‘Leave’ campaign’s response to Angela Merkel IS RACISM
Racist: This image by Brexiteers Leave.EU refers to the two world wars and shows German leader Angela Merkel giving an approximation of a Nazi salute. It also refers to her by the racist term “kraut”. It is designed to drum up racist sentiment against Germany. It deserves prosecution under our anti-racism laws.
Brexiteers have adopted a new tactic in their bid to drum up public support for their plan to leave the European Union without any withdrawal agreement. It’s called racism.
After a telephone conversation with Boris Johnson in which Angela Merkel reportedly said a deal based on his current proposals was “overwhelmingly unlikely”, the campaign group Leave.EU, run by the infamous Arron Banks and Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice, released the image above.
It is racist for all the reasons set out in the caption.
Worse, European newspapers seem to be pushing the opinion that it – and those behind it – are succeeding in their attempt to sway public opinion here in the UK.
European newspapers and commentators rounded on the “outrageous” tactics of an “out-of-control” Downing Street after a string of leaks sought to blame France, Ireland and Germany for the Brexit breakdown – but they warned the EU would not fall for them.
For Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung, Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy “may be recognised as transparent in Brussels and outrageous in Berlin – but in the UK it seems, for the time being, to be working”.
The plan was to insist that the UK was “heading for no deal, either before or after the next election – it’s just a matter of time”, and all because the EU is “not prepared to compromise. We gave it our all, but it was not sufficient. Now enough is enough.”
Suggesting Germany was largely at fault was, of course, deliberate, the paper said. “Aversion to Britain’s wartime opponent, and its return to power via Brussels, was a reason for many especially older Britons to vote for Brexit.” Cue the inevitable reactions from leave voters: “Merkel is to blame, Germany is showing its true face, Berlin always wanted to subjugate us, the EU must be smashed.”
Johnson and his senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, “have always threatened no deal, paying mere lip service to an agreement”, the paper noted. “The UK’s latest proposal was obviously not designed to make a deal possible in a short time.”
The EU is unlikely to give in to this threat, SZ said. But No 10’s psychology was different: “It aims to oblige the Commons to force a Brexit delay – and then sees angry voters re-electing Johnson by a large majority.”
In a piece headlined the Saboteur, Der Spiegel reckoned that Johnson, thwarted in his desire for no deal by parliament, was “embarking on a last-ditch attempt to make it possible – this time, triggered by the EU”. He was “doing everything possible to prevent the EU unanimously approving a new Brexit extension”.
But that was all just for show, said the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. Johnson and Cummings were putting “more persuasiveness and energy into shifting the blame for a new Brexit extension than into securing an 11th-hour deal on Britain’s exit from the EU”.
The prime minister, it said, had seen the polls and knew he could win a large majority at the next election. He may “hint that he wants to drive the EU nuts, with a no deal on 31 October as the consequence, but that’s for domestic consumption. He knows he has no chance of success: the UK is heading for postponement and early elections.”
So Johnson is “now doing everything possible to avoid taking responsibility for the delay”. Tuesday’s events played out “exactly as No 10 wanted”, the paper said.
“Without a German reply, without any traceable involvement of No 10, the British public gained the impression that the EU was being intransigent, Johnson was standing up to them as a patriot, and that postponing Brexit will not be his fault.”
Are we really a nation of racists?
Is that what nine years of Conservative-led rule has done to the once-great-and-tolerant United Kingdom?
No. We aren’t and it isn’t.
Not when we have people who can produce responses like this:
And this:
And we must not allow the Brexiteer strategy of racism and scapegoating EU nations – particularly Germany – to swing the more impressionable members of the UK public into supporting him.
What we’re seeing is evidence that everything Boris Johnson and his team have done has been geared to fool us.
His plan has changed.
He wanted to leave without a deal on October 31.
But now he wants to delay Brexit – and pretend the European Union is to blame.
So let’s get the message right.
Boris Johnson is deliberately delaying Brexit to fool you into voting for him.
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No it’s not dumbass
Look, everybody!
A racist!
Boris Johnson needs a no deal brexit so that it keeps the brexit party out of the next general election so that he can win simple as that.
Exactly. I look at it the other way around to the Right wing Racist morons, my father’s generation didn’t risk their lives in Normandy in order that my generation can be deliberately kept in abject poverty by the Tories and treated like criminals by the DWP.
It’s NOT racism, it’s xenophobia! Please, call it what it is. If you subscribe to the idea of race, unless can be proved otherwise, the aggressor and the aggrieved are of the same race. To call it racism is to misunderstand what racism is, completely.
It is reprehensible, deplorable and totally unnecessary. There is no excuse for it. It is shameful. It is however NOT racist.
It’s racism; they referred to her by a racist name – “Kraut”.
It’s NOT racism,. Germans are not a race. “Kraut” is not a racist name. You, clearly, misunderstand racism.
The term may be applied to people of other nations.
It is still xenophobia. To call it racism makes a mockery of those who suffer racial discrimination and to use the term in this way lessens the impact for those who are not on the receiving end.
Again, if you subscribe to the idea of race, it does not withstand scrutiny. Furthermore, racial discrimination and racism are not the same thing. As I said, racism is far more than calling people names. Stephen £awrence was killed in a racist attack. He was killed, because he was there, not because of where he came from. He was killed, because of the colour of his skin, not because of which language he spoke. He was killed, because he existed, not because of where he was born. To conflate the two is, frankly, insulting. The term is not racist and should never be described as such.
And what you are saying makes a mockery of those who suffer racial discrimination of the kind we are seeing here.
Yes, you can say racism is more than name-calling – but that’s where it starts. Nazi racism against Jews started with name-calling and look where that went. Or will you excuse it because the skin of everybody involved was the same colour?
How dare you! This is blatant xenophobia NOT racism. Yes, I suffer it every single day so, I do know what I am talking about. If Angela Merkel were born in this country, do you think that she would suffer this? Note that I condemned her treatment. If people didn’t know what that she was German, would she have suffered this? Yet people who are born in this country to people who were also born in this country yet have darker skin suffer this just because they exist. You say that Jews should be able to define anti-Semitism yet you have the audacity to tell me what is and what isn’t racism?
My best friend of the last 20 years is Jewish and he told me that anti-Semitism is not racism.
Do you know what it is like to have to justify your very existence every single day of your life? Come back and lecture me, when you have. Don’t tell me about racism. You haven’t a clue.
I dare because you are mistaken. Simple as that.
Maybe you don’t like it but that is your business. You are still wrong.
You’re also wrong to suggest that I say Jews should be able to define anti-Semitism, if by that you mean I say they can define it any way they please. I don’t say that.
So yes – I’m telling you what is and isn’t racism because we can all suffer it and the definition affects us all.
Now get off your high horse.
Of course it’s racist, you can’t call German people “Krauts”! It’s like using the P-word, or calling Spanish people “Dagos” etc. Racist.
I didn’t say that you call call German people “Krauts.” It’s a derogatory term but it isn’t racist, for the Germans are not a race. It’s xenophobic, as I explained and it is unacceptable but it is NOT racist. Racism is far more than calling people names. I know what I’m talking about. As disgraceful as this is and it is disgraceful, make not mistake, it is not racist.
According to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms “racial” and “ethnic” discrimination.