Lee Anderson, Conservative deputy chair says asylum seekers should ‘fuck off back to France’ if they don’t want to be housed on the Bobby Stockholm barge

Urmstongran

But but ... Why Are these Asylum Seekers all Fit Young Men?

Anyone?

Because they are just out for themselves! They leave their women and children to get on with it.

If you were a male and you had family and you were genuinely in fear for your lives in your home country, would you just clear off and leave them behind? I’ll just leave that there! 😉

monica I assume you weren’t replying to my post, as far from suggesting that Anderson has been put where he is to address the right wing of the Tory party, I am suggesting that the Tories are trying to hang on to what was previously a labour voter, who flipped as a result of Brexit. The Tories then appear to have an image of this voter who are similar in speech to Anderson.

The traditional Tory is as you correctly suggested conservative with a small c, but things change radically the further right you go.

Urmstongran

But but ... Why Are these Asylum Seekers all Fit Young Men?

Anyone?

Explanation is here.
www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/five-explanations-to-why-the-majority-of-refugees/

Primrose53

BlueBelle
^I weep at some of the posts on here
NO NO NO. He only speaks for racists
let’s not tip toe around this

How wonderfully we embraced the white Ukrainians giving them everything ( rightfully so) but anyone fleeing from war or poverty or bad treatment who isn’t European should be sworn at and put into a floating prison

It’s simply Far Right racism equal to the Enoch Powel days
So Karmalady let’s put it as it is pure and utter Racism which unfortunately is still very much alive and kicking
Yes there is an underbelly it appeals to and they are here and always have been

I d swap a racist for a refugee ( however they arrived) any day.
Why do you have to bring colour into this?

Many of the boat people are white like Turks and Albanians. It’s not a colour issue at all.

We didn’t help the Ukrainians because they are white, we helped these people (mainly women and children) because they had had their homes bombed out. Anybody genuinely needing help and the UK step up. Like the Congolese and they are black! Before them the Ugandan Asians, thousands of them who were thrown out of their country

What people are not happy with are economic migrants from WHATEVER country paying people smugglers to get here on rubber dinghies, throwing away their ID and telling lies to enter our country, whilst abandoning their women and children. Nothing to do with colour at all.

Well said and let’s face it even the ones that are processed and have their application refused don’t get deported. Even some of the most vile criminals don’t get deported because of the money grabbing so called human rights lawyers.

But but ... Why Are these Asylum Seekers all Fit Young Men?

Anyone?

Whatever language we use in private and in our minds, and don't we all at times, we smile at people and say polite things while thinking other. What we are talking about here is the standards we expect in public life.

To say that Lee Anderson was appointed to appease the Conservative right is one thing. It does not follow that Conservative rightwingers are the kind of people who would use four letter words in a nunnery and are happy to see the public utterances of government ministers expressed in words more commonly connected with the gutter.

Conservative rightwingers are often conservative with a small c as well as a large and are probably grossly offended that their party and their prime minister consider that an oaf like Lee Anderson will appeal to them, however similar his political views.

Whitewavemark2

There is only one reason that Anderson is in the position he is - it is because the Tories think that he appeals to a certain type of person who largely inhabits the red wall area, and to whom the crassness and vulgarity is the language used in common verbiage.

If this is true I suspect that it only appeals to the tiniest minority, and the sort that almost without exception those who post on here would avoid like the plague.

Erm ... that’ll be me then.

Urmstongran

Well I think he speaks for the silent majority in this country. Decent, clean basic accommodation and 3 meals a day? Gym use. Free buses into Weymouth. Doctor and dentist on call. Pocket money. A mobile phone. A games room and library.

What did these migrants expect? Hotel bed and board? That’s what they’ve been hearing from their mates. It’s time to make being over here clean but basic so that a few phone calls back across the Channel put some migrants off paying extortionate fees to traffickers. We are such a soft touch. France laughs at our naïveté.

It’s time we in the UK woke up. £6 million PER DAY this is costing the taxpayer here. Yes, decent living quarters ought to be provided. But these migrants (assisted by Care4Calais and lawyers whose best interests are served by thwarting all proposals - money in their coffers by keeping this roundabout turning) need a reality check.

Well said Ug. Completely agree.

Its not enough to give money to the French Border Police - whats needed is a powerful all EU plus friends policing body to get the smugglers.

And, to be repetitive, why dont they set up (given that 61% of claims turn out to be valid) places abroad where people can claim asylum? they have steadfastly refused to take this obvious measure - so people take the little boats route or fly in whichever way they can?

BlueBelle

I weep at some of the posts on here
NO NO NO. He only speaks for racists let’s not tip toe around this

How wonderfully we embraced the white Ukrainians giving them everything ( rightfully so) but anyone fleeing from war or poverty or bad treatment who isn’t European should be sworn at and put into a floating prison

It’s simply Far Right racism equal to the Enoch Powel days
So Karmalady let’s put it as it is pure and utter Racism which unfortunately is still very much alive and kicking
Yes there is an underbelly it appeals to and they are here and always have been

I d swap a racist for a refugee ( however they arrived) any day.

Why do you have to bring colour into this?

Many of the boat people are white like Turks and Albanians. It’s not a colour issue at all.

We didn’t help the Ukrainians because they are white, we helped these people (mainly women and children) because they had had their homes bombed out. Anybody genuinely needing help and the UK step up. Like the Congolese and they are black! Before them the Ugandan Asians, thousands of them who were thrown out of their country.

What people are not happy with are economic migrants from WHATEVER country paying people smugglers to get here on rubber dinghies, throwing away their ID and telling lies to enter our country, whilst abandoning their women and children. Nothing to do with colour at all.

There is only one reason that Anderson is in the position he is - it is because the Tories think that he appeals to a certain type of person who largely inhabits the red wall area, and to whom the crassness and vulgarity is the language used in common verbiage.

If this is true I suspect that it only appeals to the tiniest minority, and the sort that almost without exception those who post on here would avoid like the plague.

I'm p' d off with the French effort to be honest.
Our son's friend volunteered at the Calais Jungle. The stories were appalling, you wouldnt keep your dog in those conditions.
The French border security police Rishi gave them all that money for are equally rubbish. We have witnessed their pathetic efforts twice this year.

Let’s just remind ourselves, before we get all holier than thou, what exactly France do for them. Basically very little is the answer. I don’t agree with the delivery, but the sentiment doesn’t surprise me after the entire debacle, that seems to have been going on for years. And there appears to be no end. The entire situation is beyond ludicrous and it’s time it ended. But how, I don’t know.

maddyone

^Can you imagine a teacher saying ‘if you don’t like this school you can F off to another one’.^

No I can’t, but I bet a fair few have thought it

😆

His mistake was to swear publicly and not privately. It wouldn’t worry me or most here but the UK is different, obviously. Not so earthy.

Can you imagine a teacher saying ‘if you don’t like this school you can F off to another one’.

No I can’t, but I bet a fair few have thought it

Iam64 , well said.
This man has probably been chosen as Deputy Chairman of Tory party to appeal to the far right. Well it is not acceptable to use such expressions and excuses should not be made for him.
He knows exactly what he was doing. Bluebelle hit it on the head.~The tory party should be ashamed.

There is never an excuse for using bad language by a member of any government. He should have been made to apologise but he has been supported by the Tories which is disgraceful.

F off back to France is one of the less outrageous comments I’ve heard, some would support sink the boats!.

He should have just said, "We're doing what we f ing can here. No-one has a f ing magic wand."

Which would have been equally despicable, Joseann, because the tories are blatantly obviously NOT doing anything to improve the situation. They have deliberately nurtured an enormous backlog in dealing with asylum applications and are now weaponising it in order to win votes.

Not that it is working. As I pointed out last night, polling suggests that, should a general election be called now, the tories would be completely wiped out, with only 60 seats in parliament.

While our resident racists might think that they speak for a 'silent majority' they are kidding themselves. Polling results like that don't indicate that weaponising asylum seekers is in any way a vote winner. Thank goodness...😄

How wonderfully we embraced the white Ukrainians giving them everything ( rightfully so) but anyone fleeing from war or poverty or bad treatment who isn’t European should be sworn at and put into a floating prison

You mean families with young children from the Ukraine Bluebell.

Why does no-one address the fact that 90% of the migrants arriving by dinghy are Young, fit Men. If they are fleeing a war torn country why are they leaving their wives, small children, parents to suffer their fate?

No, sorry. I’m not buying that these migrants didn’t feel safe, either where they came from, or France. And they can’t all be gay - as advised to say by some shifty human rights lawyers!

Personally I dislike the expression, but the f word has become more and more popular in common parlance. (I bet it's one of the first words refugees pick up).
I think it was the addition of the word back from where they came in the sensitive context of refugees that showed some racist undertones.
Or maybe he was directing his exasperation at the pitiful state of the refugee jungle camp in Calais in comparison?
He should have just said, "We're doing what we f ing can here. No-one has a f ing magic wand."

The fact that we hear school children using the f word in no way excuses its use, in this way, by a senior politician. The fact Sunak and others support Anderson doesn’t make his comment acceptable.

This repeated claim that the ‘silent majority’ need people like Anderson to speak because they feel silenced is nonsense. Discussions like this are full of people expressing strong, negative feelings about so called lefties.

I have young grandchildren, as do many others posting here. I don’t accept that we should accept this kind of language from senior politicians. Is this really the kind of example we want them to see? If I’d used language or expressed this kind of language at work, it would have been a disciplinary.

You know there are probably young and not such young ex-military men and women walking around the U.K. today who would not be here except for the actions of brave Afghans.

When I was a headteacher of a school in an area of high deprivation a meeting with a ( possibly frustrated) parent would be swiftly ended if this language was used. As a volunteer at a foodbank, such language would result in the client leaving empty handed and told to return the next day when s/he could be civil.
I expect better of everyone, and so should we all.