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Does wanting one’s own country to focus on its citizens first make one a xenophobe?

• Sebguer 6y ago
  Yes, nationalism and xenophobia go hand in hand.
• runarberg 6y ago
  Short answer yes. EDIT longer answer: You live in a society of people, the people that you interact with daily are people just like you. Some of them might be immigrants and some of them might have a foreign citizenship. That does not make them any lesser. They pay taxes to the same government as you, they abide by the same rules as you. If they brake the law, they have to answer for it just like you. The only reason I can think of why they shouldn’t accept the same benefits from your government as you is xenophobia.
  • noncoml 6y ago
    Not to mention that all the complaints about "putting strain on NHS" were started by Murdoch's Sun. From my experience: 1. I have a lot of friends from all over the world, that live in the UK. They have been there since their late 20's, make far more money than the median, and hence contributed a lot of money to NHS 2. I was living in UK during the Polish influx, and what I observed was that British people would prefer to use Polish builders as they were doing better work and got things done faster. My landlord was complaining that she was unable to book her favorite Polish builder for some work in the house. Not saying that this is always the case and there weren't people who arrived to UK to take advantage of the better social services, but that's what my experience was, and maybe it's because of the specific bubble I live in.
• ben_w 6y ago
  Blaming foreigners for ills they do not cause is essentially, perhaps even literally, what the word “xenophobic” means, and migrants to the UK are collectively blamed for things they do not cause.
• austinjp 6y ago
  Can you define "focus on its own citizens"?