Is the word "Bigot" used by Labour MP because he is in fact a "bigot"

www.birminghammail.co.uk...

As some British people will know a petition has been doing the rounds for a few weeks against Immigration - Petition 106477. It has received nearly 200,000 signatures and as such is to be debated in Parliament on 19 October 2015 for 3 hours as any Petition that reaches 100,000 signatures will have the opportunity to be debated by Parliament. This has angered a Birmingham Labour MP who thinks it shouldn't be debated as it is giving in to Bigots. My question is do people think that the term "bigot" is used too frequently these days to close down any real debate (especially by left wing, liberal thinkers) and is that not in itself bigoted. it is beginning to seem like democracy has gone out of the window in the UK. Although a labour government wasn't voted in by the people of the UK mainly because of their stance on immigration still the minority of the people seem to be pushing their own agendas through (decision to take 20,000 refugees) although I it is against the majority of the British voters. If anyone has different opinions to these left wing, liberals they are labelled as "bigots".

When I looked up definition of a bigot it is someone who "strongly and unfairly dislikes other peoples ideas and opinions" based on religious or cultural grounds. As a lot of the people who signed this petition think of themselves as British and Christian could it not be said that this MP is in fact being bigoted against the majority of British Christians?

These tactics used by the left wing/liberals are creating really anger and resentment amongst the British people. In fact, they are pushing people over to the far right. Pegida UK is holding demonstrations throughout the Country on 19 October 2015 to coincide with the debate of the Petition as they think it will be shouted down by the left wing/liberals and won't be considered seriously. There appears to be more and more people going over to these far right groups.

There are several petitions doing the rounds at the moment asking for government to "reverse decision to allow Syrian refugees", "ban the Burkha", "Stop building mosques". Do the left wing/liberals ever cast their eye over these petitions I wonder. Do they ever look on newspaper forums to try and understand the view of the British people. I don't see how they can and whilst they keep using the word "bigot" to shout down any real debate on the concerns of the majority of the British people more and more are going to move over to the far right and this doesn't bode well for the future of the UK. What do people think?

a reply to: anxiouswens

I do not believe that the MP referred to can be accused of bigotry, simply because he sees fit to point it out in others, and fairly in my estimation.

For a start, on the matter of the "majority of British Christians" and their involvement in this petition...there is no such thing as a Christian who would refuse to offer succour to embattled and endangered persons, no matter the risk, no matter the consequence. There are of course going to be those who profess to faith, and yet have none, who might be so tempted. But an actual Christian would risk being exposed to many things worse than the effects of immigration, to ensure the safety of a stranger, because that is what Christ would have done, and Christians, true Christians follow his path, rather than merely extolling its virtues.

As for whether or not left wing politicians and activists look over the far right extremist propaganda which is disseminated around, of course they do. They have to be aware of the divisive tactics being ranged against the people by the press, by the current government, and by hate groups and misguided religious fundamentalists. It is not bigoted to suggest that the Britain First mob, the BNP, and even some UKIP activists have a xenophobic agenda, because it is a fact that they do. It would be bigoted to suggest that the only reason to be somewhat concerned about immigration is because one is a xenophobe, that must be clear, absolutely clear. There are negative effects which could come about as a result.

The crucial thing here however, is that in my estimation, as people living in an allegedly free country, which became such as a result of financial advantage it gained by shedding the blood of people from other lands in times long past, and had a hand in training and supplying the originators of the threat from which people are fleeing currently, we have a responsibility toward those who need protection from the consequences of our success. That responsibility is one that we must fill upon our honour, or lose all right to speak out against the inhumanity of others. My personal code of ethics demands that failing to act to protect, is as much of a weakness and a failure as desiring to kill with ones own hands, that standing by and watching, rather than making space for the afflicted and the embattled is as bad as prosecuting a genocide oneself, especially when one lives in such a powerful and storied nation as ours.


Furthermore, I should point out that this petition having received over 200,000 signatures is not that big of a deal, since that means that 99.684 percent of the nation did not agree with the petition enough to sign it, or did not give a crap about its contents at all. This is a democracy, and that means that if anyone reversed course over the issue based on this petition, it would not be an act in keeping with the majority feeling in the country, but instead pandering to a minority of individuals with right wing interests.

Perhaps when petitions like this receive more than twenty, or thirty percent of the populations signatures, then we should think about changing our minds when it comes to immigration matters. Till then, we should continue to lend as much support as possible to those fleeing conflict and death.

I will follow TrueBrit's Excellent summary of the scenario by pointing out..

as there has been 100,000 or eve 200,000 thousand signatures and as you stated there are lots of petitions to Ban the burka or send Refugees back to war situations or whatever other Xenophobic and frankly at times Bigoted opinions are banded about.. you cant really suggest this reflects the public opinion,

First and foremost, 1% of the public would be about 600,000 so we are talking about signatures of 1/3 of 1% of the British population, then if you presume that would be the people who are at most against the situation at least enough to openly voice their opinion.... even if they were each representing 10 people they know who were not willing to sign a petition about it.. that would still only be 3% of the population...

That would suggest that overlooking such opinion and focusing on real issues would not offend 97% of the population of the UK, so granted although you feel it is a huge issue which has to be resolved, the tiny amount of people who are complaining about these things, especially when offset by the Massive amount of support for Refugees to be homed, due to people not essentially be Sexual organs of Donkeys it is within the interests of the nation to ignore such a tiny movement..


to qualify this.. i can absolutely without issue get 200,000 signatures in Scotland to say they would like another referendum, now regardless of your opinion on that itself, do you believe the British Government should waste time in Parliament to Debate that at the current time..?


Also may i ask... Can you define in your opinion what you believe is the mindset of a "Left wing liberal" in the UK and then Explain where you stand with regards to that definition?

and also.. are you a Christian?

a reply to: GonzoSinister

One can fiddle around all day long - did only 1% sign or did 10 %. The fact is that the petition has not been put forward for everyone to see and access - so in fact we have no idea how many would sign it were it available for all to sign. Just saying. As there are 200,000 it has to be debated, it will be size of the protests that will give a better indication of how the country feels though and what support they get. Not everyone is on line or bothers with social networking.

a reply to: Shiloh7

I dont agree though... my point is simply, for every person i meet in life in the street etc. who has a negative opinion of the Refugee crisis i meet another ten whom i believe to have a more reasonable and "Christian" opinion on helping them.

then if i look across the UK as a whole, being fortunate enough to work in environments where i am dealing with the public or at least a reasonable cross section of both class and education levels, i tend to find people have the opposite opinion with that of which you are citing.

Granted, i am in no way suggesting there are not pockets of people who agree with your view, however i am simply saying that even at 10% of the population they are not really bringing enough to the table to warrant discussion in my opinion, the wonder of Democracy is everyone has a say, however to counter that fact, Democracy simply means the opinion of the greatest cross section of society will be what the lesser pockets have to adhere to..

so in essence even if you could prove 20% of the UK felt this should be discussed... (12 million people) one would assume 80% (48 million people) did not feel the same and as the old saying goes, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of a few"


the problem i feel the UK has at the moment, with the Red top papers being read by some many people, and the BBC being the propaganda wing of the Government, it is easy to believe the whole of the UK is outraged by Refugees coming here and taking our jobs or "illegal immigrants on welfare" i hear it quoted regularly... however im sure you are aware, an "illegal" immigrant cant in fact get benefits, due to the main issue that they are Illegal in the country, and a refugee doesn't care about the jobs here, they just want to sleep somewhere which is a little bit less shooty and or stabby.

so using the above listed misdirection propaganda machine as reference, possibly using what can only be described as lightly veiled racist groups such as Britain First and UKIP supporters pages and facebook as reference points, it is easy to presume the UK wants less immigrants, fears Islamic Rule and wants to ban the Burkah, but if you actually drill down and chat to most 18-50 year old British people (the highest percentage of the UK voters) across all of the UK and not your immediate area or friend group you will find as i do regularly that the general populace really has very little opinion outwith that of positive help for the Refugees, they generally dont care what religion some person is, they couldn't care less if some is dressed up in a burkah, even dressed as a ninja or possibly a space man, or even in full African tribal gear literally means nothing to them, at all, its just a person in fabric...


the question i tried to answer that clearly you do not agree with is... since a tiny (TINY) minority of the UK can be both Xenophobic and Racist at times, should every instance of "Proud British tradition" being diluted by "Foreigners" be discussed in parliament and Alas the answer is no.... it should not, the UK is full of foreigners, you and i and everyone in the UK is at some point a Foreigner, likely Germanic or French if your family is old enough, but high possibly Eastern European, Irish, Italian, Spanish, Roman (to name a few) the country's national dishes are pretty much, German, Irish, Indian , the national drinks are German and French, the Language is Central European, the Religion is French or Roman...


so the fact that 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9....etc. % of the UK do not understand both history, "Christian" Values or just how it is to be a good Human being should just once and for all be put to bed...

Maybe.. just Maybe... those who have a Hate-don for Refugees should possibly divert that anger towards the politicians that so readily get voted into power whom pillage and slowly diminish "British values" under the guise of trying to help the common man, only while getting richer...


Just my thoughts

Most British Christians are Church of England which is generally a very liberal organisation, also many British Christians come from immigrant backgrounds. If it wasn't for immigration of Eastern European countries and former colonies, Christianity in the uk would not have that many followers. Most Christians I meet through my voluntary work are good people concerned with helping the poor and other disadvantaged groups within our society. Operating food banks and helping in community run projects.the organisation I've volunteered for works closely with the local churches and even runs a service on Sunday's from the building we are based in. I'm pretty certain none would have given their signature to any such petition.

While I'm sure the concerns of the petition signees are genuine, they are likely misinformed by sweeping generalisations and downright lies which are in themselves bigoted (or at best ignorant).

Looking at the wording on the petition itself...

Foreign citizens are taking all our benefits

I don't think I need to comment really, we all know that has no truth in it.

Many of them are trying to change UK into a Muslim country!

Really, how many? Anything to back this up?

There is footage of foreigners destroying British soldiers graves, which is a huge disrespect to us

No reference as to what this is but what has that got to do with helping refugees? Maybe he is referring to the footage from Libya of extremists kicking over grave stones, in which case to infer all 'foreigners' would do this is rather bigoted/ignorant.

petition.parliament.uk...

The problem is that some people take info like this as gospel.

Here's what 17 year old Kieran Worrallo, the creator of the petition said about it...

When asked where he found the statistics cited in the article, Worrallo said they were “off an internet page, so not 100% sure if it is correct.”

www.buzzfeed.com...

So perhaps the discussion should be about how to tackle misinformation and propaganda? Teaching kids how to think critically would be a good start. If they have all the facts, have considered all sides and still want to set up a petition to be taken seriously, then go for it.

As for using the word 'bigoted', well it probably isn't very useful if we don't want to put folk on the defensive and drive them further in that direction.