Racist, Populist, Dog Whistle Bollocks

[Soph0571]

The next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (unless we have a bloody miracle), demanded yesterday that immigrants to the UK learn English because 'there are too many parts of the country where it is not the first language.'

What complete and utter bollocks.

Which part of the country is it where a majority of the residents cannot speak English? Or is that if you are not native born but can speak English, he is lumping you into this othering of our communities?

Heh. Has he not done enough to heighten the racist tendencies, and therefore tensions within certain sections of our community with his nasty Johnny Foreigner Brexit Bollocks? Apparently not. So desperate is he to be the next Prime Minister he has decided to build on that othering during his campaign for PM. Plays well in the Shires I suppose where they likelihood is, they have never sat down with a person for whom English is their second language, or from second of third generation settled communities.

The hoards are coming…man the barricades…bar their entry…

Racist, Populist, Dog Whistle Bollocks. I want to hit something.

[nocoincidences]

1. He looks like

Trump-lite.

Maybe he's not so lite.

So sorry you are entering your version of the Trump crazy-hell.

[mwooldri]

2. Welsh and Scots Gaelic are official languages in Wales and Scotland.

In Wales, it is not necessary to speak English. There are parts of rural Wales where English is hardly spoken.

So for arguments sake... if an immigrant comes in fluent in their native tongue and Welsh but hardly spoke English ... is that a problem? Personally I think not.

[Denzil_DC]

3. I suspect Johnson's even worse than that.

It may be that he's not dogwhistling, vying with Hunt for who can tweak the base's prejudices the most effectively - foxhunting and all, hastily walked back in Hunt's case. Given the current Tory Party polling, Johnson hardly needs to make any effort at all.

This is what Johnson actually thinks and believes. Read back over his various columns in the Telegraph etc. This is what he feels and who he is.

Now, he's a weak enough character that he could trim his sails in future to whatever prevailing wind he senses (as he did while Mayor of London), but at the moment it doesn't look like that will mean a move towards liberalism, or sanity, in any sense.

Meanwhile, he doesn't give a shit for the wider effects of his words. If he gets called on it, he'll disappear in a squid cloud of sub-Woodhousian waffle as usual, in the hope the current audience will lose the thread, or interest, before he finishes whatever he's burbling.

The cabal around him, on the other hand, in Parliament and with loosened purse strings beyond it - I wouldn't put anything past them.

The fact that Lynton Crosby, King of the Dogwhistle, is running Johnson's campaign (for no payment upfront) might undercut my case and bolster yours, though only if I assume Johnson's capable of sticking to a playbook when he opens his capacious gob and lets rip.

Perhaps Crosby's advice has been "Let Boris be Boris"?

[raccoon]

4. OMG, Sounds like another dotard. NT

[LeftishBrit]

5. His first language is gobbledegook!

He uses longer words than Trump, but the same idiocy.