Bloody Foreigners!
I've just been reading that Nigel Farage wants to send 'home' about two million 'foreigners' if there is no Brexit deal.
Do you know any 'foreigners'? I don't think I do.
I was at school with people whose fathers came from Germany and Poland. My sister in law's grandad was Polish. My father's sister was married to an Austrian Jew (left for Britain in 1933 and then joined the British Army and fought his way back across Europe). My nephew is married to a Chilean woman, so their kids are Scottish and Chilean. My volunteer buddy is from a family that's half Irish and half Scottish. I've worked with - o, I can't remember how many colleagues from other European countries: France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain. My best buddy in my first teaching job came from an Italian family.
My GP practice has employed locums from China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Spain - and we are glad to have them and only wish there were more of them. The technician at the hospital who tested my ears on Tuesday was from Poland and the student medic who was working alongside the audiologist was from India, though he sounded like a Glaswegian to me.
My taxi driver last week was from Slovenia but said her kids were born in Scotland and refuse to talk to her in any language but English Scots.
I have Facebook friends in Canada, the USA, India, Singapore, China, Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil (tricky because I have no Portuguese - but luckily he comes from a Russian family), Belgium, the Netherlands - and so on.
I suspect one big problem in some parts of the UK is that till fairly recently a lot of the population could go through life without meeting anyone from a 'foreign' country - never mind anyone of a different colour.
Those of us who studied languages 50 years ago found out fast that the rest of Europe wasn't like that: in France, the population was made up of French people with German names (from the east of France), Spanish and Portuguese immigrants and their families, 'pieds noirs' from places like Algeria, immigrants from Vietnam, former French colonies in Africa. And so on.
It was no big deal.
Sadly in parts of the UK today it still is a very big deal. I'm not even going to try to delve into the mush that represents the mind of someone like Farage. You'll remember that he himself comes from an immigrant family (Huguenots from France) and is married to a German. One of the biggest opponents of membership of the EU is Gisela Stewart, a German who has done very well out of the UK and is, in my opinion, just pulling up the ladder behind her to stop anyone else moving to other parts of the world.
It's time someone in UK politics called out these hypocrites. Because that is what they are. They belong in a white Britain that has long since disappeared. They move in such rarefied circles, they need never be challenged by the presence of anyone from another class or another culture. Unless the other person is a member of the servant class. Of course.
Do you know any 'foreigners'? I don't think I do.
I was at school with people whose fathers came from Germany and Poland. My sister in law's grandad was Polish. My father's sister was married to an Austrian Jew (left for Britain in 1933 and then joined the British Army and fought his way back across Europe). My nephew is married to a Chilean woman, so their kids are Scottish and Chilean. My volunteer buddy is from a family that's half Irish and half Scottish. I've worked with - o, I can't remember how many colleagues from other European countries: France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain. My best buddy in my first teaching job came from an Italian family.
My GP practice has employed locums from China, Pakistan, the Philippines and Spain - and we are glad to have them and only wish there were more of them. The technician at the hospital who tested my ears on Tuesday was from Poland and the student medic who was working alongside the audiologist was from India, though he sounded like a Glaswegian to me.
My taxi driver last week was from Slovenia but said her kids were born in Scotland and refuse to talk to her in any language but English Scots.
I have Facebook friends in Canada, the USA, India, Singapore, China, Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, Chile, Denmark, Sweden, Brazil (tricky because I have no Portuguese - but luckily he comes from a Russian family), Belgium, the Netherlands - and so on.
I suspect one big problem in some parts of the UK is that till fairly recently a lot of the population could go through life without meeting anyone from a 'foreign' country - never mind anyone of a different colour.
Those of us who studied languages 50 years ago found out fast that the rest of Europe wasn't like that: in France, the population was made up of French people with German names (from the east of France), Spanish and Portuguese immigrants and their families, 'pieds noirs' from places like Algeria, immigrants from Vietnam, former French colonies in Africa. And so on.
It was no big deal.
Sadly in parts of the UK today it still is a very big deal. I'm not even going to try to delve into the mush that represents the mind of someone like Farage. You'll remember that he himself comes from an immigrant family (Huguenots from France) and is married to a German. One of the biggest opponents of membership of the EU is Gisela Stewart, a German who has done very well out of the UK and is, in my opinion, just pulling up the ladder behind her to stop anyone else moving to other parts of the world.
It's time someone in UK politics called out these hypocrites. Because that is what they are. They belong in a white Britain that has long since disappeared. They move in such rarefied circles, they need never be challenged by the presence of anyone from another class or another culture. Unless the other person is a member of the servant class. Of course.
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