Go home

[pap]

The Conservatives's latest ploy to tackle illegal immigration has upset quite a few people, and justifiably so.

 

They are driving vans around London telling people to "go home".

 

Not a coalition policy, not even something Farage will get behind and as Sarah Teather points out, it's all a bit too close to the "paki go home" racist graffiti that we'd thought we'd long left behind.

 

Guardian's take on it here:-

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2013/jul/25/coalition-row-adverts-illegal-immigrants

[Batman]

here we go, hold on to your hats

[so22saint]

When Nigel Farage says "it's all a bit too nasty" then maybe it is

[alpine_saint]

Strange, the meassage appears to me to be directed to illegal immigrants, not ethnic minorities.

 

Its racist in the eyes of those who want it to be racist.

 

Provocative, definitely. But not racist.

 

But I am fairly ambivalent about it. Its not like an illegal immigrant seeing it is going to think "f**k me, I'd better get on Ryanair's website"

[Colinjb]

Far be it for me to agree with Alpine, but he's right.

 

The message isn't: "Foreigners, Go Home!" As it says on the billboard, "Are you in the UK illegally? If yes, go home or you face arrest."

 

It's not racist, it's common sense.

[Gemmel]

Alpine is right.....I think it is just pap trying to squeeze in the racist card.

[JustMike]

Strange, the meassage appears to me to be directed to illegal immigrants, not ethnic minorities.

 

Its racist in the eyes of those who want it to be racist.

 

Provocative, definitely. But not racist.

 

But I am fairly ambivalent about it. Its not like an illegal immigrant seeing it is going to think "f**k me, I'd better get on Ryanair's website"

 

Yep, totally agree

[pap]

Alpine is right.....I think it is just pap trying to squeeze in the racist card.

 

Sarah Teather, the former Lib Dem minister and MP for Brent Central, said constituents told her the billboards were reminiscent of some of the most offensive graffiti and signs seen at the height of anti-immigrant racism in the 70s.

"It reminds them of the things they used to see on walls in the 70s such as 'Paki go home'. The tone of the words on this van is similar to those signs in guesthouses that once told potential tenants: 'no Irish, no blacks, no dogs'," she said.

[Colinjb]

Sarah Teather, the former Lib Dem minister and MP for Brent Central, said constituents told her the billboards were reminiscent of some of the most offensive graffiti and signs seen at the height of anti-immigrant racism in the 70s.

"It reminds them of the things they used to see on walls in the 70s such as 'Paki go home'. The tone of the words on this van is similar to those signs in guesthouses that once told potential tenants: 'no Irish, no blacks, no dogs'," she said.

 

Perception is important but if they are here legally then they have nothing to worry about. The tone is factual, not oppressive and makes no reference to race, just legality.

 

It just shows how stupid this nation is when something which is simply stating the law and repercussions of unlawful behaviour can be considered racist simply due to perceived 'tone.'

Edited 26 July, 2013 by Colinjb

[Gemmel]

Sarah Teather, the former Lib Dem minister and MP for Brent Central, said constituents told her the billboards were reminiscent of some of the most offensive graffiti and signs seen at the height of anti-immigrant racism in the 70s.

"It reminds them of the things they used to see on walls in the 70s such as 'Paki go home'. The tone of the words on this van is similar to those signs in guesthouses that once told potential tenants: 'no Irish, no blacks, no dogs'," she said.

 

You would have to be brain washed and paranoid to construe the billboards as racist.

[pap]

Perception is important but if they are here legally then they have nothing to worry about. The tone is factual, not oppressive and makes no reference to race, just legality.

 

Nope, but it's implicit. I was born here and I'm not really a fan of this, or any other fear tactic.

[pap]

You would have to be brain washed and paranoid to construe the billboards as racist.

 

Or intelligent.

[Colinjb]

Nope, but it's implicit. I was born here and I'm not really a fan of this, or any other fear tactic.

 

What fear tactic? It's just a reminder that if you live here illegally you can face arrest. That's just common sense.

[Batman]

pap, fills the void left by dune

[solentstars]

Sarah Teather, the former Lib Dem minister and MP for Brent Central, said constituents told her the billboards were reminiscent of some of the most offensive graffiti and signs seen at the height of anti-immigrant racism in the 70s.

"It reminds them of the things they used to see on walls in the 70s such as 'Paki go home'. The tone of the words on this van is similar to those signs in guesthouses that once told potential tenants: 'no Irish, no blacks, no dogs'," she said.

 

Agree and it's all unnecessary gimmick rubbish .

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[Colinjb]

pap, fills the void left by dune

 

Albeit at the other extreme.

[Gemmel]

Rapists face arrest

 

Murderers face arrest

 

Burglars face arrest

 

Etc etc.

[pap]

pap, fills the void left by dune

 

Some vacuums nature can abhor, caped crusader.

 

I always thought Steven Seagal was a more impressive Navy "hard chef" myself. Any chance he can post on here instead of you?

[pap]

Rapists face arrest

 

Murderers face arrest

 

Burglars face arrest

 

Etc etc.

 

And yet there are no "stop raping, or face arrest" vans.

 

Weird that.

[Tokyo-Saint]

I can see it now. Young Nngfufu survives the massacre of his village, she hides in a bush as her family are killed and her mother & sisters raped. She walks for days to the nearest refugee camp, where she has to sell herself in order to survive. After a while some of the camp decide to go to north Africa, make a raft and try to get to Europe. Only half the group survive but Nngfufu makes it across to spain where she spends 6 months sleeping in a room with 12 other people by day and selling cock shaped lighters to tourists by night. Eventually she has had enough and she makes a dart for Northern france. She joins another group who are camping just outside of the Eurostar freight terminal. After several weeks of trying, she eventually manages to find her way into the back of a truck carrying horse meat for tesco. A 17 hour journey lying under a the trampers old mattress and a copy of razzle, she finds herself in the promised land - Luton.

 

Eventually she finds her feet, doing odd jobs the locals don't want, cleaning public toilets, night shift at Mcdonalds etc. Then one say she is walking down the street and sees a van driving round telling her to text 'home' to 78070. Nngfufu doesn't know what has come over her but she just feels compelled to text the number, she can't stop herself and before she knows it, she is in a detention centre and on a flight home..... yeah right.

 

Which think tank came up with that idea?

[Colinjb]

And yet there are no "stop raping, or face arrest" vans.

 

Weird that.

 

Do we have communities where these are as prevalent as illegal immigration?

[pap]

Albeit at the other extreme.

 

Good man, Col.

 

The good thing about posting on this thread is that people will read it, unlike your blogs

 

x

[Batman]

pap, be honest, its impossible debating anything of this nature with you.

hence, why no one will

[Colinjb]

Good man, Col.

 

The good thing about posting on this thread is that people will read it, unlike your blogs

 

x

 

You charmer pap. x

[pap]

Do we have communities where these are as prevalent as illegal immigration?

 

Who knows, but they'd be about as effective.

 

This whole thing is a waste of money. The Conservatives are doing to to pretend they're doing something. Do you really believe it'll make one jot of difference, apart from showing us to be a country of classless psuedo racists?

[pap]

You charmer pap. x

 

I have my moments, love.

 

But don't worry. Barely anyone reads my blog either.

[ant]

I don't think the issue of whether they're racist or not is relevant, they're simply not something I'd want to see driving around.

 

It's not 'proactive'. Lazy and passively aggressive perhaps.

[Colinjb]

Who knows, but they'd be about as effective.

 

This whole thing is a waste of money. The Conservatives are doing to to pretend they're doing something. Do you really believe it'll make one jot of difference, apart from showing us to be a country of classless psuedo racists?

 

Or a country of people too afraid to offend at the expense of the nation's integrity?

 

Immigration is a problem. Like many parts of this country's infrastructure it is open to abuse. Unfortunately many would rather stay quite to avoid risking offence rather then trying to address the issues head on.

 

Will this program be effective? Probably not. Will it cost much? It's a van with a billboard, nope. Does something need to be done? Yep.

[pap]

pap, be honest, its impossible debating anything of this nature with you.

 

It's far from impossible, as my occasional climb downs illustrate.

 

hence, why no one will

 

You blind, kid?

[Colinjb]

But don't worry. Barely anyone reads my blog either.

 

At least you knew mine exists. x

[alpine_saint]

I can see it now. Young Nngfufu survives the massacre of his village, she hides in a bush as her family are killed and her mother & sisters raped. She walks for days to the nearest refugee camp, where she has to sell herself in order to survive. After a while some of the camp decide to go to north Africa, make a raft and try to get to Europe. Only half the group survive but Nngfufu makes it across to spain where she spends 6 months sleeping in a room with 12 other people by day and selling cock shaped lighters to tourists by night. Eventually she has had enough and she makes a dart for Northern france. She joins another group who are camping just outside of the Eurostar freight terminal. After several weeks of trying, she eventually manages to find her way into the back of a truck carrying horse meat for tesco. A 17 hour journey lying under a the trampers old mattress and a copy of razzle, she finds herself in the promised land - Luton.

 

Eventually she finds her feet, doing odd jobs the locals don't want, cleaning public toilets, night shift at Mcdonalds etc. Then one say she is walking down the street and sees a van driving round telling her to text 'home' to 78070. Nngfufu doesn't know what has come over her but she just feels compelled to text the number, she can't stop herself and before she knows it, she is in a detention centre and on a flight home..... yeah right.

 

Which think tank came up with that idea?

 

Exactly. Idiotic and a waste of resources it may be. But it is NOT racist. Typical LibDem sh*t-stirring.

[alpine_saint]

Or a country of people too afraid to offend at the expense of the nation's integrity?

 

Immigration is a problem. Like many parts of this country's infrastructure it is open to abuse. Unfortunately many would rather stay quite to avoid risking offence rather then trying to address the issues head on.

 

Will this program be effective? Probably not. Will it cost much? It's a van with a billboard, nope. Does something need to be done? Yep.

 

This.

[pap]

Or a country of people too afraid to offend at the expense of the nation's integrity?

 

Immigration is a problem. Like many parts of this country's infrastructure it is open to abuse. Unfortunately many would rather stay quite to avoid risking offence rather then trying to address the issues head on.

 

Will this program be effective? Probably not. Will it cost much? It's a van with a billboard, nope. Does something need to be done? Yep.

 

Immigration is a problem, but it's not one that happens in isolation, and the specific problem that the Conservatives are trying to solve ( illegal non-EU migrants ) is the tip of the iceberg. Legal, EU migration puts half a billion people in the position where they have the right to be here, whether the Conservatives like it or not.

 

They've always avoided the question of EU immigration, whether asked directly or petitioned through other means ( such as the 100K petition ).

 

Non-EU migration might be a problem, but its tiny compared to the problems caused by entirely legal immigration.

 

Sending a few vans around London to scare the few people we can reasonably deport seems to be missing the point.

[Batman]

sooner or later (hopefully sooner) we will retract from the EU in large parts or in whole.

thank god for that

[Colinjb]

Immigration is a problem, but it's not one that happens in isolation, and the specific problem that the Conservatives are trying to solve ( illegal non-EU migrants ) is the tip of the iceberg. Legal, EU migration puts half a billion people in the position where they have the right to be here, whether the Conservatives like it or not.

 

They've always avoided the question of EU immigration, whether asked directly or petitioned through other means ( such as the 100K petition ).

 

Non-EU migration might be a problem, but its tiny compared to the problems caused by entirely legal immigration.

 

Sending a few vans around London to scare the few people we can reasonably deport seems to be missing the point.

 

This is a different debate for me. Regardless of the issues with it it's something that cannot be tackled until we are out of Europe and have re-established our own constitution and will no doubt be a masive part of any debate should we come to have a referendum. An entirely separate can of worms.

 

Illegal immigration on the other hand is a pertinent and relevant issue now that action should be taken on.

[hutch]

One could argue that failing to confront a particular form of illegal activity just because most of the perpetrators are from ethnic minorities is, in fact, more racist. I don't see it as any different to similar billboards warning TV licence dodgers, for example.

[pap]

This is a different debate for me. Regardless of the issues with it it's something that cannot be tackled until we are out of Europe and have re-established our own constitution and will no doubt be a masive part of any debate should we come to have a referendum. An entirely separate can of worms.

 

Illegal immigration on the other hand is a pertinent and relevant issue now that action should be taken on.

 

Problem is, the debate is deliberately compounded so that a lot of people see illegal immigrants and EU immigrants as the same thing. This grand plan doesn't address the xenophobic attitudes of "Annoyed" from Upper Shirley, or indeed, anyone concerned about the impact of EU migration from former Eastern bloc countries.

 

Illegal immigration is less of an issue than EU immigration in terms of pure numbers.

[solentstars]

Problem is, the debate is deliberately compounded so that a lot of people see illegal immigrants and EU immigrants as the same thing. This grand plan doesn't address the xenophobic attitudes of "Annoyed" from Upper Shirley, or indeed, anyone concerned about the impact of EU migration from former Eastern bloc countries.

 

Illegal immigration is less of an issue than EU immigration in terms of pure numbers.

 

Agree but that silly pathetic van stunt I expect is a ploy to attract former supporters from Ukip to come back to the Tory fold

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[Tokyo-Saint]

Problem is, the debate is deliberately compounded so that a lot of people see illegal immigrants and EU immigrants as the same thing. This grand plan doesn't address the xenophobic attitudes of "Annoyed" from Upper Shirley, or indeed, anyone concerned about the impact of EU migration from former Eastern bloc countries.

 

Illegal immigration is less of an issue than EU immigration in terms of pure numbers.

 

Exactly Pap, I help to bring people into the country (accommodating international students) and get the old taxi driver "their coming over here, ' Countries full etc" and tarring the whole situation with the same anti immigration brush. During the last election there were loads of problems in our industry as each party wanted to be seen as being tougher on immigration as the other.

 

That old bigot giving Gordon Brown grief in Runcorn wasn't moaning because of the number of international students paying over the odds to study here was she? She was moaning because everyone at the local meat packing factory was from Eastern Europe and had the right to work here. She just didn't understand it fully and moaned about immigrants in general. None of the parties could touch the EU immigrants so they clamped down and hassled all of the rest. My wife even got rejected on her visa a one point, without a good reason. We appealed and won as had a genuine case but it cost an extra grand.

 

Anyway, they're takin' our jobs!

[Saint_clark]

Far be it for me to agree with Alpine, but he's right.

 

The message isn't: "Foreigners, Go Home!" As it says on the billboard, "Are you in the UK illegally? If yes, go home or you face arrest."

 

It's not racist, it's common sense.

 

Absolutely.

Once again people are far too precious.

[Saint in Paradise]

This is yet another case where the racist card is being played as the person using it has no

logical argument against the proposal that normal people will accept. They know that decent

people hate being called a racist especially when it is obvious that they are not, so use it to

try to frighten and thereby silence people.

[so22saint]

For me, it's not racist at all. However it's a great example of Big Brother "we're watching you minions" type thinking, and I don't like that...

[pap]

For me, it's not racist at all. However it's a great example of Big Brother "we're watching you minions" type thinking, and I don't like that...

 

Yup, and I have a problem with this whenever they do it - be it TV Licensing, benefit scroungers or whatever. I'd sooner they spent the money on enforcement.

[pap]

A picture of one of the vans.

 

[Bearsy]

pfft they're just trying to win votes. If they was serious they'd do the signs in arabic

[Tokyo-Saint]

I am definitely typing home from RP's phone when he ain't looking. I'll let you know the results soon.

[Bearsy]

Hahaha, what i do right is if i see a foreigner in the street i politely ask to borrow their phone on some pretext, then i send HOME to 78070. They get black-bagged in minutes! Is v.efficient service!

[Chez]

What is the point of these vans? If you had risked life and limb, possibly spent your complete life savings to get into this country risking detention and a return to your original country, you aren't going to hand yourself in just because an advert on the side of a van says you might be arrested, detained and returned to your original country. Why on earth wouldn't you sit tight and see if you were actually caught? That of course puts to one side the possibility that these vans are actually seen by an illegal immigrant and that person can actually understand them. This is a complete and utter waste of time and money. A publicity stunt to try and convince the general public that the current government is taking a tough line on immigration.

[Tokyo-Saint]

They just sent a text back asking what kind of help or advice he needs. This isn't much good as I reckon the average illegal immigrant would run out of credit before eventually being sent home by text conversation. Hopefully they hassle him all weekend. I will keep an eye out for him getting deported and keep you updated on the results.

[Bearsy]