so BJ was born in the US of A. He’s american

I’d love to be recommended some reading btw

I can honestly say I have no idea where BJ was born, please educate me.

Again I stand by my position, I don’t know where big mo was born. If he’s 1st gen immigrant and commits a crime deport him. If he has kids who were born here and they commit a crime it’s a different discussion.

These are very specific examples. Shamima begum I disagree with her citizenship being revoked, I think she should be allowed back and get a fair trial .
I have no idea who Ben Stokes is so cannot comment

and I disagree. Anyone born here is british as far as I’m concerned

I stand corrected

Again I’m no fan of the tories, I think their 12/13 years of government have been terrible.

Scruff i’m not sure I understand your point.

brownperson again I love your contribution, you make very valid points. I’d like to see the data that being born here doesn’t automatically grant citizenship. I’ve never heard of this, perhaps that’s ignorance on my part. You mention windrush, I think that’s a shameful part of our history but as I said if someone is born here then they are British as far as I’m concerned.

Again I’d like to stress this isn’t a white/black/brown issue. I’d have the same attitude if hundreds of thousands of british people decided to move to say Nigeria. I think that would be a problem for the native Nigerians.

The same as anyone else born overseas

ernie i hope we could agree that foreign criminals should not be allowed to move  here

TJ I completely agree that the torys are terrible, I cannot stress this enough. The tories can get ****

apologies ernie, I didn’t see your full post but yes white European should be considered the same as anyone else 

That’s a fair comment. I believe someone from overseas can become a citizen, however I think there’s still a distinction to be made between someone who is born here and an immigrant who obtains citizenship. For example if I was to move to another country and was to commit a crime, any crime, I would expect to be deported back to my country of origin. I think this is fair.

I also have a question for you brownperson. Above you describe Boris Johnson as far right. I personally have no love for BJ I think he’s awful, a self serving, lying, corrupt, (can I swear on here?) piece of shit. The one thing I wouldn’t describe him as is far right. BY what metric would you describe him as such?

To brown person I’ll address your questions.

‘As a country we should look after our own citizens first’ I’d like to make clear that I consider our own citizens to be anyone born here, whether they’re white, black, brown or anything else. That being said people in our country are struggling right now, with cost of living, cost of housing, cost of everything. This doesn’t effect the rich, it hits middle income families hard, it hits low income families harder still. Anyone who was struggling already is now in serious trouble. These people need our help, it’s through no fault of there own that they are in this situation. It’s my opinion that these people should be prioritised over immigrants. There’s only so much to go around, however if after helping these people (our citizens) we can afford to help immigrants then that is a very good thing to do and should be encouraged.

‘the 50% thing’ I was wrong and I accept that, see above.

‘genuine immigrant concerns’ see point one

Again the 50% claim was a big mistake on my part. I shouldn’t throw stats around that I cannot back up. I fully accept that I need to have a good think on why I was led to believe that was accurate.

sorry brownperson I wrote a somewhat long reply to you but I got a bad gateway thing when I tried to post it. I need to go out for a few hours but I’d love to continue the discussion when I get back. I think you raise valid points.

and again I’d like to stress that this wasn’t specifically about immigration, that was just an example. I more wanted to understand what far right means in the UK today

damn I’m not sure where to start. To TJ yes I Think the ned from a deprived area of glasgow has a far more similar culture and income compared to the guy from say somalia (I give this example as I have a somalian friend)

brownperson I’ll do my very best to answer your questions please list them.

I’d like to reiterate I’m in no way against immigration I just think we need to have a sensible discussion about it without insults being thrown around. 

Furthermore I’m more than happy to change my position. I don’t claim to be the most knowledgeable well informed person out there, I try my best to have an informed opinion hence me posting on this thread. I want debate and to have my position challenged.

Yes I have and I disagree

But across the UK people have, generally speaking a similar culture and income. There’s not much difference between someone living in manchester and london. There’s a massive difference between someone living in Manchester and say Syria.

I think your idea could work if there were no inequalities between people around the world but the reality is there are. If we were to adopt your strategy surely everyone in the LEDC as it was termed when I was at college would move here where the standard of life is much higher?

To me it would be better if we helped poorer countries get richer rather than allowing everyone who wants to to move here.

As I said I cannot find the data to back up my 50% claim so I’d like to retract it

You correctly asserted that I’d presented a straw man argument earlier, I’d argue that this is also a straw man.

This is an interesting idea, in theory it seems great but I struggle to see how it would work in practice

I can’t kind the data to back up my claim about 50% of social housing being occupied by people not born here. I’d like to retract that statement, apologies

dazh you make a very interesting point and I completely agree that people are people, I strongly believe that all human life has value. Where I think we might disagree is that if was to follow your logic to its conclusion no country would have borders and people could move wherever they wished. Would you agree with this or have I misrepresented you?

It most certainly is a straw man dazh, you’re correct. You ask what the number should be, the answer is I don’t know. I think less than current levels though. 10 million is obviously over the top, however if current trends continue 1-2 million entirely possible.

As you say lack of services to support them and lack of housing is certainly a concern. I believe (again happy to be corrected) that 50% of our social housing is occupied by people not born in this country, this IMO is a huge concern. As a country we should look after our own citizens first.

Brucewee you make a valid point about boiling it down to an over simplification, I was responding to the point dazh made saying do we need a maximum number of immigrants. The point I was trying to make is that whether you’re for, against or somewhere in between there must be a max amount that a country can take.

I feel like I’ve derailed the thread somewhat, this wasn’t meant to be about immigration more about what the far right looks like in the uk today.

I’d be happy to answer your question but maybe it would be better in it’s own thread.

My concern is that if everyone with (IMO) genuine immigration concerns is labelled as far right this normalises the ‘far right’ as a position which could lead to a resurgence of genuine racist fascist thinking

thepodge this is exactly the point. As I understand it (and I’m more than happy to be corrected) the definition of far left/right is the extreme of each position. This depends on where and when we’re talking about. The far right in 1930s germany looks very different to the far right in 1960s soviet russia.

I think we do yes. Surely you wouldn’t argue that letting in say 10 million immigrants per year would be desirable?

I think your definition of far right is pretty good, I’d argue that nothing I’ve said falls under that category which is why I posted on this thread. I’m not trying to troll or anything like that, I’m just genuinely interested what far right means in the UK right now.

thepodge I have indeed heard of a history book. Why would you presume that everyone who moves here is a positive asset?

Dazh by maximum number of people I meant maximum number of immigrants per year not total population, apologies if this was unclear. As I’m sure you know we have declining birthrates which is often used as a reason for immigration, I could perhaps argue that government policy of importing people to make up the shortfall is an example of as you say ‘governments trying to control population levels is a very dangerous business which always has unintended consequences’

I’m not particularly trying to focus on immigration it was just an example I thought of to try and understand what is meant by ‘far right’ in the UK in 2023

thepodge please point out the rest of my bollox. Can you clarify what you mean by ‘multicultural melting pot for centuries’?

Interesting. So would you say that 750k net immigration is fine? (I presume you would but don’t want to put words into your mouth) If so would you say there’s an upper limit on how many we can take, 1m, 2m, 5m etc and would putting a number on it make it ‘far right’?

Kelvin you make a good point and that’s the way things should be, personally I don’t see it as a left/right issue. I do stand by my statement that it’s difficult to have the conversation without terms like far right being thrown around though. Just a few posts above yours MSP said that the position I layed out would be considered far right

I would certainly agree that the small boats are a distraction from the real problems MSP. I think the point I’m trying to get at is that there must be a maximum number of people that is desirable as a country and that it’s currently impossible to have the discussion because anyone who tries is automatically labelled as racist or far right.

Interesting, seems reasonable.

So what if my reason was that I believed that there’s a limit on how many people can enter a country over the course of a year and be successfully integrated into that country, that if the population demographic changes too quickly you run the risk of creating more problems than you solve?