Firstly, just to clarify: I don't have a strong opinion on whether Britain is the most racist country in Europe. If you had to press me for an answer, it's probably about average, recently become slightly worse than average. I did strongly disagree with your previous claims that it's "the exact opposite of how it really is" (i.e. that the UK is by far the least racist) and that people not voting for Labour somehow means that they can't be racist.
> I thought we were moving beyond "immigration quotas are racism"?
They're not automatically racist, but support for them can still be motivated by racism, especially when people are willing to risk suffering economically themselves to reduce immigration.
> Eastern Europe is almost entirely white so reducing immigration from there couldn't be racist to start with.
I'm not sure why skin-colour is so important. Jews are "white" (or at the very least the Jews who live/lived in Europe are/were white), but antisemitism is considered a form of racism. In any case, whether you call it "racism" or not, there could still be xenophobia and prejudice.
> People in the UK overwhelmingly want to reduce immigration, something like 80%+ want that so it's a massively bipartisan issue,
I have not seen any such polls. The most that I could find was 76 % in favour of reduced immigration, but I could also find recent (2019/11) polls with a small majority (56 %) in favour of keeping FoM. The latter seems consistent with the result of the recent GE where more people voted for parties intending to keep FoM than those that wanted to get rid of it (the split was around 54-46). The former poll could also, in principle be (people would like to reduce immigration, but on net, would not want to lose FoM, including their own FoM; also elections aren't single-issue).
> not because the entire country is seething with racism
Nobody is claiming that everybody even slightly opposed to immigration is racist — that would be absurd.
> but because the existing policy recognises no limits on infrastructure build outs.
The fact that people are generally most in favour of reducing immigration in the areas with the least immigration weakens the argument that they're motivated by legitimate concerns about the infrastructure not coping.
> But sure, whatever, by all means, believe a place immigrants choose to move in huge numbers is filled with hatred and racism against them
Immigrants also move from South Asia to the Middle East, despite there being immense systemic discrimination against them, for economic reasons.
> I thought we were moving beyond "immigration quotas are racism"?
They're not automatically racist, but support for them can still be motivated by racism, especially when people are willing to risk suffering economically themselves to reduce immigration.
> Eastern Europe is almost entirely white so reducing immigration from there couldn't be racist to start with.
I'm not sure why skin-colour is so important. Jews are "white" (or at the very least the Jews who live/lived in Europe are/were white), but antisemitism is considered a form of racism. In any case, whether you call it "racism" or not, there could still be xenophobia and prejudice.
> People in the UK overwhelmingly want to reduce immigration, something like 80%+ want that so it's a massively bipartisan issue,
I have not seen any such polls. The most that I could find was 76 % in favour of reduced immigration, but I could also find recent (2019/11) polls with a small majority (56 %) in favour of keeping FoM. The latter seems consistent with the result of the recent GE where more people voted for parties intending to keep FoM than those that wanted to get rid of it (the split was around 54-46). The former poll could also, in principle be (people would like to reduce immigration, but on net, would not want to lose FoM, including their own FoM; also elections aren't single-issue).
> not because the entire country is seething with racism
Nobody is claiming that everybody even slightly opposed to immigration is racist — that would be absurd.
> but because the existing policy recognises no limits on infrastructure build outs.
The fact that people are generally most in favour of reducing immigration in the areas with the least immigration weakens the argument that they're motivated by legitimate concerns about the infrastructure not coping.
> But sure, whatever, by all means, believe a place immigrants choose to move in huge numbers is filled with hatred and racism against them
Immigrants also move from South Asia to the Middle East, despite there being immense systemic discrimination against them, for economic reasons.