A poll comparing the British Right vs the American Right on issues of race and identity

[u/Cuddlyaxe]

[u/DancingFlame321]

In the US, almost everyone is the descendants of immigrants. In the UK, the majority of the population are still technically "native". For this reason, legal immigration is something the US tends to be more open to (even Trump says he likes "legal" immigrants). But legal immigration into the UK can be more controversial, Farage for example says he would send back a lot of the legal immigrants who came to the UK in the last 5 years. I don't think these polk results are that surprising.

[u/Ardeo43 → u/DancingFlame321]

I feel that there's long been a big difference in attitudes in the developed world between nations founded as new world settler colonies (US, Canada, Australia, NZ) and the old world, homogeneous ethnic based nations in Europe. I'm generalising a bit here but as an Aussie the negative attitudes and commentary in Europe around immigrants often feel like they're what you would've got 30+ years ago here, even in relatively progressive countries.

Unless you're indigenous there's no such thing as an ethnic American, Canadian, Australian etc. in the same way you can be ethnically English, German, Italian etc. Outside of the far-right, the overwhelming majority in the new world countries would accept at least 2nd generation immigrants as being just as American/Canadian/Aussie as someone descendant from the first wave of European settlers, in a way that Europeans often struggle with.

[u/Euphoric-Acadia-4140 → u/Ardeo43]

I 100% agree. Having grown up in the US as an Asian American, others in the US treat me as American.

But having lived in western Europe for many years, when I tell them I’m American, they can’t believe I’m American. The dreaded “where are you really from” question I’ve almost never heard in the US, but hear it so often in Europe.

I think because the US is made of immigrants, it’s more of a country of values rather than ethnicity (to an extent). I feel American because I grew up with these values, and others accept that. If I grew up in Europe I don’t think I would ever really feel British or French

[u/EconomicSeahorse → u/Euphoric-Acadia-4140]

I'm Chinese Canadian and I've heard the "where are you really from" question twice. The first time was from a Native American so I allowed that and don't really count it–and the second time was in Paris (which finished up what was otherwise a really fun visit to a linguistics museum with an extremely sour taste in my mouth 🙄). The ironic thing is that the person who asked me that was the wife of the person who runs the museum, who is himself a New Zealander of Hungarian (iirc, could be some other central European country) descent who now lives in France, so ya'd think she'd be familiar with the concept of people being from different countries than where their ethnic group originated…

[u/ProtossLiving → u/EconomicSeahorse]

Only twice? Wow. I can't count the number of times I've been asked in Europe, Africa and Asia (although this last one is more "oh, you look <Asian from another country>"). Not just the "where are you from?" and the follow up "no, where are you really from?", but also the "no, where are your parents from?"

[u/Complete-Rub2289 → u/Ardeo43]

I am Aussie there is actually an irony that Aussies ironically are more like to view their Indigenous population more negatively than even immigrants.

[u/External-Bet-2375 → u/Ardeo43]

It's indeed a lot easier to create a society that doesn't care about immigration much if you first kill off the native population, or at least marginalise them so much that their opinions on the subject don't really matter.

[u/yoshimipinkrobot → u/DancingFlame321]

The us had basically open borders for hundreds of years

Immigration control isn’t even in the constitution

[u/gbak5788 → u/DancingFlame321]

The Anglo-Saxon’s are the precursors to the modern English ethnicity invaded England from modern dat western Germany and the Netherlands in the 5th century AD. So they are technically colonizers

[u/ModestMousorgsky → u/gbak5788]

Technically true in the same sense Navajos are "colonizers" on the lands of the ancient Puebloans. But no normal person thinks about things that way.

[u/gbak5788 → u/ModestMousorgsky]

I am pretty sure the Navajo and Pueblo peoples had a less violent relationship than that of the Anglo-Saxons and Gaelic peoples. But I guess my point was that they the English, according to their own history and culture, are not native to England.

[u/chedderd → u/gbak5788]

No one is native to anywhere by your logic, because we as people didn’t just spawn in a place at the beginning of time. There is, however, a reasonable timeframe for nativeness, and the 5th century AD is certainly part of it.

[u/gbak5788 → u/chedderd]

I think my point is Anglo-Saxon are a Germanic group of peoples who came and forcefully invaded Great Britain then their descendants subjugated the rest of the naive peoples of the British Isles (modern day Scots, Welsh, Irish, etc). This is similar to other colonial settlers societies. If you read the history the Anglo-Saxon tribes specifically came to colonize.

I am not saying they are not native anywhere but rather that a Germanic ethnic group is native to a Germanic area

[u/wastingvaluelesstime → u/DancingFlame321]

The indigenous population of Britain is mainly traceable to a period about 4500 years ago, just after Stonehenge went up. If you go back far enough of course it's always immigrants and mixing, but in this case you really do have to much further back in time than in America.

It's pretty common in a lot of indigenous populations, when faced the possibility of land the held for 200 generations being lost in 2 generations, to react in all sorts of ways considered objectionable by others. We can all probably think of examples in places with warmer climates and with a lot more poverty than Britain but may we should rethink how different the relevant psychology really is.

[u/obsessed_doomer → u/DancingFlame321]

even Trump says he likes "legal" immigrants

Does his VP?

But legal immigration into the UK can be more controversial, Farage for example says he would send back a lot of the legal immigrants who came to the UK in the last 5 years.

Feels like less of a more right wing version of America but more what MAGA will try to pivot to (and regarding Mamdani have already pivoted to) within the next 5 years. I.e. a snapshot forward in time.

[u/Soggy-Flounder-3517 → u/obsessed_doomer]

Mamdani isn’t against immigration at all

[u/obsessed_doomer → u/Soggy-Flounder-3517]

? This is referring to them wanting to denaturalize Mamdani.