EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Millionaire Brexiteer / Tory MP that said 'Britain is full' in regards to immigration, inherits family plantation in Barbados that was built upon slavery. So glad to have these inspirational figures to lead the UK into 'getting our country back'.

As an EU immigrant thank you for your words of support :)

(and the leavers hold everyone in contempt, don't they?)

Can't go anywhere due to the ex and our shared son, UK citizenship it is. Unfortunately that's far too much of a privilege as well due to the costs of £1500 ish (form, exams...)

But my family and I have also see a lot of good people from the EU establish a life here for three solid decades

Yeah, there's people like that all over the country, immigrants don't only live in London, and plenty of people in London voted leave, even in the most remain heavy areas a quarter of people who voted did so to leave, and 4/10 in London overall did the same, that's not insignificant. Treating an urban/rural blurred split (pretty much everywhere has at least a quarter, closer to half that voted against the result in each area) as a London/RoUK split will further alienate other urban centres that already feel they get a bit of a raw deal at times from a London centric government when ideally you want to get them on the same page.

applause

Unfortunately that's far too much of a privilege as well due to the costs of £1500 ish (form, exams...)

Plus you have to swear allegiance to the the Queen and her heirs and successors. Not joking, it’s a requirement for naturalisation.

I am fully aware of that, but you don't get the choice. It's not a blocker for me.
Some people do not agree with it in principle which is fair enough as well.

I don't know what it means in practice, do I send her a birthday card? It is a bit strange though as the born Brits don't need to do it. Do I need to be MORE loyal?

This 'London running the country' topic needs some better accuracy.
It isn't 'London', it is a tight group of feckless politicians, Whitehall mandarins, lobbyists and the money(wo)men who fund them.
Out here in outer north west London, we've lost a municipal golf course, and a swathe of semi-natural ancient woodland to HS2, to enable the Heathrow Spur that was cancelled when HS2 appointed a new CEO. Without a link to Heathrow, to replace internal flights, why connect the North with a new rail line that goes 20 miles west?
The outer suburbs even with (supine) Tory MPs have little say in how the country is run.

I also forgot to rant about the person writing Londoner on their forms like a petulant GCSE student. Of course you're a fucking Londoner but that's not what it's asking you, thinking that you're one thing and one thing only, and others can't be that thing is where nationalism digs it's exclusionary claws in. You may identify as a Londoner because you like the inclusive mix of the place but you're excluding a generally quite nice country full of mostly alright (but plenty of cuntish) people by trying to make it the only thing you are like some daft Freeman of the land bollocks, in fact was it airhead who said it, despite not having time for theories and only dealing in real life but seemingly with a lived experience sample size of one. Most people are more than one thing, I'd say I'm English, British, European, a Manc, northern and a soft southerner. Identifying with more things and more people and not being precious about others identifying with them seems to me to be the right way of doing things, claiming not to be something because of dislike a prejudiced view of petty little Englanders or racist northerners is being the problem rather than being a nice Brit or whatever. The whole country is full of decent people and awful cunts, connect with the decent ones, most of them outside of the South East will talk to you if you look at them making it far easier.

This 'London running the country' topic needs some better accuracy.
It isn't 'London', it is a tight group of feckless politicians, Whitehall mandarins, lobbyists and the money(wo)men who fund them.
Out here in outer north west London, we've lost a municipal golf course, and a swathe of semi-natural ancient woodland to HS2, to enable the Heathrow Spur that was cancelled when HS2 appointed a new CEO. Without a link to Heathrow, to replace internal flights, why connect the North with a new rail line that goes 20 miles west?
The outer suburbs even with (supine) Tory MPs have little say in how the contry is run.

Oh yeah, I completely agree, it's not my view but one I hear often enough.

This 'London running the country' topic needs some better accuracy.

It isn't 'London'

Someone didn't get the letter with their "Metropolitan Liberal Elite" membership card explaining which part of the UK they get to run. I, for example, have a few acres of Lancashire that I rule with an iron fist, sending the local children into a workhouse where they're relentlessly forced to froth oatmilk for my organic decaf cappuccinos.

I'm mostly down with your righteous rants, but only half of this one.
Good streak tho.

I'm a bit grumpy and lacking sleep today, and the last part was meant to be tongue in cheek.

BBC news has put a Brexit countdown clock on screen every time there's a Brexit related news story on FFS.

Most people are more than one thing, I'd say I'm English, British, European, a Manc, northern and a soft southerner.

That's sort of my point though. I identify as most of those things to some extent (Manchester is the only place other than London I've lived) but not English.

To me 'English' is toxic.

There's a lot of bad connotations that go with it, definitely, but if you're English you're at least a bit English really, like it or not, be a good Englishman and make it something better. Doesn't mean you need to parade around shouting about it, but trying to deny it is like trying to ignore all the bad shit this country has done, recognising it isn't agreeing with it.

To me 'English' is toxic.

Really? That seems a bit harsh. You can be English without the tattoos and flags.

Like @snottyotter said, it's really just an ethnicity/origin that's true, whether you want it to be or not. That doesn't mean you can't also identify with a specific area (Cornwall, Yorkshire, London, whatever). The thing is with Englishness that it's inherently a bit of a European ethnic mashup if you go far enough back. Angles, Jutes, Celts, Normans, Vikings, Hugenots, etc. all of us are going to have a fair blend of that so "English" is a pretty broad church anyway.

"Real Londoner" on the other hand is a totally toxic identification.

There's also lots of generally nice "English" people you're basically assuming are cunts, many of them will be but certainly not all.

i understand that, however leavers are frankly not interested about life without a Portuguese deli, Polish bakery, Italian or Greek restaurant or Belgian bar.

The Italians started arriving from the early 1800's and established roots in Glasgow, Manchester, Bedford and London.

https://www.thelocal.it/20160624/italians-in-uk-after-all-these-years-we-feel-unwanted

This 'London running the country' topic needs some better accuracy.
It isn't 'London', it is a tight group of feckless politicians, Whitehall mandarins, lobbyists and the money(wo)men who fund them.

In my own head (no science) I've come up with a number between 50 and 100 in this group...

despite being born here, i could never say i am 'english'

londoner first,
european second,
uk citizen third..

Yeah, but "leavers" isn't a thing that is just outside London Vs remainers inside, that's the issue I have with what you said.

This thread seems to be very negative re Britain's response to immigration. I would argue that Britain seems to absorb immigrants fairly well. The last thousand years have seen various strands of immigration from the Normans onwards where Britain has essentially become a nation of immigrants. To trot out an old chestnut, is the lack of an English identity because there is no one idea of Englishness? In Scotland we have a post victorian kilt clad sense of identity which may be false but seems to be something that people buy into.

This is the equivalent of
"English by birth, Londoner by the grace of God"

Congrats.You've gone full horseshoe and are now hanging out with these dudes:

Pssh, bloody foreign Angles, Saxons and Jutes coming over here, taking land from us native Celts or Britons or Romans or whatever.

In b4 Stewart Lee clip.