Brexit - the next steps

[ProfessorDavey]

Or in my neck of the woods, the head of Cambs police is on television giving an interview saying that she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding.

Rhiannon - read back what you have just written and think very, very carefully, about how that comes across. I don't believe you are the kind of person who succumbs to the "my mate knows a bloke who had a chat in the pub who told me that all those foreigners are raping our women', but you have to be very, very careful about what you post and how it comes across.

[Rhiannon]

Rhiannon - read back what you have just written and think very, very carefully, about how that comes across. I don't believe you are the know of person who succumbs to the "my mate know a bloke who had a chat in the pub who told me that all those foreigners are raping our women', but you have to be very, very careful about what you post and how it comes across.

Now, just hang on. This was a television news report, not a 'my mate said in the pub...' No idea if what was said was accurate but it was someone official giving the interview on regional telly. It bears no relation to the 'raping our women; shit that we hear and you have a fucking nerve suggesting that it does. Take it up with Cambs police. Not me.

And if you want to accuse me of being racist, I suggest you have the balls to do so. If not apologise or at least stop being so fucking patronising.

Eta here's the racist copper that you need to email. But you owe me an apology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7001768.stm

[ProfessorDavey]

Now, just hang on. This was a television news report, not a 'my mate said in the pub...' No idea if what was said was accurate but it was someone official giving the interview on regional telly. It bears no relation to the 'raping our women; shit that we hear and you have a fucking nerve suggesting that it does. Take it up with Cambs police. Not me.

And if you want to accuse me of being racist, I suggest you have the balls to do so. If not apologise or at least stop being so fucking patronising.

Eta here's the racist copper that you need to email. But you owe me an apology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7001768.stm

An article from 11 years ago - are you serious.

Does she say that 'she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding' - no she doesn't - not even close.

In fact the only comment that could be construed as 'Eastern European migrants feuding' is that there was a murder of one Lithuanian by another. There are no other details, certainly not enough to conclude this is due to a feud.

And anyhow, her comments don't seem to fit with the evidence on crime (except for some extreme cherry picking for which there is no evidence provided that this was due to migrants, e.g. drink driving) - as though the period from 2000 to 2010 (when there was the most significant influx of Eastern European migrants) crime levels declined significantly - and that is demonstrated both in recorded crime and also the British Crime Survey.

[Rhiannon]

An article from 11 years ago - are you serious.

Does she say that 'she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding' - no she doesn't - not even close.

In fact the only comment that could be construed as 'Eastern European migrants feuding' is that there was a murder of one Lithuanian by another. There are no other details, certainly not enough to conclude this is due to a feud.

And anyhow, her comments don't seem to fit with the evidence on crime (except for some extreme cherry picking for which there is no evidence provided that this was due to migrants, e.g. drink driving) - as though the period from 2000 to 2010 (when there was the most significant influx of Eastern European migrants) crime levels declined significantly - and that is demonstrated both in recorded crime and also the British Crime Survey.

You really seem determined to paint me as a racist, don’t you? I don’t think ‘Eastern Europeans feuding’ is a big deal - even if they are it doesn’t affect me - but then she links migration to a whole load of other crimes, including people trafficking. You don’t like it, take it up with her.

And look at it in context ffs. NS linked to an article showing how dissatisfaction with the EU has been brewing for years. This is my point - people in positions of authority saying this stuff sticks in the minds of those who watch it. I haven’t been affected by a rise in crime and I’d largely forgotten about it until the recent debate on here; others won’t have, particularly those looking for confirmation that immigration is a bad thing. Whether or not what she says is correct, stuff like this sticks.

I want an apology for you calling me racist.

[ProfessorDavey]

I want an apology for you calling me racist.

Show me where I have called you a racist. I haven't - stop making things up.

[Nearly Sane]

Rhiannon - read back what you have just written and think very, very carefully, about how that comes across. I don't believe you are the kind of person who succumbs to the "my mate knows a bloke who had a chat in the pub who told me that all those foreigners are raping our women', but you have to be very, very careful about what you post and how it comes across.

Leaving aside the caricature of Rhiannon's post, I think this is one of those posts which misses that the sort of bias you are implying about those voting leave is something we all suffer from. Confirmation bias exists in us all, and in general life anecdote is powerful, and it is unrealistic to think that we apply or can apply a fully scientific approach to general life. There's an underserved claim to virtuousness by people looking just at statistics and thinking that trumps experience here. And yes, the media do contribute to that but again that would be true for all of us.


In the article I linked to earlier, it argued that Remain tried too much on facts and figures - actually I think that's not really correct. Both sides used  figures but very little facts. Both sides traded mainly on fears, but the approach that in voting too leave people were just being stupid and racist which was and is so prevalent when tied in with a general problem with how we view politicians, seems counter productive.

[Rhiannon]

Show me where I have called you a racist. I haven't - stop making things up.

It’s there in your posts - as NS said, a caricature of the ignorant Brexit voter.

Perhaps that’s all it is though - you think I’m ignorant, maybe because I’m not educated, I’m working class, perhaps because I’m from an area that voted strongly to leave (although why anyone finds it surprising that much of Essex - populated in many places by people moving out from the East End - voted Leave given the way many still carry the past horrors of WW2 because their families could never find the words to talk about it,  it is beyond me).

I am sick of you mansplaining things to me and I am sick of you talking to me like I’m as thick as shit.

[Rhiannon]

Leaving aside the caricature of Rhiannon's post, I think this is one of those posts which misses that the sort of bias you are implying about those voting leave is something we all suffer from. Confirmation bias exists in us all, and in general life anecdote is powerful, and it is unrealistic to think that we apply or can apply a fully scientific approach to general life. There's an underserved claim to viciousness by people looking just at statistics and thinking that trumps experience here. And yes, the media do contribute to that but again that would be true for all of us.

And people won't see a police interview on the BBC as anecdote, they will see it as fact. There are enough statistics in there to back up what they already think, or are beginning to think given that they are noticing change around them (the number of new languages for example, also quoted in the article).

[Nearly Sane]

And people won't see a police interview on the BBC as anecdote, they will see it as fact. There are enough statistics in there to back up what they already think, or are beginning to think given that they are noticing change around them (the number of new languages for example, also quoted in the article).

People's experience isn't anecdote either, nor is what they hear from friends in the context of general life. If a friend tells me that they were in a bus and someone punched someone, I don't think that's just anecdote. Further, there is a general issue with actually establishing facts for most things. We don't on a day to day basis have the time to follow the procedures of science or a court case to establish facts, and it's generally not even possible were we to try.

I've spent a reasonable amount of time following the debate on anti semitism in the Labour party and yet each new report of something is additional effort to investifate! Further, I am not close enough to establish facts about who said what at what time in meetings in 2010 and whether any such reports are biased. The fact that many areas with small amounts of immigration voted for Credit doesn't really tell us much beyond that. 

[ProfessorDavey]

Perhaps that’s all it is though - you think I’m ignorant, maybe because I’m not educated, I’m working class, perhaps because I’m from an area that voted strongly to leave (although why anyone finds it surprising that much of Essex - populated in many places by people moving out from the East End - voted Leave given the way many still carry the past horrors of WW2 because their families could never find the words to talk about it,  it is beyond me).

Nice rant.

For the record - I do not think you are ignorant and (as far as I am aware) I have never said you were.

For the record - I do not think you are uneducated and (as far as I am aware) I have never said you were.

For the record - I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that you voted remain and do not think I have ever said you were a brexit supporter.

For the record - I do not think you are racist and I have never said you were.

I am sick of you mansplaining things to me ...

Nice bit of gender stereotyping there.

[Nearly Sane]

Nice rant.

For the record - I do not think you are ignorant and (as far as I am aware) I have never said you were.

For the record - I do not think you are uneducated and (as far as I am aware) I have never said you were.

For the record - I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that you voted remain and do not think I have ever said you were a brexit supporter.

For the record - I do not think you are racist and I have never said you were.
Nice bit of gender stereotyping there.

Be honest with yourself and accept that your post was both patronising and intended to be so.

[Rhiannon]

People's experience isn't anecdote either, nor is what they hear from friends in the context of general life. If a friend tells me that they were in a bus and someone punched someone, I don't think that's just anecdote. Further, there is a general issue with actually establishing facts for most things. We don't on a day to day basis have the time to follow the procedures of science or a court case to establish facts, and it's generally not even possible were we to try.

I've spent a reasonable amount of time following the debate on anti semitism in the Labour party and yet each new report of something is additional effort to investifate! Further, I am not close enough to establish facts about who said what at what time in meetings in 2010 and whether any such reports are biased. The fact that many areas with small amounts of immigration voted for Credit doesn't really tell us much beyond that.

When I was in hospital waiting to have my youngest, a woman from Eastern Europe in the next bed to me went in to labour and ended up delivering her baby without privacy on the ward, because there were no delivery suites available. She screamed the whole time in her native language, in between throwing up. The reason for the pressure on the maternity unit was, I was told, due to high migration into the area.

'High migration' isn't the same thing as 'high immigration'. Companies (some very large) have relocated to Cambridge from elsewhere in the UK because it is a centre of excellence for research (biotech companies, for example). But couple the word 'migration' with hearing a foreign language and for some people it then means something totally different.

[ProfessorDavey]

Be honest with yourself and accept that your post was both patronising and intended to be so.

Wrong - see my next post.

[ProfessorDavey]

People's experience isn't anecdote either, nor is what they hear from friends in the context of general life. If a friend tells me that they were in a bus and someone punched someone, I don't think that's just anecdote. Further, there is a general issue with actually establishing facts for most things. We don't on a day to day basis have the time to follow the procedures of science or a court case to establish facts, and it's generally not even possible were we to try.

True - but we aren't usually talking about direct experience in this context, nor even second hand from a trusted person (e.g. your friend) - the danger here is the kind of nebulous heresay, purporting to be true, that is, in reality merely an appeal to confirmation bias. And it is often the case that the words of people who aren't racist get misconstrued and extrapolated via confirmation bias to provide fuel for the racist and xenophobic elements. That's why we have to be careful with what we say and how we say it.

That was my point to Rhiannon - to look carefully at what she said for fear of making incendiary comments that are exaggerations of what was actually said that could provide fuel to those who are racist. And that proved to be correct because her summary of the views of that particular police officer (presumably misremembered from 11 years ago) are not what she actually said (if we presume the article is faithful to the original tv interview.

She never said 'that she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding' or anything close to that. What she actually said was very different, never mentioned anything about 'Eastern European migrants feuding' and indeed the only reference to anything that could be construed as feuding in the article is:

'The force's report warned that officers had seen increases in "critical incidents" and tensions within some communities fuelled by local resentment towards newcomers.'

The implication being that the victims are the migrants and the perpetrators are the locals.

[Nearly Sane]

Wrong - see my next post.

your posting certainly  reads as patronising, so how you can say 'wrong' there seems odd. As to what you believe about your own intentikbs, I may be wrong but again your posting seems to imply that you are self aware enough to know that your tone is patronising.

[Rhiannon]

True - but we aren't usually talking about direct experience in this context, nor even second hand from a trusted person (e.g. your friend) - the danger here is the kind of nebulous heresay, purporting to be true, that is, in reality merely an appeal to confirmation bias. And it is often the case that the words of people who aren't racist get misconstrued and extrapolated via confirmation bias to provide fuel for the racist and xenophobic elements. That's why we have to be careful with what we say and how we say it.

That was my point to Rhiannon - to look carefully at what she said for fear of making incendiary comments that are exaggerations of what was actually said that could provide fuel to those who are racist. And that proved to be correct because her summary of the views of that particular police officer (presumably misremembered from 11 years ago) are not what she actually said (if we presume the article is faithful to the original tv interview.

She never said 'that she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding' or anything close to that. What she actually said was very different, never mentioned anything about 'Eastern European migrants feuding' and indeed the only reference to anything that could be construed as feuding in the article is:

'The force's report warned that officers had seen increases in "critical incidents" and tensions within some communities fuelled by local resentment towards newcomers.'

The implication being that the victims are the migrants and the perpetrators are the locals.

She added that ongoing feuds can also be brought into the country.

"We recently had a murder that was Lithuanian on Lithuanian and it could have happened in Lithuania but it didn't," she said.

[ProfessorDavey]

But couple the word 'migration' with hearing a foreign language and for some people it then means something totally different.

Indeed, which is why there is a responsibility on all of us who aren't racist or xenophobic to be careful not to fan the flames. The issue here is inadequate service provision and that would be just the same had the person in the next bed been British through the generations since 1066.

[Nearly Sane]

True - but we aren't usually talking about direct experience in this context, nor even second hand from a trusted person (e.g. your friend) - the danger here is the kind of nebulous heresay, purporting to be true, that is, in reality merely an appeal to confirmation bias. And it is often the case that the words of people who aren't racist get misconstrued and extrapolated via confirmation bias to provide fuel for the racist and xenophobic elements. That's why we have to be careful with what we say and how we say it.

That was my point to Rhiannon - to look carefully at what she said for fear of making incendiary comments that are exaggerations of what was actually said that could provide fuel to those who are racist. And that proved to be correct because her summary of the views of that particular police officer (presumably misremembered from 11 years ago) are not what she actually said (if we presume the article is faithful to the original tv interview.

She never said 'that she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding' or anything close to that. What she actually said was very different, never mentioned anything about 'Eastern European migrants feuding' and indeed the only reference to anything that could be construed as feuding in the article is:

'The force's report warned that officers had seen increases in "critical incidents" and tensions within some communities fuelled by local resentment towards newcomers.'

The implication being that the victims are the migrants and the perpetrators are the locals.

I see you start by assuming what millions of people are talking about. You really can't stop yourself being patronising can you?

[Nearly Sane]

Indeed, which is why there is a responsibility on all of us who aren't racist or xenophobic to be careful not to fan the flames. The issue here is inadequate service provision and that would be just the same had the person in the next bed been British through the generations since 1066.

I would suggest there's a responsibility on people not to make a lazy generalisation about others being racist. But then I'm not as effortlessly patronising or dismissive of others opinions as some.

[ProfessorDavey]

I see you start by assuming what millions of people are talking about. You really can't stop yourself being patronising can you?

You were the one who brought up (quite rightly) confirmation bias. All I am saying is that people with confirmation bias in whatever respect will latch onto comments that support their confirmation bias. That's why we need to be careful in what we say.

[ProfessorDavey]

She added that ongoing feuds can also be brought into the country.

"We recently had a murder that was Lithuanian on Lithuanian and it could have happened in Lithuania but it didn't," she said.

She mentions one murder (which I also mentioned upthread) - in what way does that equate to 'that she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding'? It doesn't and nor did she say or imply it did.

[Nearly Sane]

You were the one who brought up (quite rightly) confirmation bias. All I am saying is that people with confirmation bias in whatever respect will latch onto comments that support their confirmation bias. That's why we need to be careful in what we say.

And you illustrated your own confirmation bias in implying that millions of people were not talking about anything real.

[ProfessorDavey]

I would suggest there's a responsibility on people not to make a lazy generalisation about others being racist.

Which I never did. And if you actually bothered to read my posts and explanations it would be very clear that my comment to Rhiannon would only have been made on the basis of her not being racist - the whole point being that those who aren't racist or xenophobic need to be careful in the comments they make to avoid providing fuel to those that are.

[Nearly Sane]

She mentions one murder (which I also mentioned upthread) - in what way does that equate to 'that she can't police the county effectively due to Eastern European migrants feuding'? It doesn't and nor did she say or imply it did.

In the context of saying they are struggling with numbers, she mentions feuds being brought over, as Rhiannon quoted, that she then specifies a specific case doesn't break the context that ongoing feuds have an impact. It can certainly be read to imply Rhiannon's statement.

[Nearly Sane]

Which I never did. And if you actually bothered to read my posts and explanations it would be very clear that my comment to Rhiannon would only have been made on the basis of her not being racist - the whole point being that those who aren't racist or xenophobic need to be careful in the comments they make to avoid providing fuel to those that are.

This is about all the people who you have decided weren't talking about their experience but we're just talking about it third hand, all the people that you don't want Rhiannon to encourage to be racist because you think that they need to be protected because they are just too dumb and racist.

Posting like you have here is exactly why Remain failed.