Thank you for your letter dated 3rd September 2002.

Mr. Prescott has asked me to write to you regarding
your claims of discrimination. After making enquiries
I believe you are a citizen of the United Kingdom and
have a native ethnicity.

I shall attempt to answer your comments. Firstly, I
assume you are referring to the Census form that has
no facility for stating English nationality. This is
because there is no such nationality as English as
laid down by various acts of Parliament and accession.
Persons born in the United Kingdom are citizens of the
United Kingdom and are therefore British/English.

Secondly, you state that your children are unable to
practice their religion at school. Since 1989, all
non-denominational schools in the United Kingdom have
had the right to Christian assembly removed. This was
because it was felt to be insensitive to the needs of
ethnic minorities being forced to practice a creed
different to their own. There is however, no reason
you cannot attend church services of your own
denomination in your own time.

Lastly you are complaining that you cannot celebrate
your patron saint's day without punitive financial
penalties being imposed. Again, there is no reason
preventing you from celebrating in your own time as
long as your celebrations are kept within legal
restraints and do not interfere with the sensitivities
of any ethnic minority.

I trust this letter answers your queries.

Yours sincerely

R. Morrison

PP Rt Hon John Prescott.

This is they very BS pushed by the PC left that is giving racism so much fuel to thier fires. If Ethnic minorities are so friggin offended by local holidays and customs, they are in the worng country and need to go elsewhere.

If I went to india and got all pissy because people publically celebrated thier Hindu festivals and worshipped thier gods publically, what would that make me? if I went to japan and screamed how all those shinto shrines pissed me off and offended me, what would they do?

This is what I mean, suppressed national holidays, cultural things, celebrations, religions. if people immigrate to a country, they had better learn to accfept and adapt to the local flavor and customs, and if they find it all so offensive, then go the hell back home.

I was in Saudi Arabia, not of my own sole choice, and found the whole Ramadan to be offensive, but you didnt here me complain, I simply kept quiet and let them do thier own religious thing, its thier country, after all.

good point, if a person goes to a country no matter where it is in the world then you must respect their views and beliefs no matter what you opinion is. I don't want the UK to change to suit a minority, i want them to add to my country by becoming more intergrated and not by trying to change the country to their beliefs. The very idea of immigrants changing a country to their system only fuels far right ideals.

It's inevitable that the world moves towards a system where nations have closer ties (one world government if you will) as technology advances and populations become larger. Why the resistance you know it's going to happen.

Haven't you people ever read or watched science fiction? All the governments of the future are one world! Well either than or run by a bunch of megacorporations. Hmph, it looks like we're going down the latter path...

Originally posted by UK Wizard
I don't want the UK to change to suit a minority

I take it that I, a British citizen and taxpayer, would count as a minority too, then?

I agree almost entirely with the quoted letter. The point about being "officially" English is a good one - the country you live in is called Britain, mate, so it says the same on your passport as it does on mine. That is political reality.

Secondly, I agree that religion should be kept out of schools: and I mean all religion, whether it's hunduism or catholicism or just plain old vanilla C of E. If you want to indoctrinate your kids, do it in the privacy of your own home. Don't waste valuable educating time filling their minds with myths and lies.

The only thing I disagree with is the thing about St. George's Day. If you're going to have a national patriotic holiday, then it should be an official holiday and celebrated like the Scots or the Irish do.

The point is this: these changes aren't about the tired right-wing argument that "immigrants are changing Britain". It's about Britain changing to reflect a new social order and new political and cultural realities. The old-guard tories and the neo-right are fighting it tooth and nail because there is no place for their small-minded brand of negativity and conservatism (small C) in this new Britain. Guess what? We don't live in a country of village greens and warm beer, of cricket and friendly local butchers. We live, in short, in the information age - not the tweed age.

There are important things that we should take from our collective history and reintroduced to contemporary culture - courtesy and nobility, a slower pace of life which stresses quality over quantity, respect for learning and education, and personal responsibility to name a very few - but we're not going to do it by putting our fingers in our ears and singing "la la la la la" until the nasty foreigners all go home.

The UK isn't changing to suit a minority - it is, by definition, changing to reflect the new majority.

All in all, the letter seemed rational, logical, and equitable - which makes me believe that it probably wasn't passed in front of the snout of Prescott the Hutt.

Originally posted by UK Wizard
The English identity has been hijacked by extremist far right neo-nazis.

I couldn't agree more, and I'm as saddened by it as you are. But you don't fight extremism by battening down the hatches and adopting a siege mentality - you beat it by being better than them.

Go out with your asian and black friends, find a member of the BNP, and tell him you're glad that he can express his political views in a free democracy.

He'll hate it.

You can't regain the old English identity, but it's not too late to forge a new one.

it's scary 'there' is something that you and i agree on StrangeLands (the far right has ruined the English identity)
In reply to your last comment, my area is nearly populated by only white people (there is next to no racism where i live) and the BNP are looked upon as evil neo-nazis (that's what they are really),
i think that we can learn a lot from other cultures and other cultures can learn a lot from us, but i still don't like the direction that the EU is taking,
maybe a membership vote would settle the issue for a while




[edit on 24-6-2004 by UK Wizard]

Originally posted by UK Wizard
maybe a membership vote would settle the issue for a while

Yeah, it's weird when you find common ground

I would agree that a referendum on our involvement with the EU would be a good idea, but I'm afriad that the issue is too clouded by prejuidice and lies. The popular media - the tabloids in particular - are so rabidly anti-EU that intelligent debate is nigh-on impossible. At least when we vote on the constitution, it'll give us something concrete to pick over and analyse, which can only help the discussion.

Sadly, ATS members aren't representative of the Great British Public. As muppet said, all we can hope is that this issue will galvanise the apathetic non-voters and enagage the public's interest.

Originally posted by UK Wizard
The Labour government claims that England has not existed since the 1700's. Scotland and Wales only gained offical status when they got their own parliments (assembly).

''''4. What exactly is the constitutional position of England, Scotland and Wales?

Constitutionally and politically England does not exist. It ceased to exist politically and constitutionally in 1707 with the Act of Union. So did Scotland.

It's all just a puppet of the City of London (Illuminati) anyway.

Daelume, I appeciate you have to get your posting count up - after all, 115 posts in a single day isn't so very much, is it? - but one-line posts are frowned upon. Also, I'm sure we'd all like to see the evidence which supports your statement. Would you care to share it?