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Travis's avatar

There's a presumption here that it's up to the government of the hosting country to integrate immigrants. This grates at me.

1. How would you even? Wouldn't this involve coercion?

2. I grew up with a left wing culture that told us that assimilation was wrong. How the Garcia girl's lost their accents was a book thrust upon us to show the evils of assimilation.

Assimilation into the dominant culture of a country is highly prosocial and represents a respect for the new place you call home. It should be the goal of asylum seekers. So much so that govts accepting immigrants should choose on this basis. If assimilation fails, maybe that's a reason to deport.

Why come to the place if you're just going to wish you were back home? It hurts both places. If asylum seekers do not wish to assimilate, then they should stay to build a better society in the culture they accept.

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Terry M.'s avatar

This article, like Starmer overstates the importance of the far right in the big picture. Working class white people have seen their income taxed to fund the immigrant demand for welfare, housing and employment. They have also seen the emergence of a two tier policing and justice system where white people are ignored or vilified for protests that are fawningly indulged by the police when it is Muslims on the streets.

So, again, the refusal to see the far left as co-responsible for the deteriorating social conditions sees Persuasion failing to strike balance and resort to anti working class argumentation. Very disappointing. After all, how could anybody fail to scutinize two tier Starmer?

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