To make the statement, "if you don't like it here go back to where you came from" is now deemed a racist trope when directed at someone who looks as though they are not a native of that country.
In my day to be told by an Aussie or a South African who might have become upset by my criticising their country "go back to the UK" was never considered racist rather it was a perfectly normal and reasoned retort since, if I didn't like what I saw, then I was free to go elsewhere. It might be argued that the person who was suggesting you leave, was not prepared to look at what I had said dispassionately, the fact that I was a foreigner was enough. It could be described as a lazy response, a retort designed to shut down further comment, instead of finding out if there was substance in my criticism but I never took umbrage at it.
I was always a foreigner in the 40 years I lived away. I never saw the need to become a national of any country other than the UK and therefore I am amazed at how keen people are these days to sign away their birthright.
The insistence of immigrants to demand, almost immediate citizenship seems to belie any loyalty to their own ethnicity and if ethnicity can be so freely traded what substance is there to those formative years when concepts of societal values were born, unless of course one believes the society you move into is flexible and malleable enough to sustain ones own opinions, regardless that they were formed in some distant land under far different conditions.
The UK has striven to be such a country, priding itself on its welcome and its willingness to acquiesce to all kinds of claims made upon it. Our own definition of what constitutes good and bad, right and wrong has long lost its relevance as the country seeks to accommodate all and sundry. It's this capitulation of a definition of Britishness that is at the source of much of the discontent which lies at the heart of any discussion. To evinced our understanding of what we value is often described as indulging in a type of white supremacy and worse, racist in its reservations. We glory the avowed demands of others to their tradition and culture, whilst declining to accept our own.
Todays immediate response is to attach the descriptive, racist to those who question the efficacy of multiculturalism. Everything is argued through the prism of skin colour or the abuse of a minority section of society when in fact what is being questioned is the underlying culture and the differences between our exiting culture here in these islands and the ones brought in by the immigrant.
In my opinion cultures are manifestations of understandable norms but norms which are dependent on the setting.
To argue against the processes which constitute a culture is not racist but is dependant on the counter claims coming from another culture. Twisting everything into a form of racial abuse is wrong, instead it could be argued that on the basis of the claim of cultural abuse, it could equally be charged that the forced assimilation of other cultures into this country is an abuse. It has paralysed our ability to have opinion different to that of the carefully contrived view promulgated by the dark matter which lurks everywhere, a 'politically correct' concoction, by which we sail our ship these days.
Israel Folau was kicked off his national rugby side and roundly condemned by many for suggesting that Gay people "would be cast into hell" which was his reading and interpretation of the bible. His use of an outdated religious opinion had rightly upset many people, not least the gay community but it was the unseen 'new authority' which coverts what we are allowed to think which caused Folau demise. In essence the bible has many teachings which now a days are challenged but for some, it is still the word of god and confirmed as belief, if you wish to be a good christian. Folau was evincing nothing less than what he had been taught to believe but the might and power of politically held opinion, trumped thousands of years of religious conformity.
The new religion is born, political correctness which was put in place to convince the masses of the need of a new god, the need of the economy. The need for as many people to come into the country to man the tools of production to make the economy work but crucially, for the lowest investment.
Training of the existing people and paying them a livable wage, a Keynesian concept was swept aside by the Thatcherite favorite, Milton Friedman's alternative, of letting the markets decide everything.
The device of dampening dissent, that of crying race, misogyny, sexism, when ever anyone pointed out the difficulties presented to the existing population of new and in many instances, alien cultures took hold, smothering the less conformist British way of life. Live and let live was always one of the traits of living here. There were no Facist movements as there had been on the Continent and the more extreme political ideologies were left to wither on the bough of disinterest. There were small pockets of racial discontent, based on the economic reality that the immigrant was taking my job. The immigrants willingness (especially after the war when the inhabitants of these islands had been promised by the new labour government better conditions all round compared to what they had before the war), to live in crowded conditions amongst other immigrants from their home country was an economic boon to industry where they could introduce lower wages and increase hours of work to a more pliant workforce.
The great con that we will collapse as an economic entity without the skills and low wages that immigration brings has encouraged massive cut backs in the quality and length of training offered to our own workforce. Apprenticeships withered away, the Technical Training Colleges were closed down, an easier curriculum with testing consisting of multiple answer questions has meant that more and more of our kids leave school virtually illiterate and a workforce which is paid the minimum wage based on the assumption that the Benefits system (funded by the tax payer) will pay the difference between a proper wage and the minimum wage paid by the employer.
Today we, the ubiquitous tax payer, are engaged as fiscal partners in so many business enterprises, unfortunately without the benefit of an interim dividend.
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