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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

What is "xenophobic" about those three images? Turkey is currently undergoing a very public internal war between western secularism and Islamic fundamentalism. Why would a western country want to enter into democratic union with such a country at this stage?

Not every judgment regarding other countries is "xenophobic." Imagine if Alabama or Mississippi were trying to join the U.S. today. Would it be "xenophobic" of Californians to be skeptical of the impact that would have on shared democratic institutions?

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If it's not xenophobic, it's at least hypocrisy:

* the UK was one of the biggest proponents for Eastern EU expansion

* the UK did not impose any restriction on labor from the new EU members, which every EU member could do, up to 10 years from the date of the new members joining

* then, surprise-surprise!, when a lot of Poles, especially, moved to the major English speaking country in the EU, the UK decided all of a sudden they're against immigration :)

* the UK, even post-Brexit, but before Erdogan purges, through the voice of Boris Johnson, was pushing for Turkey becoming an EU members

And these ads are from 2016, when public perception of Erdogan wasn't what it was now. The angle was purely: "the Turks are going to swarm us". While the same government was pushing for Turkey in the EU.

Furthermore, the UK could just veto Turkey indefinitely. Absolutely every EU member must agree to accession of a new members.

The UK government was also one of the biggest proponents for the UK remaining in the EU, so it's... not exactly surprising that the Leave campaign didn't align with the government position

Yeah, it's easy forget that the referendum was designed to be a sop to euroskeptics within the majority party, because by separating out the question to its own referendum rather than the parliamentary elections, those euroskeptics would stay with the party leadership, who they agreed with on non-EU issues. Since the referendum was seen as a slam dunk for Remain when it was set, this was seen as a zero-cost way of protecting the government's parliamentary majority, with the possible side benefit of quieting the anti-EU faction down since their expected failure in the referendum would be something that could be pointed to in future discussions.

Getting people to vote leave because they don't like some foreigners (Turkey or Syria) is quite literally the definition of xenophobia. This is especially true when Turkey is not even close to joining the EU.

The subtext May be xenophobic, but the ads are specifically about the wage gap between the UK and Turkey/Albania, and the explicit message is that you will lose your job, or wages will drop. That’s not xenophobic.

> you will lose your job, or wages will drop

Which didn’t happen in any country so far nor in UK with the “invasion of the Polish”

Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro population is negligible. Turkey will never get in EU.

I respect the choice of the English people but the ads were pure scaremongering

I watched some vox pops on the Guardian during the campaign and there were quite a few testimonies from workers who stated specifically their wages had dropped due to competition from eastern European workers and in one case the guy could name the exact amount of the drop.

So whilst you may believe nobody felt under wage pressure, that would be a rather odd belief given the basics of supply and demand, and it wouldn't match the beliefs of quite a few voters.

But the ads are not about “not liking foreigners.” They are about a country with very different beliefs and attitudes joining a bloc where they will have voting rights in bodies that have legislative power over people in the UK. That is a completely different thing. And Turkey applied to the EU in 1987, has been a full candidate EU member since 1999, and since then has been in active negotiations to join.

That's a process the UK, as a member state, used to have veto over. Not sure if they have lost it yet, but now or in the near future they'll just have to live with whatever the rest decide. That is, unless they want to leave the single market, which doesn't look very likely.

Most of those ads aren't about Turkey's beliefs, but rather it's mere proximity to another country with different beliefs.

> But the ads are not about “not liking foreigners.” They are about a country with very different beliefs and attitudes

People with very different beliefs and attitudes exist in the same voting blocs everywhere. Should people in Portland Oregon complain that people in Jon Day get to vote in the same elections? Rural people tend to be far more religious and have very different beliefs and attitudes.

Because they are lies. Turkey is quite obviously not about to join the EU, so the advert is a lie intended to win the votes of people whose xenophobia leads them to strongly fear it is true.

> Why would a western country want to enter into democratic union with such a country at this stage?

It wouldn't, and that's why claiming "turkey is joining the EU" is highly misleading. Turkey is far from becoming an EU member, a process which was started in "brighter times", and the UK has control over that status ever changing.

the UK has control over that

You have to remember that a key part of the reason Leave won is that British people don't trust their leaders to be honest or consistent on the topic of the EU.

Politicians across Europe, not just the UK, have a long established track record of promising voters they'll reject further integration or power transfers to Brussels and then turning around and doing exactly that. As the Brexit referendum has helpfully revealed this is because the civil service and many MPs don't actually believe anyone should be allowed to vote against the EU and are busy trying to block implementation of leaving.

Given that, the fact that the UK could theoretically veto Turkey's membership is irrelevant. Politicians can't be trusted to use it. Leaving completely is the only sure way to stop them doing whatever Brussels asks for.

Okay, so 1 out of 5. Is there explanations for the other 4? The other just focus on those countries being poorer.

But 2949 is also there. 2963. 2966-68. 2990. 2991-94. 3018-19. etc...

2926 followed by 2927 is pretty funny.

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