# A vote for Brexit shouldn't be a vote for bigotry, but it is. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 20, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893 "2016-06-20T16:33:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/121 "2016-06-25T06:18:49Z")
This is important too, for the US: > [@](#): > > This anti-immigrant rhetoric appears to have been particularly powerful among Britain’s least advantaged. Pre-election polling consistently found that lower-income and less-educated people formed the core of the pro-Leave side, while Remainers typically had more money and advanced degrees. The poor are revolting, and not in the left’s favor. It’s starting to happen here too. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/122 "2016-06-25T13:37:08Z")
Pretty sure the UK was not “fairly diverse” in 1993. Trouble finding a number for that year but in 2001 it was 92% white, with Wales, NI and Scotland being 98-99% White. There has been large jumps in immigration over that time period I’ll grant. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/123 "2016-06-25T14:21:54Z")
I remember there were always Africans living in Britain, as well as Indians. Muslim immigration in large numbers might be new, but if that’s what Brits primarily have an issue with(as well as cheap East European labor), then it’s not racism in the classic sense of “I hate everything not white”, but more specific grievances against specific groups. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/124 "2016-06-25T14:47:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I remember there were always Africans living in Britain, as well as Indians. Muslim immigration in large numbers might be new, but if that’s what Brits primarily have an issue with(as well as cheap East European labor), then it’s not racism in the classic sense of “I hate everything not white”, but more specific grievances against specific groups. What you remember is at odds with reality. We had the Notting Hill race riots in 1958. We had Enoch Powell talking about the black man having the whip hand in 1968. We had to pass Race Relations Acts in 1965, 1976 and 1986. Hell, we had race riots in 1919. Immigration to the UK follows a pattern: A new immigrant group arrives, finds a space on the margins, is accused of taking jobs, is accused of polluting the culture with dangerous foreign ideas, suffers violence and discrimination, struggles through, forms a community, assimilates, and finally worries about these new immigrants taking our jobs. It was true for the Huegenots, it was true for the Jews before WWI, it was true for the West Indians in the 50s, it was true for the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis and the Indians in the 60s and 70s, it’s coming true for the Poles and Romanians now and it’ll happen for the Somalis, Syrians and Iraqis. If you think there’s some history of tolerance towards migrants to which current attitudes are an exception that demands explanation, you are flat wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/125 "2016-06-25T15:43:07Z")
One of the better articles on the topic by Reihan Salam > **[Why Immigration Pushed Britons to Brexit (It’s Not Only About Race)](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/06/immigration-and-brexit-how-a-rising-tide-of-european-immigrants-fueled-the-leave-vote.html)** > > Shortly after the results of Britain’s Brexit referendum were announced, CNN interviewed a visibly shaken Tony Blair, who did his best to explain why a... A key section near the end: “_Had Cameron managed to secure a solid commitment from the European Union to do something as simple as limit the access European immigrants had to British welfare state benefits for, say, two or three years, Remain almost certainly would have won._ **Instead, Cameron’s friends and allies in Europe left him out to dry.** \*” All they needed to do, was allow a country that had a disproportionate negative effect from some of the immigration flows to raise some additional barriers, and the UK would have stayed. But the arrogance of the EU doomed that scenario. Now live with it. This highlights the flaw is this sort of pan european governance, to stay means to have entire nation state populations buckle under rules that often do not favor them. If you can get 90% of the benefits (probably different for different nations) of being in the EU would the chains, why bother? ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/126 "2016-06-25T16:04:05Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ace](#): > > Bigotry is just racism in another form. Call it what you like, it’s the EXACT equivalent of racism. Bigotry and racism can only be used when the moral impetus for such feelings is dubious. When dislike of a group is indeed based in reason, its not. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/127 "2016-06-25T16:43:48Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Pretty sure the UK was not “fairly diverse” in 1993. Trouble finding a number for that year but in 2001 it was 92% white, with Wales, NI and Scotland being 98-99% White. There has been large jumps in immigration over that time period I’ll grant. The UK had large amounts of immigration from the Caribbean and South Asia (in particular, ethnic Kashmiris) in the 1950s and early 1960s. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/128 "2016-06-25T16:45:07Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > This stat is pretty revealing: > > [Brexit is terrifying — and no, not because of the economics | Vox](http://www.vox.com/2016/6/24/12025036/brexit-how-leave-european-union-uk-collapse) > > Sounds like Britain didn’t have a race problem, despite being fairly diverse, in 1993. By 2014, they had a big one. Now we can get on our high horse and condemn Brits for racism, or we can just acknowledge that some people just don’t mesh well. Britain isn’t the United States. It is literally the Anglo-Saxon nation state. It’s not a melting pot, it’s the homeland of the English-speaking people. They felt that mass immigration was threatening their way of life and they didn’t like it. > > Will history judge the Brits harshly? Perhaps so, perhaps not. But there does seem to be a double standard here. What if a country like Nepal had an economic boom that attracted millions of immigrants, to the point where native Nepalese became a minority in their own country? Is that something the Nepalese are just supposed to accept? The US is an idea. It doesn’t matter if the US has a white majority, it doesn’t even really matter if we are an English-speaking country. As long as the US maintains it’s commitment to liberty and other American values, we’re all good. But that’s not true of all nations. Most nations are nation states made up of specific people that like having a homeland. Germany is the Germans’ homeland, France is the French people’s homeland, Italy is for Italians, Japan is for Japanese, CHina is for Chinese, etc. We cannot expect whole peoples to willingly consent to the loss of their own homelands. > > If we’re going to decide as a general principle that peoples do not have the right to establish states based on common traits like language, race, or religion, then that applies to everyone, not just Europeans. It means the Palestinians have no right to a state, the Kurds don’t, the Tibetans don’t, heck Arabs in general don’t. 100 million Chinese could just flood into the Arabian peninsula, and Arabs can’t complain because that would be racist. Agreed with all this, wholeheartedly. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/129 "2016-06-25T17:13:54Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > The UK had large amounts of immigration from the Caribbean and South Asia (in particular, ethnic Kashmiris) in the 1950s and early 1960s. Not large enough to make the UK “quite diverse” ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/130 "2016-06-25T18:16:57Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Not large enough to make the UK “quite diverse” And even with such tiny numbers of immigrants, Britain still had significant race-based agitation. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/131 "2016-06-25T21:16:14Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > Bigotry and racism can only be used when the moral impetus for such feelings is dubious. When dislike of a group is indeed based in reason, its not. So…let me get this straight. You’re claiming it’s _reasonable_ to discriminate against a billion-plus Muslims because of a population of (at most) 200K of its members? Nope, sorry, no sale. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/132 "2016-06-25T21:55:24Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > Bigotry and racism can only be used when the moral impetus for such feelings is dubious. When dislike of a group is indeed based in reason, its not. Well, since such dislike is always based on unreason, it follows that bigotry and/or racism is the cause. As noted earlier: > [@Stanislaus](#): > > Immigration to the UK follows a pattern: > > A new immigrant group arrives, finds a space on the margins, is accused of taking jobs, is accused of polluting the culture with dangerous foreign ideas, suffers violence and discrimination, struggles through, forms a community, assimilates, and finally worries about these new immigrants taking our jobs. The same statement would be true of every immigrant wave to the U.S., (including several current ones), and, as demonstrated by Doug Saunders in his [The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007MDK6MK/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1), it is remains true for Europe and Britain, today. The overwhelming problems related to immigrants tend to be their reaction to the unreasoning opposition to their presence or simple hostility manufactured by the established peoples. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/133 "2016-06-25T21:59:20Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > Bigotry and racism can only be used when the moral impetus for such feelings is dubious. When dislike of a group is indeed based in reason, its not. Every bigot ever thought they had a good reason to hate the group they were bigoted against. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/134 "2016-06-25T22:01:14Z")
The Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans, Scots, Irish, etc. etc. etc. were all at some point the unwelcome foreigners to Britain. Everyone is an immigrant. Nobody has a moral right to preserve society from superficial “foreign” characteristics. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/135 "2016-06-25T22:21:58Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans, Scots, Irish, etc. etc. etc. were all at some point the unwelcome foreigners to Britain. Everyone is an immigrant. Nobody has a moral right to preserve society from superficial “foreign” characteristics. The reality of borders is proof otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/136 "2016-06-25T22:32:35Z")
That’s a meaningless statement. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/137 "2016-06-25T23:48:16Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Every bigot ever thought they had a good reason to hate the group they were bigoted against. And the vast majority of people who toss out the word bigot use it to literally shut down arguments. Why bother engaging, you do not engage with bigots, they are too far gone, their rationales are based on imagined dangers or blind dislike for people not like them. Saying you are more likely to find a member of the Christian right hostile towards gays may seem like a bigoted statement to some of you. I see it as a statement of fact. For someone that is not hostile to gays, it is perfectly reasonable to take a dimmer view of the ideas that lead to those attitudes, and the people that hold them. Think that makes you a bigot? Fine then indict damn near every liberal you have ever met. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/138 "2016-06-25T23:51:28Z")
Speaking from the left, I have never assumed that someone was “hostile towards gays”—regardless of his or her nominal membership in a religion—until he or she actually expressed hostility towards gays. I know, strange, right? ---
**Author:** ![DerekMichaels00](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f14d63/32.png) [@DerekMichaels00](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DerekMichaels00)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/139 "2016-06-26T00:09:01Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Every bigot ever thought they had a good reason to hate the group they were bigoted against. but not every so-called bigot was right, nor was every so-called bigot wrong. Not everything is some repeat of the past. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2016, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893/140 "2016-06-26T00:14:02Z")
> [@DerekMichaels00](#): > > but not every so-called bigot was right, nor was every so-called bigot wrong. > > Not everything is some repeat of the past. History does not repeat, but it rhymes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-vote-for-brexit-shouldnt-be-a-vote-for-bigotry-but-it-is/757893.md?page=8)