Re-evaluating the ‘no-platform’ policy
Should anti-racists continue to have a no-platform policy? The trade-union movement spearheaded this a long time ago and the move was vital in de-legitimising the BNP and National Front etc.
But I’m not sure it works any more. The BNP has been successfully de-legitimised and it has become an acronym of abuse in most circles. The problem is that it has gone too far. We end up ignoring what the BNP say rather than taking on their arguments and accurately demolishing them.
My fear is that because the establishment now ignores the BNP, those people pissed off with the establishment (most of the political parties) vote for it in protest. Adam Bienkov argued the same on Liberal Conspiracy a few days ago, regarding Richard Barnbrook - the BNP’s London Assembly candidate.
I’m coming back to this because Unity has highlighted an instance of Birmingham University hosting a debate by the extremist Muslim organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. The B’ham Post is now on the case.
I’ve no problems equating Pizza HuT with the BNP, which is why I ask this question. I’ve debated with HuT myself plenty of times: they’re braindead robots who keep parroting the same lines and pretend they’re lovely and fluffy, with the added annoyance (unlike the BNP) that they actually think they’re intellectuals. Like, they think they’re intelligent for apparently coming up with this utopian society and constructing an Islamic methodology for everything. The other problem is that most of the people who choose to take on HuT don’t know much about them, which provides them an opportunity to play the victim card and pretend they’re just lovely people.
So what do we do with a problem like HuT? Constantly expose and scrutinise them? Or try and ignore them with a no-platform policy with the danger that they pick up anti-establishment Muslims? I side with the former. But in cases like this, neither should universities actively provide with a platform, neither should stupid anti-racist activists endorse them.
No platform must continue. The left is wise enough to realize that it should never argue with knuckle-dragging nazi scum when it cannot win the argument. Lies like “race does not exist”, “diversity is our strength” and “immigration enriches us all” are too valuable to the left-wing cause. They should never be exposed to scrutiny. You’ve got to remember that the nazi Enoch Powell had the support of the majority of the country when he called for genocide back in the 1960s. Antiracists had to defend democracy against the will of the majority. No platform has been a key plank of their campaign. Long may it remain so.
Sunny - It is an interesting article but it dances around the one issue that can not be avoided.
The stark reality, like it or not is that ever more racial intolerance has had a religious face. That is not to say that atheists by definition are not racist, but what has come to the fore, to my mind, is the religious dimension.
The problem with HuT is that they can make themselves sound like the victims of religious discrimination and that is dog-whistle for ‘must support’ to many.
The failure of anti-racists over the past few years, in my humble view at least, has been that it has not recognised that the BNP don’t want to win elections as first priority. They have wanted to use the process of politics to whip up sympathy for their awful views. The ‘attack, attack, attack,’ mindset has played into the BNP’s hands. I would hate to see the same mistake made with the religious crowds who are using similar tactics.
This is where the problem with ‘no platform’ comes in. If it has no platform, others will give it one - it will be anti-Islam, it will be anti-British and so on. No platform can be spun as, ‘we are being victimised/attacked from all sides.’
Religion does not equal race, but that is where this debate has ended up for good or for bad. I don’t pretend that I have a solution here - I hope someone rather cleverer than I am has something up their sleve.
But at the moment, no platform looks to me as if it runs the risk of being the worst of all worlds.
“with the added annoyance (unlike the BNP) that they actually think they’re intellectuals”
haha - that is PRECISELY it.
No platform - in public institutions at least - is outrageous. Private organsations, however, are entitled to do what they want with their “platforms”.
However, there is also a tendency to invite spokesmen for extreme, utterly unrepresentative, and tiny political groups to speak or participate in debates, or write articles: just for the “shock” value. I’m thinking Nick Griffin at the Oxford Union, or the constant parading of various HuTters on Radio 4 a few years ago. Sometimes this happens because they’re looking for “balance” in a debate: so the thinking is, “We’ve had a sane person, let’s have a nutter to even it out”. Sometimes they get invited because the clueless broadcasters or publishers genuinely believe that these marginal lunatics are ‘representative of an important strand of political thinking’.
The BNP (and HuT) are fringe organisations for a reason. They should naturally have a pretty low profile in any case. It is the artificial inflation of their stock by broadcasters seeking to turn current affairs into ‘entertainment’ that I object to.
Then, of course, there is the Guardian and its running of op eds by extreme Islamists. The reason they do it is because they support them.
I wouldn’t appear on a HuT or BNP platform, however.
The more you try to hold a party under the water, the harder they start pushing back. The BNP should be brought into the mainstream and crushed for being a bunch of racist lunatics.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
Same old tired mantra from a pseudo intellectual.
The only way you can actually argue your case is by insulting and smearing. By equating HuT with BNP. The most ridiculous comparison i have come across.
Tell me, why do you equate the 2 as the same?
What views of HuT do you find reprehensible? Lets have some substance to your views.
I think giving a respectable platform for a fringe party (BNP, HuT, etc) is simply going to inflate their profile. The media may love statements from them but I think in the long run you’re going to give them more credibility than they deserve and more and more people will think their message is part of the mainstream. Better to tackle the issues that cause people to support them like immigration, class inequalities, housing, racism, etc.
Ultimately you are dealing with fundamentalist forces and however much you try to expose their ideology you will it difficult to destroy them completely. Giving them a respectable platform won’t work. Actually you are likely to see counter-productive results in the long run.
When I was growing up in the fifties there was a BBC program called The Brains Trust which debated mighty matters and had a man on it called Prof C.E.M Joad. He prefaced his reply to every question with ” It depends what you mean by” and I think we have to apply that here.
I have always been and remain a staunch supporter of No Platform but we have to assess what that means. Broadly I would say that we all as individuals can make choices as to who we will talk to. The Oxford Union decided to invite Griffin and Irving, they were not forced to. What had happened I understand was that a bunch of immature undergraduates decided that they wanted to be controversial and naughty.
There are distinct differences to be made between BNP like groups and Hizbut. Maidmarion is quite wrong to say that the BNP don’t want to win elections as a first priority, that is exactly what they do want to do and there whole campaign for several years has been geared to just that.
Their politics appeal to a wide range of Christian groups unlike Hizbut which only targets a part of one religion. Far from being nuckle draggers the leadership is extremely intelligent as is much of their electoral base.
What they have done is to take real issues which people are concerned about and to build a movement on them. They address in a very real way issues that the mainstream parties will not talk about.
Just because they have taken up the internet with gusto, they have more hits every day than any other party, and because they are increasingly getting air time because of the numbers of candidates they put up doesn’t mean that you and I have to talk to them. That is what NP means. We have no control over the media but even then the coverage of them is generally negative.
There is a danger of them being seen as victims because of the negative campaigning and media coverage but that is a chance we will have to take.
The NP policy seems to be working as they only increased their London wide vote by half a per cent in spite of being give a free election hand out to every elector in London and air time by the BBC.
billericaydicky - For what it’s worth I think you come over as a decent sort and I respect the depth of your conviction.
I disagree that the BNP want to win as first priority. For sure, they will take any win they get as a bonus, but my opinion (and that is all it is) is that the first priority is to play the victim and in going so become seen as the reasonable victims of some ‘plot’ against Britain. The negative campaigning is just playing right into their hands.
You say, ‘What they have done is to take real issues which people are concerned about and to build a movement on them.’ I suspect that what they have actually done is taken every gripe and wedge issue and tacked a race angle onto it. That is not a movement, that is opportunism.
My thought is that to defeat the BNP will involve showing up their policies as unfunded baldersash - that is, to talk about government and not just the politics of immigration. Non-engagement is just playing into their hands.
It may also mean stepping on some pretty sensitive toes, but to my mind that is the risk worth running.
Anyway, best of luck to you.
The problem, it seems to me is that triangulation has led to no major political party looking after the white working class, mainly through the disdain that mainstream politicians seem to place on the group.
Which left a vacuum which has in turn been filled by some pretty ridiculous folk.
Unless and until a major political party starts to place these interests on their agenda, the rabid right will get free reign. So, it’s not so much about challenging them, it is about re-identifying with folk that are disenfrachised from mainstream politics, The rise of the BNP, it seems to me, could be met by recognising the white working class as a minority.
We ignore the far right at our peril.There can be no doubt that the three main parties, both on a local and national level, must now work together to address this problem, by doing all they can to stem the tide of discontent, therefore brining these voters back from the brink. The situation is clear – if those of us in the majority fail to do all that we possibly can to fight the rise of the fascist right, (however slow it might seem); then they will continue their insidious rise in our local communities. Our main parties must now do all they can to counteract the policies and views put forward by the BNP, in the hope of reducing their support. This can only be achieved through honest and open debate.
Thank you MaidMarion! The BNP are doing several things. They are using people fears about race/immigration and asylum as well as concerns about the economy,the wars and just about anything else to present themselves as the only party that cares what white working people are worried about.
They are cleverly using real issues. It is no good liberals or the left saying that to talk about immigration is pandering to racism because if we don’t do it the BNP will. In Barking and Dagenham there is an urban myth that there is a scheme called Africans for Essex which is funded by inner London boroughs in which Africans are given fifty thousand pounds each to buy house.
What had actually happened was that as white tenants bought their homes and moved out to Essex or Spain Africans began to buy in with several members of the extended family contributing to the deposit. In the space of ten years the whole ethnic make up of the area changed beyond recognition.
The fact that there was no such scheme hasn’t stopped white people who can’t afford a home believing it. This is an example of the BNP telling a downright lie. What they also do is to take a real concern over, for example, building industry wages. These have always been linked to the economy and the supply of labour in a way that does not apply in other industries.
Two ethnic groups in outer east London have had an effect on wage levels. One are Indians, usually Sikhs, and the other is the Poles. Wage levels, particularly in certain trades are the same as they were fifteen years ago. White people have a high proportion of self employed builders who have been directly affected by this competition.
There is also the general disengagement and cynicism about politicians which is reflected a in turnout of less than fifty per cent in recent London elections even though it was one of the most bitterly fought. People are just turning away from the centre ground.
Without any shadow of a doubt though the BNP have ridden the wave of anger over what was seen to be anti white discrimination perpetuated by the race relations industry.
There were myths here it is true but they were cleverly exploited by Griffin and co and much of the resentment is justified. There is an interesting article by a Claudia Webbe on CiF which went up yesterday. Ms Webbe is a race industry professional who has made a career out of blaming white people for everything bad that has happened to black people. It is worth looking at her profile and articles because she is a typical example of why white people are sick of being called racist.
What is also interesting is the articles that regularly appear by similar writers which are then torn to shreds presumably by Guardian readers. The Guardian is the last bastion of the politically correct who have done so much to promote the far right.
I have posted here and on CiF before that I believe a decision was taken a few years ago when the far right vote started to grow in this country to close down the whole race industry. Trevor Phillips was brought in to shut down the CRE and earned the hatred of people like Lee Jasper, Simon Wooley and Livingstone who said that he would be joining the BNP soon.
Since then dozens of Race Equality Councils which did little more than invent racism have been closed down, organizations like OBV have had their money pulled and of course we all know what happened to Lee Jasper. All of this did a huge amount of damage but the powers that be faced, with the possibility of a French style Front National here decided enough was enough.
From the front line myself and other people involved in the anti BNP movement think that it might be running out of steam as government are taking tough decisions over black and other racially charged issues. After the breakthrough of 2006 the party has stalled. It fielded 750 candidates last year and gained a couple of seats. Outside London this year it was 650 for a gain of 10. In London with its most high profile campaign for years it had an increase of half a per cent.
The editor of Searchlight reckons that if they can’t make the breakthrough in outer London in the next four or five years the ethnic changes will work against them. What the left are saying is that, as in Europe, the mainstream is taking on the far rights policies but it was exactly the fact that the mainstream wouldn’t listen to peoples concerns that fuelled the rise of the BNP.
I could go on and on of course but it is not going to do us all any good by talking to fascists and racists.
Univeristy of Birmingham did not host the debate. It was in the community . i.e. off campus..and neither was it promoted by the University or any member.
Get the facts right.
You tell me mate, when that officer sent e-mails out, was it promoting the professor, the or the organisation or the actual debate?
So much for being an intellectual blog right.
i disagree that HuT are so similar to the BNP, the latter causes harm to people, HuT are just tiresome.
maybe there is something smarter than a no platform policy, a wiser social technique. As economic times get more difficult and as TWAT goes on and on and doesnt end Im sure that bad behaviour and viewpoints that resemble the BNPs will continue to grow. Maybe a conservative administration is the only thing that will be able to reach them.
I dont think that the demographic changes in the suburbs^^ are the way out. It might mask their power for a bit, but why not focus on the alleged demographic that the bnp represent and fill them full of regeneration funds?
I don’t really get what Sunny means here? The BNP and HT do have a platform
Hmmmm I’ve never feared HuT in the same way I have the BNP simply because their appeal isn’t comparable [in terms of numbers]. Reviewing activist tactics and longterm strategies from time to time however is useful.
“Since then dozens of Race Equality Councils which did little more than invent racism have been closed down, organizations like OBV have had their money pulled and of course we all know what happened to Lee Jasper”- billericaydicky- or should i say Fritzpatrick- can i ask where you got this information from?
billericaydickey - ‘From the front line myself and other people involved in the anti BNP movement think that it might be running out of steam as government are taking tough decisions over black and other racially charged issues.’
Agreed, but that needs to be extended explicitly to cover to religiously charged issues. Ever more the BNP has subtley conflated ‘race’ and ‘religion.’ You rightly identify that what became a ‘race relations industry’ began to feed the BNP. I can see much the same happening with religion.
I also recognise that tough decisions may need to be taken, which may leave a bad taste in the mouth.
billericaydicky said:
The fact that there was no such scheme hasn’t stopped white people who can’t afford a home believing it. This is an example of the BNP telling a downright lie. What they also do is to take a real concern over, for example, building industry wages. These have always been linked to the economy and the supply of labour in a way that does not apply in other industries.
Two ethnic groups in outer east London have had an effect on wage levels. One are Indians, usually Sikhs, and the other is the Poles. Wage levels, particularly in certain trades are the same as they were fifteen years ago. White people have a high proportion of self employed builders who have been directly affected by this competition.
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I’m not too sure about this. From my experiences as someone who has pretty much grown up and continues to be surrounded these “Sikh builders”, it seems the majority of their clients are non English in most cases (some exceptions do exist). You have to differentiate between “site” work and “private” work here also.
The last time I worked on a site in Central London, the vast bulk of the labour was foreign including large amounts of Eastern Europeans.
from a non English perspective: Although I would be inclined to agree with your point about competition in traditional site work but for the people whose client base mainly consists of relatively smaller residential work, I would say that the people who are employing are often reluctant to hire indig. tradesmen for a variety of reasons. So I don’t think Sikh builders have really made significant inroads into the indigenous builders client base as is being suggested. The two often seem to live in separate dimensions so to speak. Their pricing is sometimes (not always) different to reflect the norms of their respective client bases.
In my opinion this type of talk stems from jealousy and purely racist thinking in relation to skin colour. I notice that disgruntled elements of the British population are not complaining about the MASSIVE amounts of Irishmen (1st and 2nd generation) who proliferate London’s building industry.
The BNP and HT do have a platform
I thought platform (shoes) were negroid and haram respectively?
…I’ll get my coat.
Two ethnic groups in outer east London have had an effect on wage levels. One are Indians, usually Sikhs
Would you prefer the Sikhs to be more like Muslims, sitting at home on benefits or self-detonating on tube trains?
Get some perspective you prick.
billericaydicky
Some points very well made.
The whole race relations industry, tripping over themselves to find racist incidents, with the constant low-level insinuation that white people are attacking black people can only fuel anger and racial tensions at some level.
Recently in Lambeth I remember there being a big drive to find racist incidents. Big posters at bus stops, saying “Have you been the victim of a racist incident? Have you felt racially discriminated against at all? Call this number!”. Its certainly an industry that really is seeking to justify itself. There’s jobs and money at stake!
I got mugged a few years ago, my phone was stolen. The first question was “Where did this happen?”, the second question was “Do you think this was a racist incident?”. Like what?! I said I had been mugged, my phone stolen! Why was it so pertinent to as that question?! The guy was a different race, but as I’m sure the vast majority of us wouldn’t hesitate to mention if we were racially abused. Especially in Lambeth. It’s not like one black family in a large white village. It was just silly.
If you won’t debate and confront such ideas then what is stop them mushrooming.
Look at the views on Harry’s Place and how they mushroom.
What good does not talking to people achieve? You simply end up with Harry’s Place if you ignore them.
The danger is when extremes become viewed as the norm. Not confronting such ideals means that the public do think they are normal.
This is what happened in Nazi Germany, the extreme became the norm and like pack animals the public went along with it.
It like most Americans and muppets at Harry’s Sauce Place still think there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!
Even Bushy has said today the intelligance was flawed but people won’t accept that. In fact I bet they are over there saying their idol is just plain wrong! Wrong again they haven’t even mentioned it. So that goes to show that when you lie to the people they eventually believe the lie so much they won’t even accept it when you say it ain’t so.
However what is worrying is the almost complete acceptance of rigth wing Christian movements and their end of time theories who are a greater threat than HuT and BNP as thye have the ears of those in power and yet they aren’t even listed when such discussions occur.
I have been of the same mind as you have posted here for a long while Sunny. No platform is of the tired old left. I tested my theory by filming with The National Front last time they marched in Bermondsey. I gave some candidate of theirs an oppportunity to explain himself. The UBA were also an interesting bunch. We have to engae with people if we want change. Lots of people believe strange things which are offensive to lots of other people but most people lead not so dissimilar lives. When the UBA came down to Finsbury I tried to get Hamza and co to speak to them.
Dialogue is much more important that posturing. Crucially at this time. There are loads of people who think a war with Islam is coming. they want it. Glen Jenvey posted a video of Izzadeen shouting bollocks at a protest, the comments are going haywire.
There are not many of us taking them on and my comments are getting burried. Its a laugh though.
While we are not fighting each other we should talk to each other. No platform is ridiculous crap from tired old lefties. Its an outmoded concept.
In Bermondsey there were a couple of young Asian kids with cameras who wished they could do the same thing. If I had realised I would have bought them in. I am concerned that a lot of these guys blame immigrants when it is not immigrants whop steal their country from them. I want to talk to them about this.
If we focus the more righteous working class resentment and the more positive things about Islam ie Islamic banking we could take huge, real steps forward without any involvment in the democratic process.
Avi Cohen:
Please don’t make the situation sound worse than it actually is in this country. Maybe these ideas mushroom in your head Avi but I don’t want to know about them, thank you very much.
Exactly. That’s what happened in Germany and Italy in the last century. History has a way of repeating itself especially when times are hard. Desperate people resort to desperate measures. When a convincing dictator has a respectable platform you can bet he will be overjoyed at the prospect of spreading his twisted ideology to the masses.
I have no problem with people being filmed or questioned about their beliefs, which is not a bad thing at all, but why should you give them a respectable platform as though they are somehow worthy of it? Why unnecessarily give oxygen to extremist groups? That’s exactly what they thrive on. They love to play on the language of fear, intimidation and victimhood.
I think the NP strategy for the far right has largely been successful in this country over the last few decades. I think we should be happy we live in a reasonably peaceful multicultural society, which wasn’t the case in the sixties and seventies. When times are hard, like they are at the moment, and there is a lot of resentment toward government policies some people inevitably vote for the parties such as the BNP. This a failure of government rather than a failure to give them a respectable platform. Deal with the real issues like immigration, housing, education and health care - tangible things that improve people’s lives. Nutters shouldn’t be allowed to preach hatred.
It’s clear where your sympathises lie. Why absolve BNP and HuT as though they are lesser threats? There’s a strand of fascist ideology that runs through all of them.
Bob. You are confusing me with a good mate of mine from the anti NF days in the East End.
I am not sure of what you mean by where did I get my information from CREs being closed down and my comments about Lee Jasper and Operation Black Vote. I think anyone who has read the London Evening Standard over the last four or five months will know where much of the information came from.
Interestingly the BNP site this morning reproduces an article from yesterdays Standard which reports three more arrests in the Clapham based Green Badge Taxi School scam. It seems the three concerned had the six oclock knock and are now helping Inspector Plod with his enquiries. Have a look it is very interesting because one of the things they have been arrested for is money laundering. This might tie in with the rumours about some of the missing millions being used to finance the importation of Columbian marching powder.
About CREs, well the ones that I came across were staffed by do nothing jobsworths. The ones in Tower Hamlets and Hackney were shut down and nobody noticed, mind you nobody noticed when they were there! A racial wind of change is blowing across the country bob and I suspect that it is going to freeze the extremities of quite a few people including yourself.
About the building trade. From 1974, when I was sacked and black listed for trying to unionise a site in Poplar east London, until very recently I worked for myself. My contracts were always with private clients either converting house or on small commercial contracts.
At the time of the last recession in the early nineties I was paying labourers fifty quid a day in the hand. That is still the going rate. Some skilled trades such as bricklaying can now get as much as one fourty a day before deductions but in the late eighties on a few sites on the Isle of Dogs it actually hit a hundred.
Although we have gone through an economic boom over the last few years fuelled by cheap credit, wages, particularly in the private sector, have not simply not reflected that boom.
In terms of competition in the private sector Asian builders have always produced lower estimates than English and there are many reasons for this. But is without doubt the Eastern Europeans and particularly the Poles who have held prices down. They arrived with saleable skills and what they didn’t know they soon learned. The one thing they have not been able to break into is high quality face brickwork which remains the preserve of the English ,Irish and Scots.
A friend of mine who was an asphalter for fourty years has packed up because he can’t make it pay. I am still in touch with the Sikh builders merchant I bought off for years and he tells me that Asian builders are complaining about the Poles undercutting!
On the revolt in the BNP, it is early days yet. I heard about the challenge a couple of weeks ago. It is very largely personal and about alleged financial irregularities. The last one petered out and was mainly confined to the north and midlands. Of the sixty seven expulsions and resignations there were non in London and only three in the east and south east.
The point i refer to is you saying obv had their money pulled. My sources say this is untrue.
Sunny - you wrongly claim that “Birmingham University hosting a debate”. The university didn’t host the event. The event flyer shows that HT organised and hosted the debate at a local community venue (Noshahi Civic Centre).
Birmingham Post event write up
http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2008/05/13/birmingham-professor-speaks-at-extremist-islamic-group-debate-65233-20899882/
Comments of Sociology professor John Holmwood indicate it was an interesting debate. Why shut it down? Only people with something to fear should fear intellectual debate.
billericaydickey-The editor of Searchlight reckons that if they can’t make the breakthrough in outer London in the next four or five years the ethnic changes will work against them. What the left are saying is that, as in Europe, the mainstream is taking on the far rights policies but it was exactly the fact that the mainstream wouldn’t listen to peoples concerns that fuelled the rise of the BNP.
erm..no. what he means is that as British people get pushed out of an area the ones remaining will be too few to get a British Nationalist elected. It’s called ethnic cleansing, and you agree with it.
#27: Cover Drive - ‘I have no problem with people being filmed or questioned about their beliefs, which is not a bad thing at all, but why should you give them a respectable platform as though they are somehow worthy of it? Why unnecessarily give oxygen to extremist groups? That’s exactly what they thrive on. They love to play on the language of fear, intimidation and victimhood.’
well said.
The ‘no platform for Nazis’ is, as Sunny as stated rightly, a policy adopted by the NUS and other trade unions. This does not mean there is no debate outside, as is the case of the Birmingham Professor as well as the BBC. The policy is designed not to stifle debate, on the contrary it is there to protect a safe environment where debate is possible for all. You can’t debate with people who wouldn’t think twice to physically stab you in the back. It’s there to protect those students who would be most risk if Nazis, given respectable platforms, took it further and tried to organise on campus. This has not happened in any University and college across the UK. In France though, Le Pen’s fascists, taking advantage of the respectable platforms they were given, have been able to build extensive student organisations and in some cases even take control of student unions.
There is no doubt Griffin is trying to follow the French model, by appearing respectable and keeping his thugs at bay he trying to play the ‘I’m legit card’. At one point in the 1930s, Hitler did the same when some ‘debates’ took place with communists, but most often resulted in fist fights. Nazis crave for respectability and publicity and once they have taken advantage they will shut down debate and democracy for all of us. Democracy should have limits surely or we’d all be giving platforms to rapists and serial killers just to ‘even things out’.
Adolf Hitler once said: ”Only one thing could have broken our movement - if the adversary had understood its principle and from the first day had smashed, with the most extreme brutality, the nucleus of our new movement.’
Many people are pissed off with the established parties, but that doesn’t mean they’ll run off to the BNP as a protest. If that was the case, the BNP would have got a lot more support than they got recently.
Watch Sophie Scholl, Schindler’s List or The Pianist and then decide whether Nazis should be given respectable platforms in our public universities to debate on whether the holocust ever happened.
In terms of competition in the private sector Asian builders have always produced lower estimates than English and there are many reasons for this. But is without doubt the Eastern Europeans and particularly the Poles who have held prices down. They arrived with saleable skills and what they didn’t know they soon learned. The one thing they have not been able to break into is high quality face brickwork which remains the preserve of the English ,Irish and Scots.
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I still maintain that Asian builders (who I guess would be mostly Sikh), generally have a separate client base to their indig British counterparts. How they could be responsible for bringing prices down for white working class builders is something I can’t fathom.
One trade in with they seem to excel over most other ethnic groups is in carpentry. This is because many were highly skilled in this trade before they came here. If they have a strong representation on site in this area I wouldn’t be surprised. It is because they are generally better skilled than the competition and more harworking.
Also, are you aware of the fact that UK has been pissing its pant about the lack of skilled tradesmen for AT LEAST 15 YEARS. So, in all this time they have failed to actually get those indig chavs trained up to do the work and are forced to rely on foreign labour. I would say that the real problem lies with the indig attitudes to graft and this societies failure to make the most of its youth (who are now busy joyriding, binge drinking and whatnot).
Dear Dalbir
On reading your latest post I just had to drop you a quick line.
I couldn’y help but pondering if there any basis, other than bigotry, for your assertions? For example, I wonder if there is information that records levels of unemployment compared to ethnicity? Or perhaps some other objective source.
Also I was struck, in this view of yours that entire groups of people are more hardworking than other groups. I would guess that this based also on your own (one eyed) observations, as unfortunately my own observations and life experiences don’t accord with yours. Funnily enough, as we can see in this very thread, for every hard working asian businessman we have - we’re also saddled with a small minded internet bore.
A final point, unfortunately, various UK governments chose to invest in the tertiary sector and therefore as a result levels of skilled tradesmen have fallen.
Furthermore, round my way, I hadn’t noticed that the various wasters were of one particular shade. Strange that you had. I wonder why? If I didn’t know any better I would think you were a puffed up bigot.
You take care of yourself.
Yours sincerely
The Informer
Dear Informer
Just to let you know. I did feel somewhat offended by the original post to which I responded. This seemed to imply that Sikh builders were ‘taking all da jobs’ of the indigenous honkies around the borders of East London. As someone who is closely associated with such people I just had to respond to this ‘load of bollocks’.
I know a growing section of disgruntled Anglo-Saxons are playing the blame game for all their problems. I just had to put my two cents worth before the twats followed Hitler’s example (i.e. blaming Jews for all their woes).
I know the building trade reasonably well and know that there HAS been noise about the lack of skilled trades for some time now. I also work in education and see what piss poor standards of training are given to would be trades people these days.
If you exerted your intellect a bit and read between the lines, you may have grasped that what I was actually alluding to was:
(1) The blame game played by crafty honkies who need to be more enterprising and whine a lot less.
(2) The poor state of training for trades which is inexcusable seeing as so many youths seem to be available for the work.
(3) The total disregard shown towards working class white youth by Britain’s ruling class.
(4) The culture of “wasterism” that seems to be taking a strong hold of working class indig youth.
PS - Yes I am very proud of the hardwork ethic of my community. I do believe the white whinge brigade could learn a lot from it.
PSS - I am not a puffed up bigot but I have seen where such bullshit arguments ultimately lead.
I hope this is simple enough for you to understand.
ShritiPoliti.
“Antiracists had to defend democracy against the will of the majority.”
So democracy has become now, the will of something other has it?
Dalbir
calling white people honkies sounds racist to me. Perhaps you would be happier in Pakistan.