None of this should be surprising unless you've been just gobbling up whatever you heard through mainstream media.
Britain is at a breaking point. There are existential questions to be asked:
Is Britain British without British Bourgeoisie that have lived there for thousands of years with new arrivals that have no commmon culture or connection to the land?
Can Japan be called Japan without Japanese that have lived there for thousands of years and their homogeneous identity?
Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?
The fact is the loudest voice in the room so far has never been representative of the answer to the above questions.
asveikau 33 minutes ago [-]
Excuse me, are you holding up the British as some kind of pure, undisturbed ethnicity?
You mean the celts who were conquered by Romans who were conquered be Angles who were conquered by Normans? Who speak this bastard language we're using now, where most vocabulary is Latinate upon bones of Germanic?
anigbrowl 24 hours ago [-]
These questions aren't comparable. Japan had a crash modernization followed by a brief outburst of violent colonialism, which they thought was the style at the time but was actually in decline almost everywhere else.
Britain had an empire that lasted hundreds of years, and whose greatest legacy is linguistic and temporal system dominance. Having spent centuries proclaiming itself to be the literal center of civilization to most of the world, is it really surprising that ambitious individuals gravitate toward it? This is the common culture that Britain set out to impose on its possessions.
It's especially ironic (though not especially surprising) that immigration from former territories went way up after Britain forcibly detached itself from the EU. Perhaps the Brexiteers wil offer to secede from the world next - build a national space program and launch Britain into orbit as a second satellite that can service its markets while orbiting the planet from a distance.
applfanboysbgon 48 minutes ago [-]
> which they thought was the style at the time but was actually in decline almost everywhere else.
I truly hate the historical revisionism of Westerners. Japan engaged in colonialism because it was an active victim of colonialism, and the only way to fight back was to stand on equal footing. Through the 1800s~1940s, Europe controlled nearly the entirety of Asia. China had been subject to countless treaties forced upon it. The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, India were all colonies. 90% of Africa was under European control. 100% of both Americas was under European control. 100% of Australia and New Zealand was under European control. Europeans were literally aiming for world domination. The list of countries free from European colonialism could be counted on one hand: Japan (only because it successfully fought back), Korea (before it got annexed by Japan), Siam, Nepal, Iran pretty much covers it. Yet amazingly Europeans found and continue to find no shortage of pearl clutching over Japan daring to do the same thing they did, in a dog-eat-dog world where not doing so meant becoming another pawn.
To the extent colonialism declined, it was solely due to to the world wars wrecking Europe so utterly they could not maintain their overseas holdings, + the untouched US intervening in eg. Suez Crisis in order to assert itself as the global Western hegemon with no peers.
10xDev 23 hours ago [-]
The comparisons between the two nations are always superficial. When you peel the layers of nonsense off, it is just white supremacy with a mediocre attempt at masking it.
rayiner 23 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
10xDev 23 hours ago [-]
>if people don't want parts of London to resemble Delhi,
Well, there you have it. These people always shoot themselves in the foot.
The other guy thought I was Indian and told me about how "weak" it is only one response later as well. Interesting, I suppose Indians are currently the most socially acceptable to be racist towards.
rayiner 23 hours ago [-]
If someone criticizes Delhi and your mind jumps to people's skin color--instead of literally everything else about the city--then you're the racist.
None of the Indians (or Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) living in London want parts of London to resemble Delhi. They left their families and homeland behind to get away from Delhi and places like it.
10xDev 23 hours ago [-]
>If someone criticizes Delhi and your mind jumps to people's skin color--instead of literally everything else about the city--then you're the racist.
Hmm American spelling and a low effort attempt at DARVO.
So let's just cut through the noise. You obviously picked Delhi and the other guy picked India out of everything else and this is clearly not a coincidence. And there are certainly worse places.
My guess is the Henry Nowak case has recently made it more socially acceptable to be racist towards Indians.
rayiner 23 hours ago [-]
> You obviously picked Delhi and the other guy picked India out of everything else and this is clearly not a coincidence. And there are certainly worse places.
Of course it's not a coincidence. India simply is the largest and most well-recognized example of third-world disorder and dysfunction. It's the second largest country in the world and the single largest source of immigrants to the U.K. Other places are worse--for example, Dhaka--but a random person on the Internet is much more likely to have seen pictures of Delhi than Dhaka.
zuzululu 20 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
rayiner 19 hours ago [-]
I originally had a sarcasm tag but felt it wasn’t necessary.
rayiner 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
munksbeer 10 hours ago [-]
This comment is nonsense, and it is the usual propaganda based on an ideological bent. I'm sorry but I think you and your family have retained the class/caste based system of you original homeland and it is just manifesting in a weird way.
I am willing to bet your mother never encountered anything of the sort. Most of the old very rough areas in London are now gentrified (people complain about it). You can pretty much walk around anywhere in London, at night, without any issues. Phone snatching is the major problem, but general crime, violent crime, ghettoism, etc are all down since 2000.
I know this, because I am an immigrant from a 3rd world country, have lived in London for 25+ years. And the stats show it too.
Your post really makes me angry.
AlexeyBelov 6 hours ago [-]
This user is well known for exactly that.
anigbrowl 23 hours ago [-]
It's not a matter of ideology, or of punishment. It's simply the dynamics of the system playing out. It's alienating for people inside of it because they're experiencing the effects of historical forces which operate on a scale longer than human life.
OF course people would rather live in a period when things were simpler and easier, who wouldn't? The lie sold by the self-styled reformists (and doubled down upon by the emerging Restore Britain) is that all these unwanted outcomes were done to Britain by Other People instead of being the product of repeated bad decisions - Brexit being the most recent one. Someone else in the thread observed that about 27 immigrants are offered jobs for every native Briton entering the workforce. But this notion of prioritizing market forces at the expense of all other considerations is exactly the legacy of Thatcherite conservatism that has dominated Britain for nearly a half-century and of which the Brexit/Reform/Restor movements are the ost recent iterations.
As John Bagot Glubb pointed out ~50 years ago (and many others have pointed out before him), the root causes of decline are complacency, greed, and individualism (vs the notion of social duty). I put it to you that modern finance capitalism selects for these negative traits because they maximize short-term gain and because the accumulation of money allows the holders of it to be indifferent to the long-term structural problems. The primary reason I do not identify as a political conservative is that they sell tradition to the electorate but conserve wealth and power for themselves.
> It's not a matter of ideology, or of punishment. It's simply the dynamics of the system playing out. It's alienating for people inside of it because they're experiencing the effects of historical forces which operate on a scale longer than human life.
But British people today aren't doomed to allowing historical forces to play out. Or are you suggesting futility--that the British government lacks the state capacity to prevent what's happening?
djhn 21 hours ago [-]
If the government had the capacity to prevent this, they would have. It appears, therefore, that they indeed do not.
anigbrowl 16 hours ago [-]
Yes, they largely do lack the capacity, short of drastic restructuring of state institutions. What are they going to do? North Korea type isolation? Ethnic cleansing? The latter is essentially the program of the Restore Britain party, though I'm not sure if that's an actual party-in-waiting or a front group designed to make Reform or the Conservatives look more reasonable.
l23k4 13 hours ago [-]
>"Mass immigration is your punishment for the British Empire" has a certain ideological appeal. But if you're a British person, you don't care about that. What matters is whether you'd rather live in London as it was in 2000 or London today. And I think the answer to that is obvious if your judgment isn't compromised. My parents went to visit London a year or two ago, and my mom was shocked by the decline in public order and standards, the ghettos, etc. This is a woman who lived in Bangladesh most of her life, and she came back telling me about the decline of London.
I walk around outside my home in the very heart of London: the street is full of Rolls Royces, pretty Russian and Ukrainian girls walk around carrying their Graff jewels and Kelly bags. Men still wear watches worth hundreds of thousands despite what the FT style section says.
What ghetto? Where is it? Everybody here is as rich as Croesus and very much a part of the same global jet set culture.
gadders 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
moomin 1 days ago [-]
Objectively, Japan needs to do something about its culture. It’s literally killing the country.
Pretty sure a Japanese person could say the same thing about the U.K.
HoldOnAMinute 1 days ago [-]
There would need to be a mental and cultural framework where the old ways are loved, respected and allowed to be mourned.
moomin 24 hours ago [-]
I don’t really know what it would look like, it would have to be up to the Japanese, but I think you’re correct that this would be essential.
24 hours ago [-]
nephihaha 1 days ago [-]
Japan is doing something. It is decades behind Europe but going down a similar path.
HoldOnAMinute 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
tastyface 21 hours ago [-]
Get a grip. Norway, Sweden, and Germany are fine.
zuzululu 20 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure we are watching the same thing here, that's quite reach to compare to Japan and say they are fine.
hinata08 1 days ago [-]
>with new arrivals that have no commmon culture or connection to the land
actually Britain still see these arrivals.
Brexit restored immigration from people with more walks of life and with a more worldwide origins. There is no fast track for any nationality, like when EU citizens didn't need a visa, so companies are blind to origin.
You only got rid of the maudzits français / stronzo francese who liked the queen way too much and feel at home everywhere. The Québécois, the Swiss, the Dutch and a part of Europe look at Britain as an example for that : it's so funny to see them struggle with the UK ETA app while they no longer have Tyrrells crisps, as they keep complaining about british food and were mean about the tapestry anyway.
But was this show worth the losses that Britain had ?
It's never too late to apply again, Britain hasn't deviated from its course of rule of law and democracy
It's also fun to watch people's heads explode over the hypocracy pointed out by this episode. Short version: If Samoa has to follow non-racial discrimination rules than Samoa as a place of Samoans will cease to exist. Without taking a side, the same is true of Israel.
1 days ago [-]
rubyn00bie 1 days ago [-]
Having a storied history, culture, and customs go beyond simple birthright citizenship and xenophobic behavior to enforce said culture and sense of identity. The US, for all its faults, exemplifies how unnecessary it is to rely solely on where you were born— anyone can move to the US, get citizenship, and call themselves “American.” I honestly cannot understand what “connection with the land” even means in reality. Most people aren’t farmers, and land has no inherent culture. People do, and culture is acquired by living in it and participating in it. Culture also changes overtime and is, like the earth itself, for the living.
This idea that for some reason other human beings cannot embrace, be a part of, and contribute to existing culture simply because they were born in a different country is flagrantly absurd. It’s also how people who are born somewhere, but don’t “look the part” have to fight an uphill battle to prove they are.
So yeah, Japan could be called Japan if people who live there are culturally Japanese, participate in shared culture, and contribute to it. I am also absolutely aware that isn’t possible by any reasonable means currently, but it doesn’t change the fact it should be.
24 hours ago [-]
1 days ago [-]
zuzululu 21 hours ago [-]
The question was do you believe that without ethnic Japanese people you can call it Japan?
I'm surprised how much HN'ers struggle with this simple question its not asking you what the facts are its asking your opinion.
The answer based on fact is obviously no. You cannot have a country like Japan which its identity drives from its homogeneity without its ethnicity. Same with Korea. Otherwise you could have bunch of people on an island suddenly identify as Japanese and then Korean another day and ultimately settling on non-binary national identity.
BobaFloutist 21 hours ago [-]
> The question was do you believe that without ethnic Japanese people you can call it Japan?
Yes, of course, ethnicity is a collection of observed physical traits. What makes Japan Japan is the way people behave, not the way they look, and behavior is not an ethnic trait, it's a cultural trait.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
zuzululu 21 hours ago [-]
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
10xDev 1 days ago [-]
Japan never colonised India, Japan never colonised an African nation, Japan never colonised a Caribbean nation.
Britain overnight cannot have a fresh start from its past, even the royals have ties to other nations. The England that was always English never existed and its history will always be rooted in the British empire (where the sun never set).
po1nt 1 days ago [-]
Well Britain didn't genocide the Chinese. And all the countries colonized by Britain are now better of then those that weren't. Look at ex-Rhodesia.
anigbrowl 24 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure that creating mass addiction and collapsing the Chinese economy by forcibly industrializing and scaling up the opium trade was so much better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
gadders 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
10xDev 24 hours ago [-]
I obviously hurt your feelings but thank you for the facts that clearly changes everything.
gadders 23 hours ago [-]
You didn't hurt my feelings. You came on here and boasted about how weak your country was.
10xDev 23 hours ago [-]
>You didn't hurt my feelings. You came on here and boasted about how weak your country was.
This is a very bizarre response. Don't mind if I screenshot this and write an email. Very strange behaviour.
gadders 21 hours ago [-]
You weren't colonised. You were conquered. Same as England was conquered by the Romans and Normans. Stuff happened in history, but has no relevance to now.
hiddencost 1 days ago [-]
Easy question with an easy answer that threatens a lot of bad people: immigrants are good.
slashdev 1 days ago [-]
That’s way too simplistic.
Not all immigrants are good. Many cost society more than they contribute. The right kind of immigrants are good.
josefritzishere 1 days ago [-]
Pretty much all immigrants are good, or at least good for something. People generally want or need all the same things. Xenophobia by and large is an irrational urge.
mrguyorama 1 days ago [-]
Paint me this picture of an immigrant who costs more than they contribute.
I am sure that Denmark, a country that amongst other things imposed forced sterilisation against the Inuit population up until the 1970s, and abused people with disabilities [0], is offering black-skinned people equal opportunities and not pigeon-holing them into unemployment and social exclusion...
I mean, it's not particularly difficult to imagine(and I'm an immigrant to the UK). You move here, then after a while you bring over your retired parents to care for them in their old age. They are not contributing financially to the system but they are costing British taxpayers a lot of money.
The point though - it's irrelevant. Even those cases, and even straight up cases where people come here and just go on the dole, don't change the fact that as a whole immigrants are a net positive to the country(financially), and that's based on the OFR findings not my imagination.
sph 1 days ago [-]
Brexit was about leaving Europe, whose immigrants where overwhelmingly young people or couples which would've been net contributors, spending up to a decade before returning to their home countries. I have literally seen this happen dozen of times in my time there.
Myself I have spent almost two decades in Britain, paid my taxes (at the highest rate at that), and decided to leave when I saw that the immigration talk had turned everybody into racist lunatics, and even people like me, from the same continent, were made to feel unwelcome by this rhetoric. For all I care, it's a failed state, yet it has not yet seen the bottom until it progresses its descent into decay, the same that has infected the US and elected Trump.
You will get your Reform government and it'll be Brexit times 10. Only then, maybe, the British people will stop falling for far-right propaganda paid for the Russians.
gambiting 1 days ago [-]
Yep, it's incredibly unfortunate, given how obvious it is.
Immigrants are people. People are not automatically good. Or bad.
Migration is not just a choice between an open door and a closed door, but a spectrum. There are a variety of levels between those two extremes.
henearkr 1 days ago [-]
Yes.
Mixing of cultures always lead to adding up their different solutions to all kinds of problems, improving the fitness of the result among other groups of humans.
It's gathering all the positive ideas or traditions of several groups, and the less useful or negative aspects tend to just fade naturally.
zuzululu 13 hours ago [-]
yeah that didnt workout in germany
newaccountman2 1 days ago [-]
The result of the poll in the article seems to be a soft rebuke of the kind of viewpoint you espouse.
> Can Japan be called Japan without Japanese that have lived there for thousands of years and their homogeneous identity?
> Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?
Disingenuous question; even people who like Japan and Japanese culture tend to dislike how xenophobic and racist it is.
zuzululu 21 hours ago [-]
which is why Sane Takaichi became PM ? I do think there is a clear distance from all the Japan experts on HN and reality
newaccountman2 21 hours ago [-]
> which is why Sane Takaichi became PM ?
??
1. You claim (without basis or evidence) that people in the West have a double-standard about xenophobia and cultural chauvinism as between Japan and Western countries.
2. I say people in the West also dislike it in Japan and Japanese culture (more precisely, the same people who dislike racism and bigotry in the West dislike that it exists in Japan too)
3. You say "but Japan elected a right-wing bigot"
like...ok?
We don't like her and we don't like you :shrug:
iamflimflam1 1 days ago [-]
Are you British or do you live in Britain?
zuzululu 21 hours ago [-]
I don't consider my self British even though my Croatian roots can easily pass as one and I lived there during my early adulthood
but one need not live in Britain to know its issues and see past the filter of MSM
we have X now so we can get a more raw look at what's actually happening and what we are not being fully shown.
Arodex 18 hours ago [-]
Why should we listen to someone from a country proud of its war crimes?
You belong less to Europe than Caribbeans.
zuzululu 17 hours ago [-]
so pretty much the entire Europe ?
Arodex 8 hours ago [-]
No buddy, the rest of Europe is not "proud" of its war crimes. You are sick.
zuzululu 2 hours ago [-]
k
sph 1 days ago [-]
Why? One can parrot Reform talking points from anywhere.
23 hours ago [-]
surgical_fire 20 hours ago [-]
> Is Britain British without British Bourgeoisie that have lived there for thousands of years with new arrivals that have no commmon culture or connection to the land?
Thousands of years? Are you talking about celts?
Because Romans later arrived in Britannia and founded Londinium. Is it British when it was founded by those pesky Romans?
Or are you complaining about later populations, such as Vikings or Normans? I mean, they haven't been to the British isles for thousands of years. How can Britain be British with those smelly frenchmen?
Unless what you really are trying to do is complain that Britain now has too many brown people.
gib444 11 hours ago [-]
> Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?
Because in Japan AIUI they haven't been infiltrated by people pushing narratives that being eg White British is inherently racist, that to not open your borders to one and all is racism and xenophobia (you can see lots of examples of such people in the post about the Swiss referendum on the 10M population limit), which they do in order to gain for them and their communities.
The existing minority populations know they can abuse our good nature, our placidity, our leftist politicians, and even the English language in order to gain, and to position themselves as continuous victims. Some feminists do the same. The idea that the whole of the UK is full of angry white supremacist racists is the kind of propaganda I allude to (it's funny how many US folk here fall for it).
(I am British, lived here all my life, live in a county with many areas of significant minority populations, and just old enough to have observed plenty of change in England)
henearkr 1 days ago [-]
It's not ok in Japan either.
And its "homogeneous identity" is mostly a construction, dating back from the Meiji era.
And Heian period Japan had a completely different set of values, not less nor more valid than Meiji era Japan, just different.
So the identity of a nation is not something eternal nor absolute.
Heck, there is even proof Japan has been a mosaic of at least three sets of human populations in prehistoric times, arrived at different times on the land.
So here you are: yes Japan was, long time ago, a land of immigration.
zuzululu 21 hours ago [-]
1) You are not Japanese, you are not part of their society, you do not experience Japanese identity so your point is moot and unworthy for any one from Japan to pay attention to.
2) Japanese homogeneity is not a myth or a "social construct" but based on science. Same with Korea.
3) Your confusing anthropology with immigration policy. Japan has deep prehistoric population layers like anywhere else. That does not mean modern Japan is "mosaic" in any meaningful political sense.
Meiji era nationuilding also does not prove Japanese identity is fake. It proves modern nation-states formalize identity. That is true everywhere. France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Korea, Japan have lengthy historical construction layered on top of real continuity so it can't be declare a "social construct thats not real" as a lazy excuse.
Since you are struggling with this you could just answer should present day Japanese citizens have the right to decide how much immigration they want, according to their own social trust, institutions, culture, and political preferences?
it sounds like you are saying you know what's good for Japanese and that they should be listening to you even though you aren't part of Japanese society nor ever be integrated into it as a gaijin
henearkr 14 hours ago [-]
We can distill our disagreement into: "present perspective vs past perspective".
Why do I think that the archaeologic/anthropologic perspective is a great point on this issue?
It's because it's precisely one of the talking points of Japanese anti-immigration or xenophobic politicians or writers to emphasize those points. They always say that Japan is different in that of America or of European countries. However archaeology taught us that this is not true.
Just as European countries have always been connected and mixed together, Japan also has undergone population mixes. Just on a larger time scale. That's for the "ethnical homegeinity".
So that is a great way to explain why this particular argument of "Japanese exceptionalism" doesn't hold.
Now for the "political" homogeinity: this one is a pure illusion.
In current Japan, even if very-long-term political circumstances have taught people to stay discreet about political disagreement (quite similar to, say, in Russian mindset of avoiding talking politics), there are a lot of different mindsets, and many subcultures.
Even the cultural "homogeinity" is quite recent (Meiji era), and a product of violence. There were 4 casts etc, and the samurais cast tried (and succeeded) to become the "only legitimate one".
Now what about the world in, say, one century, when all the cultures will have time to mix together and stabilize the result all over the world? It will not be unlike the "homogeinity" that you see in today's Japan.
This is precisely what Japan's ancient history can teach us, and I think it's a great way to disarm the far-right and xenophobic rhetorics that is unrelentingly ruining our ears and brains nowadays.
(PS: Please refrain from using "gaijin" which is widely regarded as a xenophobic slur.)
zuzululu 14 hours ago [-]
> gaijin which is widely regarded as a xenophobic slur.
Its used commonly and not a slur.
henearkr 14 hours ago [-]
You're right that it is used commonly, but we have the chance to be in a position to know better (thanks to our cross-cultural and larger perspective).
The right term is gaikokujin, but if we speak in English there is no reason to not just say "foreigner".
"gaijin" has the vibes of "outsider", and is never used in public speech other than by xenophobic speakers.
In private or familiar conversations it is commonly used, yes.
zuzululu 14 hours ago [-]
its not an offensive word at all gaijin
it literally means 'foreigner' in which case you are
nephihaha 1 days ago [-]
Japan is fairly homogenous with the obvious exception of the Ainu and certain castes. Much more so than Persia/Iran, Russia, Mexico or India. When Japan had a large empire, that was not so much the case, because they ruled over very different peoples.
henearkr 1 days ago [-]
That's not what most recent archaeological discoveries tell.
Quite distinct groups of humans mixed in ancient Japan, as different and distant at that time as the groups that are mixed in modern times in Peru or India.
Some groups were related to Autronesians, others to Yakuts, yet other groups to Hans, etc.
If I remember correctly, at least three distinct groups are proven to have cohabited and arrived at different times.
nephihaha 9 hours ago [-]
I am not talking about prehistory here. The culture of the Japanese "Home Islands" in the Middle Ages consisted of two main groups: Ainu/Edo and the Japonic peoples who spoke related dialects. The first group was treated abysmally and dwindled. There were differences based on environment, e.g. the people in Tohuku had to deal with the cold and those in the south had subtropical climates and more outside interaction. The first major cultural difference (other than Ainu) came in with Christianity in the south and caused a civil war.
Japan is a heck of a lot more homogenous than Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and most of continental south east Asia. In fact, for that matter, Japan was more homogenous in 1707 than the British Isles, Spain, France, Italy or Germany.
henearkr 5 hours ago [-]
We're talking about separate things, yeah.
The Ainu/mainland distinction is a feature arrived much later than the mixing I am referring to.
My point is that Japan ethnicity is the product of a mixing just as the one occurring nowadays in France, Britain or Norway, between several very different people.
So that, if such mixing produces great results (do we agree that modern day Japan is that?), why not welcome today's mixings for the sake of the great nations of the future?
But I don't think we'll reach a common understanding on this topic, so we can just agree to disagree.
And have a good one.
zuzululu 14 hours ago [-]
and your point ?
miltonlost 1 days ago [-]
[flagged]
slashdev 1 days ago [-]
That’s a very simplistic take on a complex problem.
Unrestricted immigration destroys democratic high trust societies.
There is a balance to be found, as in all things. It isn’t simply diversity always good or always bad.
orwin 24 hours ago [-]
Inequality destroy high trust societies, and low trust cultures implement a surveillance state to replace trust.
BobaFloutist 21 hours ago [-]
> Unrestricted immigration destroys democratic high trust societies.
In the United States it's pretty clearly the nativists destroying the society, the immigrants are largely baffled about what the hell we're doing to ourselves and why.
mcphage 18 hours ago [-]
> Unrestricted immigration destroys democratic high trust societies.
I’m currently living through a democratic high trust society that’s destroying itself with immigrants being 0% to blame. I’d swap the Christian nationalists for immigrants in a heartbeat, no matter where they’re from.
wetpaws 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
gadders 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
add-sub-mul-div 1 days ago [-]
I don't understand Japanese culture well enough to comment on it, but if it contained the ugliness of xenophobia and white supremacy as they exist in America I'd surely oppose it.
ptaffs 1 days ago [-]
At the time "polls" predicted a Remain win. Between the vote and the eventual Brexit along with protests, there was a government petition for a redo and a Remain optimism that a re-do would flip the result. For this poll to me meaningful, I would expect to see declining support for Reform. But the opposite is happening.
A change of this magnitude probably should've been like an American constitutional amendment; a stricter requirement than 50%+1 vote.
f33d5173 23 hours ago [-]
What percentage of the vote was required to join the EU? The EU effectively constitutes a relinquishment of sovereignty, but that's not how it was sold to citizens, they were told that they could leave at any time.
> The United Kingdom consulted its citizens directly only after joining the European Communities: following the British general election of October 1974, the Labour government of Harold Wilson held a referendum to fulfill one of its campaign promises. The non-binding referendum was held on 5 June 1975, some two and half years after the UK's accession. It was the first ever national referendum to be held in the UK, and the "yes" vote won by a landslide 67.23% on a 65% turnout with 66 out of the 68 local counting areas returning majority "yes" votes.
I'm inclined to count that.
munksbeer 9 hours ago [-]
> the EU effectively constitutes a relinquishment of sovereignty
Agreed, it is pooling sovereignty. The UK already does that with a union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Pooling sovereignty is often regarded as a benefit on the whole.
ptaffs 23 hours ago [-]
You remember the story the citizens were sold but not the vote requirement seems odd. From a minimum of research, it seems there was no vote to join the EU, which did not exist at the time (1973) of the European Communities project with common currency and the rest. But in 1975 they had a referendum to stay and decided they would with a 67% Yes.
bojan 1 days ago [-]
> At the time "polls" predicted a Remain win.
This is a common trope but is simply not true. The polls were really tight[0].
Your link largely agrees; the "Polls of polls" shows a general consensus on a tight Remain win, and the chart shows the convergence being very late in the game.
moomin 1 days ago [-]
Reform don’t need 50%, though. I don’t think even Margaret Thatcher’s landslide got more than 40% of the vote.
rich_sasha 1 days ago [-]
Also today: UK cutting infrastructure investments into healthcare and education by £5bn to fund defence [1].
I'm all up for defence spending in Europe, but if you had anything to do with British state education or healthcare, you know what a desperate move this is.
Most of the people that want to rejoin the EU never realised that Brexit happened at the same time as COVID and they believe that all the bad things that happened since were due to Brexit and Brexit only. All the while ignoring that most EU countries are not that much better off. Just look at the GDP growth.
moomin 1 days ago [-]
This is why these kinds of decisions shouldn’t be flipped on a marginal vote. Most countries require a supermajority before doing something like this.
Sadly this now cuts the other way and the EU is highly unlikely to enter into anything with us without serious guarantees.
masfuerte 1 days ago [-]
We would have had a quorum requirement if it was a proper referendum but it wasn't, it was claimed to be purely advisory. Of course, it was never going to work like that if leave won. David Cameron is an arse.
MilnerRoute 1 days ago [-]
Tufts University asked an academic what the financial results were for the UK:
"The British GDP has been reduced by 6–8%, business investment has been reduced by 12%, and trade volume has been reduced by 15%, compared to what it could have been if the U.K. had remained in the EU."
Which is pretty much aligned with what more level-headed people predicted would happen, if my memory is correct. There was a strong push for UK to leave EU, but it was more based on emotion than rational. Of course the 'right' used the narrative of prosperity to get votes, but it never really made sense economically to leave the strong economic power of the EU and try to be independent again.
The UK is not the empire it was once, they need ties with mainland Europe, their closest trading partners, to be economically viable. So this doesn't entirely come as a surprise to me.
bpye 1 days ago [-]
> Which is pretty much aligned with what more level-headed people predicted would happen, if my memory is correct.
Of course this was painted as "project fear", and Michael Gove famously said that people had had enough of experts.
dijksterhuis 1 days ago [-]
Your username is weirdly on point for discussion of the topic at hand i guess xD
mrguyorama 1 days ago [-]
>Of course the 'right' used the narrative of prosperity to get votes
They used lies. Literal fabrications out of whole cloth.
They said that the UK was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on the EU, and if they pulled out they could use that money on like the NHS or something.
Lies.
onlyrealcuzzo 1 days ago [-]
> "The British GDP has been reduced by 6–8%, business investment has been reduced by 12%, and trade volume has been reduced by 15%, compared to what it could have been if the U.K. had remained in the EU."
The average person doesn't care about any of that.
If ~99% of those gains go to ~0.1% of people, the average person does not care.
What they do care about is, did MY expenses go up higher than MY wages. Did MY opportunities get better or worse...
In the UK example, the result is potentially even worse - but I would guess the response to COVID & global wars are likely to have a bigger impact on that than Brexit.
marcusverus 1 days ago [-]
Ah yes, economists are famously capable of accurately projecting a decade in the future.
calvinmorrison 1 days ago [-]
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ben_w 1 days ago [-]
The EU today is about as far from being an empire as the US was in the "Articles of Confederation" era (roughly 1781-1789):
States are sovreign, the federal body doesn't have direct powers of taxation and the money it does get is what the states tell it it's getting, foreign policy only happens to extent individual states say it does, lacks a fully unified financial system, more about interstate commerce than anything else.
But yes, if you hate that and want to spend 6-8% GDP not having it, this is absolutely within the rights of the people to decide that.
Of course, if they didn't want that and just plain didn't believe the people who accurately explained the cost, that's an argument for undoing it. Lying politicians isn't at all unique here, and unfortunately politicians saying the decision is permanent and irreversable is also not at all unique, but it is anti-democratic.
gspr 1 days ago [-]
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elzbardico 1 days ago [-]
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gambiting 1 days ago [-]
The only stupid thing about sanctions on Russia is that they aren't harsh enough.
Beijinger 23 hours ago [-]
I 100% agree. They need to be much harsher and will lead to a regime change soon. But not in Russia, but in Germany (AfD), UK (Farage) and France (LePen), as predicted by Emmanuell Todd. ;-)
gambiting 23 hours ago [-]
...how can you wish for such a thing?
elzbardico 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
gambiting 5 hours ago [-]
Well, I hope they pay you well to come online and write this nonsense. If you're writing this out of your own free will without compensation then that's just sad.
elzbardico 7 hours ago [-]
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gambiting 5 hours ago [-]
>>the hitler bootlicker.
Well, at least Ukrainians aren't publishing state sponsored books about Komrade Hitler like Russia does - the state sponsored revisionism about Hitler happening in Russia right now is insane, I was going to say you forgot that you fought him, but then again, WW2 started by Russia making a pact with Hitler, so maybe actually nothing was forgotten.
>>history like their midget bandera hero
The funny thing is only completely brainwashed Russians seem to care about Bandera at this point, if FSB is providing you with talking points online then they really need to update their guidance. I just find it interesting what is it about HN that makes you guys come out of the woods - surely FSB isn't paying that much to post on random tech forums online? Or is it just paid per hour?
cindyllm 7 hours ago [-]
[dead]
gadders 1 days ago [-]
The first time in history people have been able to accurately predict a counter-factual.
Of course, any economic gains weren't guaranteed and were predicated on competent national government and we saw what happened there.
However, net-net, I'd rather have one shite layer of government, rather than two.
bonzini 1 days ago [-]
> However, net-net, I'd rather have one shite layer of government, rather than two.
To make a parallel that might work for California or NY. In Europe however there is no single country that is so much better than the others at making money, in the same way as those two. Even countries that didn't enter the EU (Switzerland, Norway) accepted most of the EU regulations because they need some of them.
The UK in that respect already had the sweetest deal of all EU members; and, unlike Switzerland or Norway, actually had a say on the regulations that it had to follow. Plus, they had and have a messy situation due to (non-EU-related and therefore unaffected by Brexit) agreements that the border with Ireland cannot be a customs union, so the only thing a competent national government could do was to tell people they had been duped and promised something impossible. The result would have been a Switzerland- or Norway-like non-membership, with small benefits and less power in the EU.
socalgal2 1 days ago [-]
I'm curious what valid reasons there are against Brexit? AFAICT, most people arguing it is/was bad are ignoring any kind of evidence.
The UK is doing fine, especially relative to other EU countries. None of the things the anti-Brexit side claimed would happen have happened.
tim333 22 hours ago [-]
It's been quite meh economically - we'd be wealthier if we'd remained. Also immigration went up which is not what a lot of Brexiters were hoping.
I think a lot of the Brexit vote was just people being fed up and voting for something different. In my experience few Brexit voters are happy with what arrived.
anonymousiam 20 hours ago [-]
"we'd be wealthier if we'd remained"
Briton would be even wealthier still if they had never joined the EU in the first place.
- and then, later on, Reform would reach power and undermine EU just like Orban did.
So maybe it would be better to refuse UK its reentry into EU...
bojan 1 days ago [-]
A successful rejoin referendum would probably help contain Reform.
However such a referendum is basically taboo in the British public discourse.
ben_w 1 days ago [-]
IMO, the only thing that will contain Reform is Farage suffering consequences for misconduct. That or being overtaken by even worse people. The two things…
henearkr 1 days ago [-]
If so, there is some kind of hope.
nephihaha 1 days ago [-]
The taboo is the notion that the European Union needs to be reformed (no pun intended!). I was a Remainer, and do not regret that, but I hoped the EU would clean house. (Yes, the UK should do as well btw. Scotland should be independent. The House of Lords, Whitehall and Royal Family need a major overhaul.)
bojan 21 hours ago [-]
As someone who's pro-EU, I'd also really like to see major reforms within the organization.
While it contributes enormously to the welfare of the continent, the EU is by design dysfunctional and toothless.
I'm a pessimist, there is so much money behind the forces that want to see the EU fall apart because small individual countries are easier to buy off, I don't see how we can defend against that.
We'll only know what we lost when it's gone, but then it'll be too late.
munksbeer 9 hours ago [-]
> As someone who's pro-EU, I'd also really like to see major reforms within the organization.
What would your reformed EU look like?
AndrewDucker 23 hours ago [-]
What reforms do you want to see from the EU?
RobertoG 1 days ago [-]
what does 'undermine' means here? It seems that there is a 'correct' way of thinking, and if you don't play along you're an enemy or a Russian asset or whatever. Not very democratic.
alibarber 1 days ago [-]
I'm afraid that it looks as if there are plenty of other contenders for those who might wish to undermine the EU, now and in the future.
ErroneousBosh 1 days ago [-]
I wouldn't be sad if that little deformed Gerry Anderson puppet looking prick Farage went for a wee holiday with his Russian owners and got to stay on a high floor of their favourite hotel with a lovely balcony view.
Edit: Easy to see the Russian bots are out in force tonight!
Beijinger 1 days ago [-]
Trump would be happy if the UK joins the US. With Canada. And Greenland. ;-)
noncoml 1 days ago [-]
I don’t buy it. They are getting ready make Farage a prime minister, based on the exact same premise: xenophobia.
delecti 1 days ago [-]
I'm sure that's part of why, but the bigger reason is probably a more reflexive "well we switched more left and it didn't help, what if we go the other way." After a dramatic Labour win, they're just Conservative-lite. That kind of "well this didn't work, lets go the other way" response doesn't necessarily mean anything about any party's actual popularity.
noncoml 1 days ago [-]
Huh? Brexit materialized in 2020. Labour happened in 2024. Immigration going up between 2020-2024. Going down since 2024.
And that’s somehow Labour’s fault?
delecti 23 hours ago [-]
I'm saying that I believe public opinion on Brexit is unrelated to public opinion on Conservative/Labour/Reform. I also believe that public opinion on Conservative/Labour/Reform is unrelated to any particular policy positions of any of those three beyond "things were bad under C, lets try L" and then "things are bad under L, lets try R". That's my explanation for Brexit being unpopular, but Reform nonetheless performing well in polls and the recent local elections.
("unrelated" is too strong, but I think they're weak correlations)
jltsiren 1 days ago [-]
Those two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. A first-past-the-post system can give the power to a minority, if the opposing votes are divided. In the 2024 elections, Labour got a third of the votes but almost two thirds of the seats.
1 days ago [-]
bpye 1 days ago [-]
If they do, Reform would almost certainly form government on a minority of the vote. Brexit was a yes/no question.
Dig1t 1 days ago [-]
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dijksterhuis 1 days ago [-]
As someone who is white british -- this isn't happening. Please stop regurgitating right wing US talk show talking points. It's boring.
london is one place in the whole of the uk. might be the big stonking capital city, but it is definitely not representative of the whole of the UK.
late edit copypasta stat from sibling reply with actual national census data instead of cherry picking from the obvious culturally diverse capital city
> "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011.
80% is a long way off from 50%. and it took 10 years to drop by 5ish percent. in something like 50-60 years us white british people can start moaning about becoming a minority (assuming certain things on average stay the same, or average out over the 50-60 years).
gib444 9 hours ago [-]
Birmingham (2nd largest city):
1991: 78%
2001: 65%
2011: 57%
2021: 48%
Manchester (3rd largest city):
2001: 74%
2011: 59%
2021: 48%
I can keep going until you get tired
dijksterhuis 8 hours ago [-]
what would be appreciated is
1. sources for your numbers rather than just random numbers thrown out on the internet
2. not using specific city data, i.e. look at national census-type level data. because if you look at the largest cities in the UK you're going to see effects/changes which are local to those cities, and not nationally applicable. manc/brum are still not representative of the whole country.
You're still cherry picking your statistics, which is how to lie with stats 101 (i did that for a job for 3+ years, i know all the wily tricks dude).
Feel free to keep going, but you'll just be cherry picking more and more un-representative samples until you start using national level census-type data.
gib444 7 hours ago [-]
I already cited, the data is from the same source: the census.
You're not engaging in good faith at all.
"I want to zoom out until it matches my world view / provide more sources" is bad faith 101. Did you think I'm so naive?
You not willing to discuss the 3 largest cities is absolutely absurd and bad faith. It's akin to sticking your head in the sand.
Zoomed-out stats is how to lie with stats 101. The same happens in crime arguments: eg 'oh it doesn't matter if crime in your local area is rising because UK-wide it's declining'. It's an attempt to cover up issues and it's very obvious
Dig1t 20 hours ago [-]
Just look at the data, you say "it isn't happening" but it's easy to prove.
as per sibling comment, your headline stats are cherry picking two things that are not representative of the whole of the uk.
university of manchester is a university, and since the cameron/clegg tuition fee change it was more profitable to attract international students. that’s not representative of the wider population, data is skewed. so you’re cherry picking some stats that are not representative there.
london, well it’s lahndahn. it’s in no way representative of the rest of the uk. remember how people complain about london centric decisions made that have no relation to where they live? because lahndahn is not representative of the rest of the country. when i go home to oxfordshire i don’t get confused with where i am because oxfordshire is obviously not the same place as lahdahn.
the projections are just projections and judging from the domain name aren’t from anywhere official. so i’ll gloss over them as i cba.
the one national statistic you’ve found - the a 4% share change from 69% ish to 64% over five years for school pupils, this is not white british people becoming a minority. it is a very long way to go until we’re under 50% in that one statistic.
here a better statistic from the 2021 census, actually tracking national level ethnicity
> “White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011.
i know it makes you all scared and insecure inside. but don’t forgot, these other people are just that. other people. the only scary thing about them is whatever is running through your own mind, or whatever bs people are spouting on social media. in reality, they’re not that scary actually. usually they’re really lovely humans. try speaking to some of them some time.
mono442 1 days ago [-]
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stronglikedan 1 days ago [-]
At the time it was the best thing for the UK. Then Starmer came along and ran the country into the ground, so it's really no wonder they want back in with the EU. No one is surprised...
tonyedgecombe 1 days ago [-]
If you want to gauge how well it went take a look at investment in the automotive industry and its production figures.
We went from making two million cars a year to just 750 thousand. Investment plummeted.
Note that even the sole prominent Brexit economist predicted this.
bonzini 1 days ago [-]
Speaking of incompetent politicians, let me remind you of the Liz Truss lettuce...
ErroneousBosh 1 days ago [-]
Liz Truss murdered Queen Elizabeth.
jfengel 3 hours ago [-]
There's a play called The Audience, which is a series of meetings between Queen Elizabeth and her prime ministers. It's a fascinating lens through which to view British history.
It runs up through Tony Blair. I'd love to see a final update:
Truss: Hi, I'm Liz Truss
Elizabeth: Urkh! (dies)
Curtain
(The Audience is the basis of the TV show The Crown. The audience parts of The Crown are the most interesting. As the show goes on, it's less about British life and more about royal scandals, ho hum. Gillian Anderson gives an amazing turn as Thatcher; it's too bad the rest of that season is so tedious.)
nephihaha 1 days ago [-]
Liz Truss tells an interesting anecdote of how when she became PM, she was given a list of things she was supposed to do. I think this is the reality of today's politics and is not democracy.
Rendered at 18:21:07 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Britain is at a breaking point. There are existential questions to be asked:
Is Britain British without British Bourgeoisie that have lived there for thousands of years with new arrivals that have no commmon culture or connection to the land?
Can Japan be called Japan without Japanese that have lived there for thousands of years and their homogeneous identity?
Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?
The fact is the loudest voice in the room so far has never been representative of the answer to the above questions.
You mean the celts who were conquered by Romans who were conquered be Angles who were conquered by Normans? Who speak this bastard language we're using now, where most vocabulary is Latinate upon bones of Germanic?
Britain had an empire that lasted hundreds of years, and whose greatest legacy is linguistic and temporal system dominance. Having spent centuries proclaiming itself to be the literal center of civilization to most of the world, is it really surprising that ambitious individuals gravitate toward it? This is the common culture that Britain set out to impose on its possessions.
It's especially ironic (though not especially surprising) that immigration from former territories went way up after Britain forcibly detached itself from the EU. Perhaps the Brexiteers wil offer to secede from the world next - build a national space program and launch Britain into orbit as a second satellite that can service its markets while orbiting the planet from a distance.
I truly hate the historical revisionism of Westerners. Japan engaged in colonialism because it was an active victim of colonialism, and the only way to fight back was to stand on equal footing. Through the 1800s~1940s, Europe controlled nearly the entirety of Asia. China had been subject to countless treaties forced upon it. The Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, India were all colonies. 90% of Africa was under European control. 100% of both Americas was under European control. 100% of Australia and New Zealand was under European control. Europeans were literally aiming for world domination. The list of countries free from European colonialism could be counted on one hand: Japan (only because it successfully fought back), Korea (before it got annexed by Japan), Siam, Nepal, Iran pretty much covers it. Yet amazingly Europeans found and continue to find no shortage of pearl clutching over Japan daring to do the same thing they did, in a dog-eat-dog world where not doing so meant becoming another pawn.
To the extent colonialism declined, it was solely due to to the world wars wrecking Europe so utterly they could not maintain their overseas holdings, + the untouched US intervening in eg. Suez Crisis in order to assert itself as the global Western hegemon with no peers.
Well, there you have it. These people always shoot themselves in the foot.
The other guy thought I was Indian and told me about how "weak" it is only one response later as well. Interesting, I suppose Indians are currently the most socially acceptable to be racist towards.
None of the Indians (or Pakistanis and Bangladeshis) living in London want parts of London to resemble Delhi. They left their families and homeland behind to get away from Delhi and places like it.
Hmm American spelling and a low effort attempt at DARVO.
So let's just cut through the noise. You obviously picked Delhi and the other guy picked India out of everything else and this is clearly not a coincidence. And there are certainly worse places.
My guess is the Henry Nowak case has recently made it more socially acceptable to be racist towards Indians.
Of course it's not a coincidence. India simply is the largest and most well-recognized example of third-world disorder and dysfunction. It's the second largest country in the world and the single largest source of immigrants to the U.K. Other places are worse--for example, Dhaka--but a random person on the Internet is much more likely to have seen pictures of Delhi than Dhaka.
I am willing to bet your mother never encountered anything of the sort. Most of the old very rough areas in London are now gentrified (people complain about it). You can pretty much walk around anywhere in London, at night, without any issues. Phone snatching is the major problem, but general crime, violent crime, ghettoism, etc are all down since 2000.
I know this, because I am an immigrant from a 3rd world country, have lived in London for 25+ years. And the stats show it too.
Your post really makes me angry.
OF course people would rather live in a period when things were simpler and easier, who wouldn't? The lie sold by the self-styled reformists (and doubled down upon by the emerging Restore Britain) is that all these unwanted outcomes were done to Britain by Other People instead of being the product of repeated bad decisions - Brexit being the most recent one. Someone else in the thread observed that about 27 immigrants are offered jobs for every native Briton entering the workforce. But this notion of prioritizing market forces at the expense of all other considerations is exactly the legacy of Thatcherite conservatism that has dominated Britain for nearly a half-century and of which the Brexit/Reform/Restor movements are the ost recent iterations.
As John Bagot Glubb pointed out ~50 years ago (and many others have pointed out before him), the root causes of decline are complacency, greed, and individualism (vs the notion of social duty). I put it to you that modern finance capitalism selects for these negative traits because they maximize short-term gain and because the accumulation of money allows the holders of it to be indifferent to the long-term structural problems. The primary reason I do not identify as a political conservative is that they sell tradition to the electorate but conserve wealth and power for themselves.
https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
But British people today aren't doomed to allowing historical forces to play out. Or are you suggesting futility--that the British government lacks the state capacity to prevent what's happening?
I walk around outside my home in the very heart of London: the street is full of Rolls Royces, pretty Russian and Ukrainian girls walk around carrying their Graff jewels and Kelly bags. Men still wear watches worth hundreds of thousands despite what the FT style section says.
What ghetto? Where is it? Everybody here is as rich as Croesus and very much a part of the same global jet set culture.
Pretty sure a Japanese person could say the same thing about the U.K.
actually Britain still see these arrivals. Brexit restored immigration from people with more walks of life and with a more worldwide origins. There is no fast track for any nationality, like when EU citizens didn't need a visa, so companies are blind to origin.
You only got rid of the maudzits français / stronzo francese who liked the queen way too much and feel at home everywhere. The Québécois, the Swiss, the Dutch and a part of Europe look at Britain as an example for that : it's so funny to see them struggle with the UK ETA app while they no longer have Tyrrells crisps, as they keep complaining about british food and were mean about the tapestry anyway.
But was this show worth the losses that Britain had ?
It's never too late to apply again, Britain hasn't deviated from its course of rule of law and democracy
https://radiolab.org/podcast/americanish-2306
It's also fun to watch people's heads explode over the hypocracy pointed out by this episode. Short version: If Samoa has to follow non-racial discrimination rules than Samoa as a place of Samoans will cease to exist. Without taking a side, the same is true of Israel.
This idea that for some reason other human beings cannot embrace, be a part of, and contribute to existing culture simply because they were born in a different country is flagrantly absurd. It’s also how people who are born somewhere, but don’t “look the part” have to fight an uphill battle to prove they are.
So yeah, Japan could be called Japan if people who live there are culturally Japanese, participate in shared culture, and contribute to it. I am also absolutely aware that isn’t possible by any reasonable means currently, but it doesn’t change the fact it should be.
I'm surprised how much HN'ers struggle with this simple question its not asking you what the facts are its asking your opinion.
The answer based on fact is obviously no. You cannot have a country like Japan which its identity drives from its homogeneity without its ethnicity. Same with Korea. Otherwise you could have bunch of people on an island suddenly identify as Japanese and then Korean another day and ultimately settling on non-binary national identity.
Yes, of course, ethnicity is a collection of observed physical traits. What makes Japan Japan is the way people behave, not the way they look, and behavior is not an ethnic trait, it's a cultural trait.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
Britain overnight cannot have a fresh start from its past, even the royals have ties to other nations. The England that was always English never existed and its history will always be rooted in the British empire (where the sun never set).
This is a very bizarre response. Don't mind if I screenshot this and write an email. Very strange behaviour.
Not all immigrants are good. Many cost society more than they contribute. The right kind of immigrants are good.
This is for Denmark.
https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/the-effects-of-immigr...
[0]https://www.dw.com/en/denmark-apologizes-for-abuse-of-people...
The point though - it's irrelevant. Even those cases, and even straight up cases where people come here and just go on the dole, don't change the fact that as a whole immigrants are a net positive to the country(financially), and that's based on the OFR findings not my imagination.
Myself I have spent almost two decades in Britain, paid my taxes (at the highest rate at that), and decided to leave when I saw that the immigration talk had turned everybody into racist lunatics, and even people like me, from the same continent, were made to feel unwelcome by this rhetoric. For all I care, it's a failed state, yet it has not yet seen the bottom until it progresses its descent into decay, the same that has infected the US and elected Trump.
You will get your Reform government and it'll be Brexit times 10. Only then, maybe, the British people will stop falling for far-right propaganda paid for the Russians.
Migration is not just a choice between an open door and a closed door, but a spectrum. There are a variety of levels between those two extremes.
Mixing of cultures always lead to adding up their different solutions to all kinds of problems, improving the fitness of the result among other groups of humans.
It's gathering all the positive ideas or traditions of several groups, and the less useful or negative aspects tend to just fade naturally.
> Can Japan be called Japan without Japanese that have lived there for thousands of years and their homogeneous identity?
> Why is it okay for one but not the other? Where does this double standard come from ?
Disingenuous question; even people who like Japan and Japanese culture tend to dislike how xenophobic and racist it is.
??
1. You claim (without basis or evidence) that people in the West have a double-standard about xenophobia and cultural chauvinism as between Japan and Western countries.
2. I say people in the West also dislike it in Japan and Japanese culture (more precisely, the same people who dislike racism and bigotry in the West dislike that it exists in Japan too)
3. You say "but Japan elected a right-wing bigot"
like...ok?
We don't like her and we don't like you :shrug:
but one need not live in Britain to know its issues and see past the filter of MSM
we have X now so we can get a more raw look at what's actually happening and what we are not being fully shown.
You belong less to Europe than Caribbeans.
Thousands of years? Are you talking about celts?
Because Romans later arrived in Britannia and founded Londinium. Is it British when it was founded by those pesky Romans?
Or are you complaining about later populations, such as Vikings or Normans? I mean, they haven't been to the British isles for thousands of years. How can Britain be British with those smelly frenchmen?
Unless what you really are trying to do is complain that Britain now has too many brown people.
Because in Japan AIUI they haven't been infiltrated by people pushing narratives that being eg White British is inherently racist, that to not open your borders to one and all is racism and xenophobia (you can see lots of examples of such people in the post about the Swiss referendum on the 10M population limit), which they do in order to gain for them and their communities.
The existing minority populations know they can abuse our good nature, our placidity, our leftist politicians, and even the English language in order to gain, and to position themselves as continuous victims. Some feminists do the same. The idea that the whole of the UK is full of angry white supremacist racists is the kind of propaganda I allude to (it's funny how many US folk here fall for it).
(I am British, lived here all my life, live in a county with many areas of significant minority populations, and just old enough to have observed plenty of change in England)
And its "homogeneous identity" is mostly a construction, dating back from the Meiji era.
And Heian period Japan had a completely different set of values, not less nor more valid than Meiji era Japan, just different.
So the identity of a nation is not something eternal nor absolute.
Heck, there is even proof Japan has been a mosaic of at least three sets of human populations in prehistoric times, arrived at different times on the land.
So here you are: yes Japan was, long time ago, a land of immigration.
2) Japanese homogeneity is not a myth or a "social construct" but based on science. Same with Korea.
3) Your confusing anthropology with immigration policy. Japan has deep prehistoric population layers like anywhere else. That does not mean modern Japan is "mosaic" in any meaningful political sense.
Meiji era nationuilding also does not prove Japanese identity is fake. It proves modern nation-states formalize identity. That is true everywhere. France, Britain, Italy, Germany, Korea, Japan have lengthy historical construction layered on top of real continuity so it can't be declare a "social construct thats not real" as a lazy excuse.
Since you are struggling with this you could just answer should present day Japanese citizens have the right to decide how much immigration they want, according to their own social trust, institutions, culture, and political preferences?
it sounds like you are saying you know what's good for Japanese and that they should be listening to you even though you aren't part of Japanese society nor ever be integrated into it as a gaijin
Why do I think that the archaeologic/anthropologic perspective is a great point on this issue?
It's because it's precisely one of the talking points of Japanese anti-immigration or xenophobic politicians or writers to emphasize those points. They always say that Japan is different in that of America or of European countries. However archaeology taught us that this is not true.
Just as European countries have always been connected and mixed together, Japan also has undergone population mixes. Just on a larger time scale. That's for the "ethnical homegeinity".
So that is a great way to explain why this particular argument of "Japanese exceptionalism" doesn't hold.
Now for the "political" homogeinity: this one is a pure illusion. In current Japan, even if very-long-term political circumstances have taught people to stay discreet about political disagreement (quite similar to, say, in Russian mindset of avoiding talking politics), there are a lot of different mindsets, and many subcultures.
Even the cultural "homogeinity" is quite recent (Meiji era), and a product of violence. There were 4 casts etc, and the samurais cast tried (and succeeded) to become the "only legitimate one".
Now what about the world in, say, one century, when all the cultures will have time to mix together and stabilize the result all over the world? It will not be unlike the "homogeinity" that you see in today's Japan.
This is precisely what Japan's ancient history can teach us, and I think it's a great way to disarm the far-right and xenophobic rhetorics that is unrelentingly ruining our ears and brains nowadays.
(PS: Please refrain from using "gaijin" which is widely regarded as a xenophobic slur.)
Its used commonly and not a slur.
The right term is gaikokujin, but if we speak in English there is no reason to not just say "foreigner".
"gaijin" has the vibes of "outsider", and is never used in public speech other than by xenophobic speakers.
In private or familiar conversations it is commonly used, yes.
it literally means 'foreigner' in which case you are
Quite distinct groups of humans mixed in ancient Japan, as different and distant at that time as the groups that are mixed in modern times in Peru or India.
Some groups were related to Autronesians, others to Yakuts, yet other groups to Hans, etc.
If I remember correctly, at least three distinct groups are proven to have cohabited and arrived at different times.
Japan is a heck of a lot more homogenous than Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and most of continental south east Asia. In fact, for that matter, Japan was more homogenous in 1707 than the British Isles, Spain, France, Italy or Germany.
The Ainu/mainland distinction is a feature arrived much later than the mixing I am referring to.
My point is that Japan ethnicity is the product of a mixing just as the one occurring nowadays in France, Britain or Norway, between several very different people.
So that, if such mixing produces great results (do we agree that modern day Japan is that?), why not welcome today's mixings for the sake of the great nations of the future?
But I don't think we'll reach a common understanding on this topic, so we can just agree to disagree.
And have a good one.
Unrestricted immigration destroys democratic high trust societies.
There is a balance to be found, as in all things. It isn’t simply diversity always good or always bad.
In the United States it's pretty clearly the nativists destroying the society, the immigrants are largely baffled about what the hell we're doing to ourselves and why.
I’m currently living through a democratic high trust society that’s destroying itself with immigrants being 0% to blame. I’d swap the Christian nationalists for immigrants in a heartbeat, no matter where they’re from.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/revoke-artic...
> The United Kingdom consulted its citizens directly only after joining the European Communities: following the British general election of October 1974, the Labour government of Harold Wilson held a referendum to fulfill one of its campaign promises. The non-binding referendum was held on 5 June 1975, some two and half years after the UK's accession. It was the first ever national referendum to be held in the UK, and the "yes" vote won by a landslide 67.23% on a 65% turnout with 66 out of the 68 local counting areas returning majority "yes" votes.
I'm inclined to count that.
Agreed, it is pooling sovereignty. The UK already does that with a union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Pooling sovereignty is often regarded as a benefit on the whole.
This is a common trope but is simply not true. The polls were really tight[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_United...
I'm all up for defence spending in Europe, but if you had anything to do with British state education or healthcare, you know what a desperate move this is.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-07/uk-plans-...
Sadly this now cuts the other way and the EU is highly unlikely to enter into anything with us without serious guarantees.
"The British GDP has been reduced by 6–8%, business investment has been reduced by 12%, and trade volume has been reduced by 15%, compared to what it could have been if the U.K. had remained in the EU."
https://now.tufts.edu/2026/06/08/10-years-after-brexit-vote-...
The UK is not the empire it was once, they need ties with mainland Europe, their closest trading partners, to be economically viable. So this doesn't entirely come as a surprise to me.
Of course this was painted as "project fear", and Michael Gove famously said that people had had enough of experts.
They used lies. Literal fabrications out of whole cloth.
They said that the UK was spending hundreds of millions of pounds on the EU, and if they pulled out they could use that money on like the NHS or something.
Lies.
The average person doesn't care about any of that.
If ~99% of those gains go to ~0.1% of people, the average person does not care.
What they do care about is, did MY expenses go up higher than MY wages. Did MY opportunities get better or worse...
In the UK example, the result is potentially even worse - but I would guess the response to COVID & global wars are likely to have a bigger impact on that than Brexit.
States are sovreign, the federal body doesn't have direct powers of taxation and the money it does get is what the states tell it it's getting, foreign policy only happens to extent individual states say it does, lacks a fully unified financial system, more about interstate commerce than anything else.
But yes, if you hate that and want to spend 6-8% GDP not having it, this is absolutely within the rights of the people to decide that.
Of course, if they didn't want that and just plain didn't believe the people who accurately explained the cost, that's an argument for undoing it. Lying politicians isn't at all unique here, and unfortunately politicians saying the decision is permanent and irreversable is also not at all unique, but it is anti-democratic.
Well, at least Ukrainians aren't publishing state sponsored books about Komrade Hitler like Russia does - the state sponsored revisionism about Hitler happening in Russia right now is insane, I was going to say you forgot that you fought him, but then again, WW2 started by Russia making a pact with Hitler, so maybe actually nothing was forgotten.
>>history like their midget bandera hero
The funny thing is only completely brainwashed Russians seem to care about Bandera at this point, if FSB is providing you with talking points online then they really need to update their guidance. I just find it interesting what is it about HN that makes you guys come out of the woods - surely FSB isn't paying that much to post on random tech forums online? Or is it just paid per hour?
Of course, any economic gains weren't guaranteed and were predicated on competent national government and we saw what happened there.
However, net-net, I'd rather have one shite layer of government, rather than two.
To make a parallel that might work for California or NY. In Europe however there is no single country that is so much better than the others at making money, in the same way as those two. Even countries that didn't enter the EU (Switzerland, Norway) accepted most of the EU regulations because they need some of them.
The UK in that respect already had the sweetest deal of all EU members; and, unlike Switzerland or Norway, actually had a say on the regulations that it had to follow. Plus, they had and have a messy situation due to (non-EU-related and therefore unaffected by Brexit) agreements that the border with Ireland cannot be a customs union, so the only thing a competent national government could do was to tell people they had been duped and promised something impossible. The result would have been a Switzerland- or Norway-like non-membership, with small benefits and less power in the EU.
The UK is doing fine, especially relative to other EU countries. None of the things the anti-Brexit side claimed would happen have happened.
I think a lot of the Brexit vote was just people being fed up and voting for something different. In my experience few Brexit voters are happy with what arrived.
Briton would be even wealthier still if they had never joined the EU in the first place.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...
British disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_British_disease
Sick man of Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick_man_of_Europe
Things then picked up, especially in finance when in 2014: London overtakes New York to be named world's finance capital https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-overtakes-new-...
then Brexit screwed that up. The charges in your link are nothing compared to that lot really.
Headline today: Britain’s debt rising at fastest rate in the world – bar Botswana
I mean you can't really say how it would have gone but tearing up the trade deals with your main trading partners is seldom great for business.
https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/07/02/broken-bri...
- UK would rejoin EU,
- and then, later on, Reform would reach power and undermine EU just like Orban did.
So maybe it would be better to refuse UK its reentry into EU...
However such a referendum is basically taboo in the British public discourse.
While it contributes enormously to the welfare of the continent, the EU is by design dysfunctional and toothless.
I'm a pessimist, there is so much money behind the forces that want to see the EU fall apart because small individual countries are easier to buy off, I don't see how we can defend against that.
We'll only know what we lost when it's gone, but then it'll be too late.
What would your reformed EU look like?
Edit: Easy to see the Russian bots are out in force tonight!
("unrelated" is too strong, but I think they're weak correlations)
2001: 59%
2011: 44%
2021: 36%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_London
late edit copypasta stat from sibling reply with actual national census data instead of cherry picking from the obvious culturally diverse capital city
> "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/cultural...
80% is a long way off from 50%. and it took 10 years to drop by 5ish percent. in something like 50-60 years us white british people can start moaning about becoming a minority (assuming certain things on average stay the same, or average out over the 50-60 years).
1991: 78%
2001: 65%
2011: 57%
2021: 48%
Manchester (3rd largest city):
2001: 74%
2011: 59%
2021: 48%
I can keep going until you get tired
1. sources for your numbers rather than just random numbers thrown out on the internet
2. not using specific city data, i.e. look at national census-type level data. because if you look at the largest cities in the UK you're going to see effects/changes which are local to those cities, and not nationally applicable. manc/brum are still not representative of the whole country.
You're still cherry picking your statistics, which is how to lie with stats 101 (i did that for a job for 3+ years, i know all the wily tricks dude).
Feel free to keep going, but you'll just be cherry picking more and more un-representative samples until you start using national level census-type data.
You're not engaging in good faith at all.
"I want to zoom out until it matches my world view / provide more sources" is bad faith 101. Did you think I'm so naive?
You not willing to discuss the 3 largest cities is absolutely absurd and bad faith. It's akin to sticking your head in the sand.
Zoomed-out stats is how to lie with stats 101. The same happens in crime arguments: eg 'oh it doesn't matter if crime in your local area is rising because UK-wide it's declining'. It's an attempt to cover up issues and it's very obvious
University of Manchester: https://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/institutes/code/briefings/...
1990: White British 95%
2025: White British 77%
2050 (projected): White British 57%
Many parts of London the percentage in schools is already below 20%.
Here are projections for the near future:
https://www.theflyingfrisby.com/p/what-the-uk-population-wil...
Here is the data from the UK government itself:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tab...
university of manchester is a university, and since the cameron/clegg tuition fee change it was more profitable to attract international students. that’s not representative of the wider population, data is skewed. so you’re cherry picking some stats that are not representative there.
london, well it’s lahndahn. it’s in no way representative of the rest of the uk. remember how people complain about london centric decisions made that have no relation to where they live? because lahndahn is not representative of the rest of the country. when i go home to oxfordshire i don’t get confused with where i am because oxfordshire is obviously not the same place as lahdahn.
the projections are just projections and judging from the domain name aren’t from anywhere official. so i’ll gloss over them as i cba.
the one national statistic you’ve found - the a 4% share change from 69% ish to 64% over five years for school pupils, this is not white british people becoming a minority. it is a very long way to go until we’re under 50% in that one statistic.
here a better statistic from the 2021 census, actually tracking national level ethnicity
> “White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/cultural...
80% is a long way off from 50%.
i know it makes you all scared and insecure inside. but don’t forgot, these other people are just that. other people. the only scary thing about them is whatever is running through your own mind, or whatever bs people are spouting on social media. in reality, they’re not that scary actually. usually they’re really lovely humans. try speaking to some of them some time.
We went from making two million cars a year to just 750 thousand. Investment plummeted.
Note that even the sole prominent Brexit economist predicted this.
It runs up through Tony Blair. I'd love to see a final update:
Truss: Hi, I'm Liz Truss
Elizabeth: Urkh! (dies)
Curtain
(The Audience is the basis of the TV show The Crown. The audience parts of The Crown are the most interesting. As the show goes on, it's less about British life and more about royal scandals, ho hum. Gillian Anderson gives an amazing turn as Thatcher; it's too bad the rest of that season is so tedious.)