the record, I was a Leave voter and immigration, as such, was not my main reason for voting that way. The only part that immigration played in my thoughts was that we do need a way to have some control of how many can emigrate to this country. Membership of the EU made it possible that there was a degree of not being able to control it. Nor was there any part of my decision to vote Leave because I dislike Europeans, because I don’t. The majority of my friends and colleagues who also voted Leave had broadly the same reasons as me. I would like to think that the majority of Leave voters were similarly considered, tolerant and rational but the truth is we do have an underbelly of decidedly undesirable, ignorant and intolerant people who are potentially tarnishing this country and our reputation abroad. Desperately sad.

This is what I wrote on facebook this morning, it was the first time I had felt confident to put my thoughts down since the result without drowning them out in expletives.

Sadly ironic that pictures of old soldiers in WWII and in remembrance are being used to justify hatred against migrants. When they fought so bravely to defend Poland from invasion, when they died on the same battlefields as Polish and Ukrainian soldiers fighting for the same freedoms.
But now we dehumanise them, call them a swarm, call them “them” and not “us”. We blame them for the faults of our own government and vote to put up barriers and isolate ourselves from them.
Automation and globalisation has changed the world, and the benefits have not been shared equally, but Thursdays result was not a vote to resolve the problems we face, it was a result born from ignorance, hatred and racism.

ps I don’t like the idea of a banner based on the union jack, that could also be hijacked by the racists.

Yeah – shocked to see on the news yesterday that Polish kids handed ‘go home’ cards and more abuse of muslim kids.
The racist morons suddenly think it’s ok to raise their heads. Referendum was a great idea.

@mrlebowski

I agree with you, that their vote risks legitimising this racist element whether wilfully or not. I don’t dispute that. But rather than condemn them immediately, I’m offering the chance for them to speak against it. But make no mistake – staying silent in the face of the kind of stuff seen on that tram on the C4 news clip is not acceptable. There is no neutral ground anymore you’re either against it or you’re deemed to accept it.

Mrs Wilko works for a dairy importer and her boss is Greek, he moved his family over here some time ago. The morning we all woke up to the ‘UK votes to leave’ news, he left his house as normal to go to work. His next door neighbour rushed out to greet him and said ‘Ha ha, you’ll have to eff off back to Greece now’

Nothing much else to say other than this made me very sad, along with so many other similar tales 🙁

The racist morons suddenly think it’s ok to raise their heads. Referendum was a great idea.

our mainstream politicians have acquiesced with racist and far right groups because it temporarily suited their agendas. They are so monumentally arrogant and stupid (Hi Boris) that they thought that once they’d serve their purpose they could be discarded.

Well it doesn’t work like that. As they are now discovering.

These groups have now taken this as a tacit endorsement of their worldview. A sort of official nod and a wink to carry on, as they were ‘onside’. Its another reason to be absolutely bloody furious at the shameful way the leavers have conducted their campaign. It seems there was no level to which they wouldn’t sink

And for what…?

When you’re talking about ‘this country’, are you talking about England or Britain? Or England and Wales?

Becuase I don’t think this is a British problem, it’s more of an English issue (or England and Wales).

It’s fueled by a particular brand of right-wing English/British nationalism which fills the media.

I think it’s a British problem. There is plenty of Scottish/Northern Irish nationalism that exists just as there is here in Wales.

I think it’s a British problem. There is plenty of Scottish/Northern Irish nationalism that exists just as there is here in Wales.

I’m not aware of Scottish or Welsh nationalism pushing intolerance and xenophobic attitudes. They don’t have a media or politicians who are pumping those kinds of messages out.

I have reported copa to the moderators for turning a discussion of sympathy for victims into a nationalistic argument.

Lads, ladies

Very happy to have opened the debate on this important topic

But we can’t just talk about it

However it has happened, whoever’s to blame …. door has been opened on this hatred… We need to slam it shut

Deeds speak a thousand words

Wearing one little emblem will make a difference if enough do it.

Maybe the multicolored flag isn’t so good… maybe the Spanish guy might have wanted to met me later for some continental romance 😆

Cmon guys we talk a good game on here…. lets do something

Any other ideas?

Binners you’re a graphic designer, I think, what you got ??

No matter how noble or cogent your reasons for voting Leave were to you personally, the way the Leave campaign was conducted by its main proponents and their cheerleeders in the popular press, veering between dog-whistle racism and megaphone racism, all this was ever going to do was to empower and embolden the right and the far right. The genie is now out of the bottle. Good luck stuffing it back in.

The boneheaded yeomanry of Merrie Englande are now under the impression that they have 17 million ideological bedfellows – and if you are in any way different from them, then you’re fair game in their eyes. You’re part of the problem. They’ve gone ahead and “taken their country back” – from you, the outsider, The Other.

I have lived in England for the majority of my adult life. I love the place and I love the people. And the beer. And a hundred other things.

But waking up and seeing that result, seeing Farage crowing and being cheered to the rafters by Le Pen, Wilders and Golden Dawn, felt like waking up and seeing a post-it Note stuck to the alarm clock.

“So long, Jock. England has left you for Nigel Farage.”

I honestly thought, is this a country I want to live in?

And if I felt that, how much more intense is that feeling if you’re from further afield right now?

Did you see the post on the daily mail?

“A British man has made a video warning people from ethnic minorities on ‘safety precautions’ in the post-Brexit climate.
Nalin Dissanayake is seen walking along the street and flashing his British passport at anyone that walks by after reports of an increase in racial abuse since the Brexit vote.”

I have reported copa to the moderators for turning a discussion of sympathy for victims into a nationalistic argument.

I didn’t read that into copa’s post at all. It would be quite interesting to know whether it’s happening in Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland as well as England.

A badge, how about one worn by immigrants who laid down their lives for the UK, really f with the Daily Mail reader’s minds

No. 300 Polish Bomber Squadron RAF

or maybe

No. 303 (“Ko?ciuszko”) Polish Fighter Squadron RAF

I work in Barnsley; a town known for racism. The factory I work at employs a large number of Eastern Europeans.

The relationship between our Barnsley and Eastern European employees is very good and a lot of them socialise together outside of work.

This has not changed since Friday and a lot of our employees are gutted with what is happening.

The problem with towns like Barnsley is the lazy w****rs who do not want to work but want to blame being unemployed on someone else.

It would be quite interesting to know whether it’s happening in Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland as well as England.

Some idiot was apparently putting anti-immigrant stickers up on lamp posts down on the Broomielaw, they were being pulled down as fast as he could put them up. Apart from that I haven’t heard of anything around here.

It’s happening in South Wales.

As for badge design – thinking about it. Problem is, the only time Europe has been united, it’s had this flag: