Interesting? Frightening?

Great Britain is just an Island Jalima ,its inhabited by 3 nations ...the UNION was signed by just TWO nations ,The English sadly are more xenophobic ..or it seems since Brexit with a massive rise in racist crimes.That hasn't happened in Scotland ...I'm very pleased to point out.

sorry, that was a sidetrack to the OP but it is a misleading point which is often made to portray the British as more xenophobic than other nations - which I do not believe we are.

It is wrong and very sad that this is happening, but this trend seems to be Europe-wide sadly.

Great Britain was not the only European country to build empires, although to read some threads you could be led to believe that we were!

Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, Germany, Belgium - although South America threw off the yoke of Spain and Portugal, other countries increased theirs and there was a surge of European imperialism in the later 19th century.

I understood that the obligatory free movement of people has been an EU principle since 2011.

It is a frightening situation and one that concerns me for the GC - they are subliminally picking up poor values in what they hear; even though I have absolute faith in their parents instilling the right values.

Only the UK Ireland and Sweden did not put restrictions on the the free movement of the people when the Eastern European countries joined the EU. Most countries have a seven year restriction on these migrants making any claim on the public purse. I don't know about Ireland and Sweden, but the UK government massively underestimated the number of migrants from the countries in question. Jack Straw made this clear several years ago. When David Cameron tried to renegotiate the UK's position within the EU last year, he had the opportunity to do something about the current migrant situation, but for some reason he did not pursue this aspect of the discussions, focusing instead on the Child Benefit aspect. He is widely regarded as missing a trick then.

Unfortunately this has handed ammunition on a plate to the nationalistic far right in this country. Even though the information used by the far right is not accurate and is quite easily disproved, the correct information is not what some people want to hear.

I liken these people to the image of the red neck Americans. The truth does not really matter to them. Quite frankly this scares the pants off me - far more than the threat of Putin or Kim Jong UN - because it has the potential to spread violence like wild fire and it's in our back yard. The whole thing brings back memories of the race riots of the 80s.

Sadly we have been a xenophobic country for generations. The Victorians brought this to a pinnacle as they expanded the Empire. Add to that the jingoism engendered during WWI and you have the perfect mix to fix xenophobia and a sense of 'us' and 'them' into the popular consciousness. From that point on it was passed from generation to generation through education, Empire Day celebrations and social attitudes. Even the Churches had a hand in it with their missionaries and orphanages that raised money from white society with exotic images and 'the noble savage'.

Those of us who no longer believe that we are better than any on else are facing an uphill struggle against these ingrained beliefs. But it is a struggle we must maintain. Children are not born racist but learn to be so.

Well said, Luckygirl.

I hope it is clear from my post above that I find this resurfacing of racism and xenophobia entirely revolting; but I also find it pitiful that those in charge in the EU cannot think ahead, and lack judgement.

One of the big mistakes that the EU made was incorporating countries so much poorer than the majority and then instituting freedom of movement between all EU countries - a laudable policy but one that did not foresee the inevitable "vacuum" effect of folk from poor countries being sucked into a flood of their compatriots seeking a better life, for which no-one can blame them. The backlash has been a resurfacing of xenophobia and fear in the richer countries of losing their standard of living by being "over-run."
For me it is an example of he EU lacking clarity of thought.

Quite so Vampire.

I find ethic nationalism very scary. They seem to attract some of the worst people and are quite happy to spread lies and misrepresented half truths if it forwards their cause. They play on (sadly) endemic xenophobia and mistrust of 'the other' and don't care who gets mentally or physically hurt in the process.