Daryl wrote:I've a friend in the UK who is a really good person with just one flaw. He'll say "I'm not racist but", then complain about all the black and asian faces in London. We all point out that without those people doing all the essential work London would be uninhabitable.
Yes and no.
The main problem is immigrants who refuse to assimilate, a legacy of the Labour Party's time in power. While it isn't as bad as some people (*cough* Donald Trump *cough*) think, there are areas in London (and indeed, other cities) where the immigrants have pursued a bunker-style mentality, choosing not to even try to understand the people around them but instead to shut them out. In a large minority of these areas, the de-facto slavery of women is enforced by not allowing them to learn English, thus trapping them on a metaphorical island in the middle of an ocean of incomprehension. A number of the males choose to not learn more than the absolute basics of English either, shutting themselves out of the workplace and thus increasing their sense that they are being discriminated against.
The rise in immigration was encouraged by the Labour Party in order to fulfill 3 goals.
1) The creation of a multicultural society.
--Although it seemed to work at first, the fracture lines between the various micro-societies are growing larger and can't be fixed with Khumbaya-singing. We have a Salad Bowl rather than a Melting Pot and the tomatoes hate the cucumbers...
2) An increase in the number of Labour voters.
--Historically, approximately 90% of new immigrants tend to vote for Labour. Part of this is hat most immigrants rely on the welfare state to support them as they find their financial feet and Labour is the party associated with handouts.
3) Changing society so that the Coservative principles are no longer valid.
--While it seemed to work for the first decade, the last two elections (Lib-Dem/Tory coalition then Tory majority) demonstrates that there's a backlash against the effort to change the societal matrix. Labour presiding over a series of scandals and an economic crash of immense proportions (even if it wasn't entirely their fault) really didn't help them.
The primary issues are mainly cultural rather than race. Race don't matter compared to culture because a bad culture can totally screw things up.