[Livia]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Well I dont really know who the foreigners are but generally they're here because we offer a better standard of living than their home countries, and a lot of this countries prosperity was built on the back of it's imperialism.

Let's not forget that while the Empire took a lot from various countries, it gave a lot too, especially in the last half-century when people realised the mistakes of the past. India's infrastructure was built by the British, and Britain gave them a system of government. Ever since India gained independence in the forties we've been giving them aid. Millions every year... over a billion last year. At the same time, they have a fast-growing economy and they're developing their space programme, hoping to have a man in space within the next ten years. So why are we still sending them money when there are people in this country who are homeless and poor?

Furthermore, the Empire became the Commonwealth. If the Commonwealth smacks of imperialism and is not beneficial, how come Mozambique chooses to be a part of it when it was never a part of the Empire?

The vast majority of people in Britain never made a penny from the Empire, especially the working class. But when people come here for a better standard of living from places like India and Pakistan, almost without exception they are housed amongst the working class who have to listen to them moaning about how they were oppressed by the Empire while during that same period most working class Brits lived in squalor with no access to proper education or healthcare and almost no chance of bettering themselves.

Should Italy still be paying for the countries they invaded under their Roman Empire? How much more will Britain have to pay before people latch on to the fact that it happened generations ago yet we're still apologising for it?

Everyone should be rightly proud of their own country, without feeling the need to pick over the past of someone else's.