Britain's continuing racism

[Cain]

As most of you know, it was revealed in the last couple of weeks that the government was sending vans into areas of London heavily populated by ethnic minorities, telling illegal immigrants to "go home", in a somewhat distasteful way that is reminiscent of the National Front's tactics (indeed, "go home" is one of their favourite things to chant at any non-white person).

However, we have another tactic now, and that is sending in police officers to stand at Tube stations and arrest anyone they think might be an illegal immigrant.

Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister, insists that this program is intelligence-led and in no way involves racial profiling.  Apparently, the police did not get this memo, since at at least one station in North London, we have footage of police officers exclusively targeting black and Asian men. 

Government advisors have said this plan is not a good one, that it involves making a spectacle of illegal immigration and the supposed methods to tackle it.  Which is, I think, rather the point.

The Tories know that the biggest potential threat to their vote in the next election will be UKIP, whose attitudes on immigration are even harder than their own.  By moving to the right and making a big show of "dealing" with immigration, they are hoping to steal away potential UKIP votes.  And since most ethnic minorities don't vote Tory in the first place...well, fuck them too.

[Reginald Ret]

Cicrling the drain is one thing, but the world seems to be full of people purposely sailing to the center.

[Junkenstein]

So where will it go from here?

Taking steps to "Be tough on X" almost always seems to lead for horror stories about X. This seems like a nice gentle step on a steep slope. I'd guess at the moment that if the tories went full on with this they would destroy any chances of a coalition government with anyone apart from UKIP.

I've "joked" a couple of times about a Labour/UKIP coalition. This seems to be increasingly likely. Politics makes strange bedfellows and the current government would have been unthinkable for many tory/lib dem voters. To say it is currently unpalatable for both would be an understatement.

Up until the next election I'd expect to see more stunts like those vans, more extremely jingoistic rhetoric and a good dose of outright lies. It's somewhat similar to the Welfare/Social security issue. In the overall scheme it isn't a massive problem. The sums of money involved are still totally trivial to many other much more questionable expenditures. It is, however easy to point at the person with an odd accent and suggest that he took your mates job. Also, he gets more money in benefits in a week than you do in a year. Also, he gang rapes white teenagers.

I would guess that the police tactics employed here will eventually see at least a few UK citizens in Illegal immigrant "holding centres" by "accident". The wrong skin colour with a name that is unusual (to British police, so anything past "Smith") or happens to match someone wanted by the system and you've got a hilarious lawsuit on your hands.

I suspect that the recent London Riots will take a much larger scale with the next government. No changes will be reversed (They never really are) and I reckon that will destroy the last of the confidence in the political machine in the UK for a lot of people. This generation seems to be catching on faster to the 2 man con, even when you add a third man.

[Cain]

Goddamn it.  Nigel Farange of all people is now starting to look reasonable compared to these wankers:

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/02/ukip-condemns-home-office-illegal-immigrants

Farage said: "Spot checks and being demanded to show your papers by officialdom are not the British way of doing things. Yes, of course we want to deal with illegal immigration, but what's the point of rounding people up at railway stations if at the same time they're still flooding in through Dover and the other nearly hundred ports in this country.

"I'm astonished that the Home Office has become so politicised that they're actually advertising 'another 10 arrested'. Before long they'll be live video-streaming these arrests. I don't like it. It really is not the way we've ever behaved or operated as a country. We don't have ID cards; we should not be stopped by officialdom and have to prove who we are."

[Junkenstein]

So is that UKIP's attempt to get some disfranchised labour voters?

It's odd he mentioned Live streaming arrests, there are countless shows dedicated to that anyway. They may not be live, but the effect is essentially the same. The only crime worthy of live-streaming is when someone's on a jolly with a gun or two.

Worth noting for those not in the UK that UKIP is more traditionally involved in shit like this:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/06/ukip-godfrey-bloom-bongo-bongo-land

A senior Ukip politician has been recorded telling activists that Britain should not be sending aid to "bongo bongo land".

Godfrey Bloom, a Ukip member of the European parliament, made the comments to a meeting of supporters in the West Midlands. He suggested foreigners used aid to "buy Ray-Ban sunglasses" and "apartments in Paris".

ETA - To be fair, they seem to have now banned the use of the phrase. Which makes you question what kind of organisation are you dealing with when they have to issue guidelines on such things. This is hardly their first brush with racism and I highly doubt that it will be the last.

[Cain]

Well, there has always been a veneer of Manchester liberalism/libertarianism riding atop the sea of angry, authoritarian, vaguely racist members of UKIP.

He also probably realizes that the intention of the government is to steal their voters away, and so is trying to remind people that this is nothing more than PR exercise, and if they actually care about illegal immigration, it's not very helpful.  Only UKIP will put in place actual policies to stem immigration, legal or otherwise.