Racist incidents spark worry Brexit vote emboldening extremists

Police are investigating multiple ‘racially-motivated’ acts following the U.K.'s stunning exit from the EU.

Demonstrators protest against Brexit on Saturday in London. British police are investigating a number of racist incidents in wake of Brexit.  (JUSTIN TALLIS /AFP/GETTY IMAGES)  

By MATTHEW CAMPBELL, and SVENJA O’DONNELLBloomberg

Sun., June 26, 2016

A spate of racist incidents in the U.K. in the wake of Thursday’s vote to leave the European Union have Britons concerned the result is emboldening extremist elements in society.

Police are investigating a report of “racially-motivated” damage at the Polish Social and Cultural Association, a community centre in west London, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said on Sunday. Twitter users described graffiti that read “Go Home” daubed on walls and windows. In Cambridgeshire, police are investigating flyers left outside a primary school that said “Leave the EU, no more Polish vermin,” the Evening Standard reported.

After a bruising referendum campaign in which supporters of leaving the EU were accused of stoking xenophobia, these and other incidents will intensify worries about whether a generally tolerant country is becoming less so. While politicians on both sides of the vote have urged calm and said the result does not reflect prejudice toward migrants from Europe or elsewhere, some aren’t so sure.

“There is no question the U.K. is shifting to a more racist atmosphere and policies. This is a rhetoric that’s showing up in the lives of schoolchildren,” said Adam Posen, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee who now leads the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

British politics are in chaos after the vote in favour of a so-called Brexit prompted the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron, spurred a rebellion against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and opened the door to a second referendum on Scottish independence. On Sunday several senior Labour Party members resigned from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet to protest what they said was his lacklustre advocacy for staying in the EU.

The Leave campaign’s message was centred on reducing immigration, including by raising the spectre of Turkish EU membership — a prospect diplomats say is remote at best. A week before the referendum, U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage unveiled a billboard showing a column of hundreds of refugees walking on a road, under the heading “Breaking Point.” A day later, Labour member of parliament Jo Cox, an outspoken advocate for Syrian refugees, was murdered in her Yorkshire constituency.

Some incidents are occurring in the heart of the U.K.’s cosmopolitan capital. Sebastien, a 26-year-old Frenchman, was walking in the Kensington district on Friday with a friend and her mother, who was visiting from Paris. Hearing them speaking French, a man walking his dog began shouting at them to “Leave, Leave!” said Sebastien, who declined to provide his surname for fear of retaliation.

The tone of some campaign discourse has “legitimized racist rhetoric,” said Jasvir Singh, a London lawyer and Labour Party activist. “There is now a vocal minority who feel emboldened to use the result of the referendum as a reason to spout their hatred.”

Schoolchildren were racially abused in a west London district this week, Seema Malhotra, one of Labour’s team of Treasury spokespeople, said on Saturday. “Someone shouted: ‘Why are there only 10 white faces in this class? Why aren’t we educating the English?’” she said, citing a letter from a teacher in her constituency about an incident on Wednesday. “Another went close up to the children and said: ‘You lot are taking all our jobs. You’re the problem.’ ”

Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, former Prime Minister Tony Blair said political leaders “have a big responsibility to help our country get through what’s going to be an agonizing process.” After a vote that largely pitted London, Scotland and a few other enclaves in favour of staying in the EU against the bulk of England and Wales, “we have a divided country but there is the possibility of bringing people back together if we are sensible about it.”

Britons have taken to Facebook and Twitter to report other racist incidents. One user, Fiona Anderson, described “an older woman on the 134 bus gleefully telling a young Polish woman and her baby to get off and get packing.” A professor at Coventry University, Heaven Crawley, said on Twitter on Friday that “This evening my daughter left work in Birmingham and saw group of lads corner a Muslim girl shouting ‘Get out, we voted leave’.”

The Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/06/26/racist-incidents-spark-worry-brexit-vote-emboldening-extremists.html

Comment:

Polish vermin

Europe is collection of towns and villages. Villages morph into tribes which morph into

nations which morph into alliances. All the morphing simply expands on the villages’

family dynamics. Each family develops its own definition of good guys and bad guys.

These definitions turn into prejudices which bring either peace and prosperity or war.

At the end of the day, it comes down to the village family’s kitchen table lessons.

No Polish family will ever forgive the treachery of Yalta. Neither will they forget the many

acts of trust and fair play. I am a direct product of both the treachery and the fair play.

Most British families grew up with their own “lessons” about Poles.

I’m pretty certain that the massive family integration resulting from Britain’s recent

800,000 Polish “workers” and probably another 800,000 long term “immigrants” has added

some passion to the interwoven dinner table discussions.

Passionate families will express themselves passionately. But “vermin”?

The village’s peace has been threatened.

The best resolution would be for the local white trash scum and their Polish vermin

buddies, and soon to be cousins, to meet in a bar or back alley and resolve their issues.

That’s how things get resolved in the village.I would hope that the “lads” will work out

their problems without too much intervention.

Families need peace. Prosperity will follow.

The Poles will keep coming. Life will go on.

Then there’s Canada.

Canada is also a village. But rather than reflect the village, our elders in Ottawa reflect only

the nation’s “elite” families. Power is guarded and, naturally, is handed down from parents

to children.

The dinner table talk among Canada’s chosen families is not flattering vis a vis the Poles.

Poles, and other troublesome villagers, are seen as disruptive to the existing grip on

power. That’s why there is no new Polish vermin here. The ruling families are making sure

that Polish immigrants are as rare as hen’s teeth.

What to make of all this?

The answer was best delivered at my father’s and uncle’s dinner tables. Father, and uncle

Mieczyslaw, served His Majesty when the village peace was broken. They served

alongside Canadians. Dad was awarded two Croix De Guerre by La Republique. Uncle

Mieczyslaw, took a bullet in the head after Canadian officers cut and ran.

To paraphrase dad: It is better to take a punch from a Brit than a kiss from a Canadian.

Richard Boraks, June 27 2016

To paraphrase uncle Mieczyslaw: Respect Canadians. Never trust their leaders.

What goes around, Comes around

It just hit me that the Brexit vote has created thousands of Canadians with British

passports who will soon be working illegally in Europe.

Then there are those thousands of Canadians with European passports who will soon be

working illegally in Britain.

I just can’t wait for Canadians to be arrested, detained and deported from

Britain and Europe.

I can’t wait for these Canadians to live in the legal shadows. No medical

care. Paid lower wages. Ripped off on pensions. Treated like criminals.

I can’t wait for Britain and Europe to slam visas on Canada.

I can’t wait for Britain and Europe to start treating Canadians as second

class humans because we don’t share their values.

I can already hear the howls of righteous indignation from shocked Canadians and their

short sighted government … “what? … how dare you?... don’t you know that we’re

Canadian?

To which the response will be:

“go fuck yourself… remember how you treated me ?”

Richard Boraks, June 24 2016

Comment:

Brexit: Europe’s misery is Canada’s opportunity

Notwithstanding the recent waves of noveau riche Asians (most of whom never settle

down here), Canada is essentially a child of Europe’s woes.

Today, every family in Britain and Europe realizes that Brexit is the beginning, not the end,

of turmoil for their children.

Today, millions of European kitchen tables are awash with concern for the future. An

entire generation of Europeans, including Brits and 3 million workers living in Britain, are

Today, Ottawa immigration policy makers must decide if Canada’s

demographic, social and economic future includes Brits and Europeans and not just

Francophones and Asians.

My own feeling is that Ottawa will opt not to boom Canada by taking the cream of a

concerned Britain and Europe.

Another opportunity lost. Disappointing.
Richard Boraks, June 24 2016

The Trades and Immigration … The big, unpleasant picture

It is common ground that:

• Canada’s trades education process does not come close to meeting the needs of

trades employers. Worse, there is no private or public sector will to improve our

pathetic trades education process

•  Europe’s trades education process is the best on the planet

•  Ontario subsidizes its trades deficit by importing, and then exploiting, illegal

European trades workers. Ontario has an illegal worker population of 500,000.

Most of the illegal trades workers are from Europe. Most of the rest have no skills.
Ontario’s reliance on foreign trades workers has been going on since the Loyalists

crossed the Niagara River.

The question now is whether Ontario’s economy can sustain:

• Europe’s own drive to welcome immigrants

•  Europe’s open door policy to other Europeans

•  Canada’s inability to establish either a rationale trades education or a trades

immigration policy

In a denial of what is happening in Europe and other industrialized societies, Ontario has

planted its policy head firmly in the cement of ill-informed smugness. This arrogance is

based on a misreading of Europe’s immigration and political unity debate. Canadians

generally believe that Europe is falling apart. We also are led to believe that alleged

European instability will fuel a never ending supply of qualified European trades workers

for Canada.

A little perspective may help.

Ontario has an area of 412,000 square miles.

Ontario has a population of around 13,000,000

On a per capita basis, one in every 26 Ontarians is an illegal.

Clearly, we in Ontario know little about training our own people to build the infrastructure

required to bring wealth to our God given geography. We figure that it is our birth right to

pimp foreign trades workers as they escape foreign misery from industrially superior

jurisdictions.



One in every 350 Europeans is illegal.



Combined, the UK, Italy, Germany Belgium, Denmark and Holland come in at 410,000

square miles.

But what if the pimping days are over?

Combined, the UK, Italy, Germany Belgium, Denmark and Holland population comes in at

235,000,000.

Clearly, Europeans know a thing or two about creating wealth by maximizing human

capital. Things such as political disputes, Brexit’s, refugee invasions etc are bumps in the

road for a continent which now has an integrated economy. Brexit and the sons of Brexit

are important politically, not industrially.

The German dominated juggernaut will not tolerate a breakdown in the free movement of

skilled labour. These people play hard ball.

Despite all the talk about Canada benefitting from problems in the UK, Italy, Germany

Belgium, Denmark and Holland, the facts are that:

• These European counties have aging work forces and low birth rates. They have

invested heavily in their skilled workers. Their industries are booming. When one

country slows down, the other pick up the slack and staff. Collectively, they will

not give up their skilled workers to Canada.

•  Either combined or individually, these European countries, on a per capita basis

have only a fraction of Ontario’s illegals. They acknowledge their problem and they

deal with it by absorbing quality illegals and refugees. We pretend that our illegals

do not exist. We rip them off and then kick them out

•  Their foreign worker “problem” includes more fellow skilled Europeans than

“outsiders” from Africa and Asia. Our problem is skilled Europeans who are

already established

•  Free movement of European labour within Europe is here to stay

•  Canada does not offer economic benefit for any European tradesperson

•  It is childish to assume that any qualified European trades worker will come to

Canada for job or financial security

•  European trades workers come to Canada for personal and lifestyle reasons. This

source will dry up as Canada’s private sector employers and public sector

bureaucrats suck the blood out of the few Europeans brave enough to tolerate our

nonsense

Looking forward

1. Trades school will not be built

2. Apprentice programs will continue to be band aids

3. Qualified trades workers from any part of the world, and especially Europe, will dry up

4. Canada will be stuck with unemployable farm workers turned labourers, mostly from

Asia, who will pay for phony resumes. They will be facilitated by the usual consulting

suspects who will arrange phony jobs for phony trades immigrants. We’ve been down this

path before with entrepreneurs, investors, spouses, refugees etc. Our administrators will

simply collapse in the face of the immigration industry

5. Trades costs will go up. Infrastructure will collapse

6. The phony trades immigrants will suck up whatever will be left of the social and health

services safety net

Conclusion

Game over

Richard Boraks, June 20 2016

EU Court rules no jail for illegal migrants

• 6 hours ago
 
• From the sectionEurope

Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Image captionIllegal migrants should be returned to the country from which they came, according to EU migration policy, and not sentenced to a prison term, Europe's highest court has ruled

Non-EU migrants illegally entering an EU state in the Schengen zone should not face detention on those grounds, says the European Court of Justice.

Migrants staying illegally should instead be returned to the country from which they came under the so-called Return Directive, it said.

The ruling applies to migrants crossing borders within the passport-free area and on leaving the zone.

It will infuriate critics of EU policy, but contains several important caveats.

Schengen: Controversial EU free movement deal explained

The ruling was triggered by the case of a Ghanaian migrant who was found to be using false Belgian travel documents by French police at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel.

Selina Affum was placed in police custody on grounds of illegal entry into French territory but argued that this was unlawful, in light of the EU's Return Directive.

Under the directive, an illegal migrant told to leave has up to 30 days to go voluntarily. After that, removal should not involve excessive force or place the person's life in danger.

The French court of cassation referred Ms Affum's case to the European Court of Justice, the EU's highest court.

"The Return Directive prevents a national of a non-EU country who has not yet been subject to the return procedure being imprisoned solely because he or she has entered the territory of a Member State illegally across an internal border of the Schengen area," the Luxembourg-based court ruled.

This was also the case when the migrant "is intercepted when leaving the Schengen area".

The ruling does not apply to the UK or Ireland, which are not within the Schengen zone. It also does not apply to Denmark, which although a member of the Schengen zone holds an opt out from European Union justice policies.

The ruling also contains some important conditions.

It says migrants may be detained - for up to 18 months - if there is "a risk of the removal being compromised", which may be interpreted to mean that they are a flight risk.

Detention is also permitted if a person is subject to a deportation order and has refused to go, or if they have already been deported, and have attempted to re-enter the country illegally, in breach of an entry ban.

The Source:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36469014

Comment:

Schengen: What is it and why is it important for Canada

The Schengen Zone agreement allows the citizens of 26 European Union counties to move, work and live freely in each other counties. Britain, Ireland, Switzerland are not in the Zone but have reciprocal agreements with most Schengen counties allowing freedom of movement and work.

Despite the furor over refugees and the probability that Britain will feel obliged to leave the EU, the core principles of the Schengen Zone, and its reciprocal agreements, will survive.

Why should Canada care?

First, Canada should consider itself lucky to get whatever workers and immigrants it can get from Europe. After all, why would any materialistically driven Italian, Portuguese etc bother with Canada when incomes, heath benefits and social services in other Schengen jurisdictions are superior to those of Canada.

Second, with the ratification of Canada Europe Trade Agreement (CETA) , Canada will commit itself to labour mobility standards, including visa matters. You can bet the farm that Europe will start demanding Schengen Zone standards with Canada.

Third, Canada will have to decide whether we are joining Europe in reducing human movement barriers or whether we are already buying into Trumpian nonsense as we regress into a phony visa war against the global Klingon conspiracy. Canada’s Electronic Authorization Visas are an unfortunate regressive gesture by a government incapable of mounting a true perimeter defense with ships, airplanes and internal enforcement. The visas don’t make us safer. They make us feel safer.

Fourth, Canada will have to stop pretending that it can have the benefits of free trade in goods and services while running a labyrinth on human movement. Canadians expect to jump on an airplane and travel to Europe for a visit or for business. But we expect the Europeans to go through a series of hoops. Do we expect that this arrogance can continue?

Fifth, Canada will  have to stop pretending that it is capable of dealing productively and positively with global human movement. If we can’t deal with Europeans or even with our own internal inter provincial restrictions, then we are doomed to stumble along having others whittle away at our sovereignty and wealth.

•  I have no doubt that senior policy thinkers in Ottawa are considering all of the above
•  I have no doubt that senior policy implementers will screw it all up

Richard Boraks, May 13 2016