Is this yet another example of Tory racism?
The Tories said that EU nationals would be encouraged to apply for “settled status” rather than being forced to leave the UK after Brexit.
That’s what they said.
But they have put obstacle after obstacle in the way – barriers to application and delays in Home Office decision-making being significant factors in pushing vulnerable EU citizens out.
And from January 1, EU citizens were quietly added to the Tory government’s voluntary returns scheme, offering them paid flights and £2,000 resettlement money to get them to leave of their own accord.
It seems clear that Tory policy hasn’t moved an inch since Theresa May was attacked so bitterly for sending advertising vans around London telling people from foreign countries to “go home”.
Worst of all, this is cutting our collective nose off to spite our face.
The UK relies on EU migrants to do a lot of important work. Without them – especially in the Covid crisis – we’ll struggle.
Either the Tories haven’t thought about that or – more likely, considering the Covid death toll – they simply don’t care.
Source: EU citizens offered financial incentives to leave UK | Brexit | The Guardian
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it’s not Racism – it is xenophobia – articles like this do nothing to help resolve the problem.
To call a Xenophobe a Racist is a huge error.
It makes the Xenophobe angry at being called what he or she is clearly not, and that hardens their position as anti-other nationalities, adds their sense of hurt which pushes them further away from outreach.
It masks the real incidence of Racism. The real Racists can hide behind the Xenophobes, as they do.
If anything it plays right into the hands of those who exploit xenophobia…. because it muddies the water, rather than clarifying it.
See my response to Zippi. In short, I tend to agree with you.
Xenophobia is conceptually distinct from racism. Xenophobia is also distinct from nativism.
Furthermore, theories of racism are largely ensconced in nationalized narratives of racism, which are often influenced by the black-white binary, which obscures xenophobia and shelters it from normative critiques; so, philosophical accounts of racism, rather than merely subsuming racism, end up neglecting this historically important category of exclusion and oppression.
This paper addresses these claims, arguing for the first and last, and outlining the second.
Just as philosophers have recently analyzed the concept of racism, clarifying it and pinpointing why it’s immoral and the extent of its moral harm, so we will analyze xenophobia and offer a pluralist account of xenophobia, with important implications for racism.
This analysis is guided by the discussion of racism in recent moral philosophy, social ontology, and research in the psychology of racism and implicit attitudes.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/critphilrace.2.1.0020?seq=1
“a problem well understood is half way towards a solution – a problem incorrectly understood is insoluble.”
This is what I have been saying of racism for some time. Sadly, too many people, who make much noise about, it have the faintest idea of what it is. I shall look forward to reading that.
I am rather tired of racism being ascribed to everything. This is NOT racism. The European Union is a geopolitical area, not a race, or even a people. Please, stop calling it, or suggesting that it is racism.
I am sympathetic to your point of view; it isn’t antipathy to people because they’re a different colour or ethnic group. It is hatred of people because they come from another country. Xenophobia would be a better description.
But these are Tories we’re discussing. I doubt they think about it that way. My impression is that their attitude is as simple as “let’s get rid of all the foreigners” – not making any distinction between hatred of other people because of their race and hatred because of their nationality.
If I had been more alert at the time of writing I would have used xenophobia, though.
I appreciate your response.
Thank you.