I've only skimmed a few articles about the issue, but it seems like this isn't just a matter of a handful of municipalities acting independently, but rather those declarations are tied into a broader push by the national ruling party to make LGBT people its political bogeyman du jour. Politicians have made a bunch of statements to the effect that LGBT is a foreign ideology that seeks to sexualize children and represents a threat to Polish identity.

> LGBT is a foreign ideology that seeks to sexualize children and represents a threat to Polish identity.

Oh, wow, the exact same argument used in Russia! Why the hell they bring children into it? Makes no sense!?

The Thatcher government used essentially the same argument, though they were a little more subtle about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_28

They bring children into it because it makes the argument to discriminate more convincing to stupid people.

Poland is hard-core Catholic, same as Italy, Austria, Croatia, and a few others. They are conservative to the core. Trying to lecture a Catholic about anything that has to do with sex, doesn't go down well.

I've been living in Eastern EU (including Poland) for the past 5 years (I myself am from the West of EU). All of the former soviet block has a problem with homophobia. As much as I love the people and enjoy my time here, there is no way in hell I would want to be here as an openly gay person. At best you'd get beaten after leaving a club at worst you end up knifed. Young people are a lot better in this regard but people at my age (those who lived through the iron curtain) would never support LGBT. They see it as an attack on their identity and culture. Poland is also deeply divided - much more so than Germany or France. The only place I know which has more racism than the Eastern EU and which is also more divided is Britain.

> 1. Is the most racially diverse country in Europe

I haven't been able to find any reliable statistics about this, and it probably depends on how you define "race".

> 2. And which just elected a government with a historically huge mandate, partly because the opposing party was plagued by accusations of anti-semitism?

This is just bizarre. It would be far more justifiable to argue that some people voted for the government partly because they wanted to end Freedom of Movement, to reduce immigration into the UK. Discussing why these people wanted reduced immigration is more complicated, though since there's no real economic grounds for it, the main possibilities are misinformation (fuelled by certain media, because it sells well), scapegoating and xenophobia.

Also, what about the 32 % of people who voted for Labour despite it supposedly being "plagued by accusations of anti-semitism"?

In any case, since elections are never about one issue, drawing these sorts of conclusions is dangerous.

I thought we were moving beyond "immigration quotas are racism"? Eastern Europe is almost entirely white so reducing immigration from there couldn't be racist to start with. But didn't the results from the last election show what a completely dead-end attitude that is? Labour constantly gave the impression they thought immigration controls were immoral or racist and had their worst defeat in a long time.

People in the UK overwhelmingly want to reduce immigration, something like 80%+ want that so it's a massively bipartisan issue, not because the entire country is seething with racism (where's the evidence for this extreme claim?) but because the existing policy recognises no limits on infrastructure build outs. It just assumes that infrastructure to support a person magically appears the moment someone chooses to move, which isn't true and obviously isn't true. That means it's a very naive policy that results in constant shortages and overloads.

And that's before you get into the economic and pace-of-change issues. The only people who believe that allowing an unlimited supply of low wage labour into a country has no effect on local wages are academic economists. Clearly lots of people believe otherwise.

But sure, whatever, by all means, believe a place immigrants choose to move in huge numbers is filled with hatred and racism against them. Believe that the entire thing is just misinformation. Believe what you want. It doesn't matter much anymore: those views lost.

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.

> Perhaps you are getting your views exclusively from German newspapers?

yes it must be all those German newspapers I read while I was living in the UK. /s

I don't make armchair philosophy statements! my experience comes from living abroad since the age of 16 and never having stopped (e.g. never live in the same place for more than 5 years). So you can insinuate whatever, I _know_ what I experienced.

Seriously the number of times British expats in Germany asked me "how I feel about the war", one guy even said once "aren't you ashamed of your grandfathers sins". He assumed I was German which isn't the case. This was the kind of Brits who have an open worldview. The type that actually leaves the UK to work abroad ... None of them bothered to learn the lingo and preferred to hang out with other English speakers rather than mix with locals. Not to mention the number of times they thought I was British and thought it was OK to make degrading jokes about foreigners.

My mother lives in Spain. And I used to live in the South of France. Both places have a large British expat community. Not once have I seen the Brits integrating into the local culture. Instead they mix exclusively among themselves like some Raj ruling class. Rarely ever hanging out with the locals, despite themselves getting invited by locals, ... or while other foreigners would try to mingle with everyone else, Brits rather stay among themselves. They can't be arsed to learn another language either.

I may sound like I hate Brits. Actually it is the most fascinating and funny people I know. But oh my god - it is an awful lot of work to make friends with them if you aren't native English speaker yourself.

The only other people I know who keep treating you like an outsider even if you've been among their midst for years are the Japanese. I know not because "armchair philosophy" but because I'm married to one since >20 years! AMA

Come on, you started by talking about the country being the most "racist and divided" in Europe, now you're admitting you've not lived there a long time and are talking about expats asking dumb questions. That's not the same thing at all.

Immigrants often group together, wherever they come from. Big Russian community where I live. The UK of course has entire areas where the immigrant population doesn't speak English, or where many of the shops are Polish (and use the Polish language). New York famous for certain areas being dominated by certain nationalities at various points (e.g. Italians). It sounds like you think this is uniquely British, but it's not.

By the way, I'm a British immigrant living abroad. All but two of my friends are not British. Their friends are also mostly not British. I've got qualifications in German and my girlfriend is German. You're painting with an extremely broad brush here. I think you just don't really notice the Brits that blend in, or other nationalities that don't.

As for language, native English speakers of all origins find it hard to learn local languages because nearly everyone learns English as a child and are routinely exposed to English language culture. Native speakers learn, at most, one or two other languages that may not be used at all in the place they end up, and they're rarely exposed to other languages anyway. Naturally that means whoever they talk to is better at English than the other way around, and few people want to struggle through a miniature language class when they have other things to do. Yes, most British immigrants should try harder to learn the language. But it's wrong to claim that's just laziness. When I was first learning lots of the local people here gave a strong impression they didn't actually care or worse, just found it annoying.

Listing Austria, the country that has been hosting the Life Ball for almost 3 decades by now in your list doesn't exactly strengthen your argument.

You might be confusing the really liberal city of Vienna with the rest of Austria, which is -in big parts- very different, less open, and to a large degree support the FPÖ party.

go to the rural places in Carinthia, Styria (I recommend a dying town such as Eisenerz) which will probably change your mind.

Is there any country where that(more liberal city, more conservative countryside) isn't the case though?

most of the Austrian countryside is rich, they have a well working social safety net and great public health. many farmers have branched out decades ago into tourism and sustainable techniques (realizing they can't compete across EU with countries like Holland where everything is flat). Those who want to work mostly find work.

The Austria I'm talking about doesn't see any tourists. It's more about of disposable income and people with very rigid skills losing their jobs to automation. It is not a rural/urban issue!

Money doesn't make people happy but it makes dealing with misery a lot less stressful. A farmer might change their worldview because s/he suddenly has to serve and cater to tourists/guests with wildly different views. The mining worker in Eisenerz who hasn't gotten a pay rise in 2 decades might not be so open in their worldview. Both the farmer, and the mining worker live on the countryside. Then there are the Eastern European workers from Hungary and Czech serving tourists and being employed by the Hotels, restaurants and cafes. There is no "ghetto" or a "outsiders" vs insiders feeling anywhere. The bosses are happy, everyone earns.

Polish person here. Yes, the ruling party caters to ultra-catholic, right-winged people. While there are many people in Poland who don't understand LGBT and are therefore scared of it, they are a minority. We have a trans woman in parliament and a gay guy running for presidency. It's not that bad really.

Moreover, Gdańsk, where the conference was supposed to take place is actually one of the most tolerant and liberal cities in Poland with very open-minded people. It would be a shame to punish them for actions of the government and municipalities that are literally on the other side of the country.

Thanks for that insight. It seems sad to be fearful of an entire country because of a few municipalities; especially when you say there are minorities represented in government.

All over Europe, there are a lot of people who have varying opinions about immigration, refugees, LGBT-rights, Brexit, climate change and other controversial subjects. Rejecting an entire nation as a conference location because some percentage of the population has gotten some press for their controversial opinion seems very reactionary.

Right, but the loss of revenue from conference attendees is something that can be used as leverage against the politicians.

The same thing was done in the US to push back on anti-lgbt laws. It has had some successes. It's not perfect but it has its purposes.

It also seems exactly like what these ultra-conservatives would want: Keep LGBT people outside of Poland.

> Politicians have made a bunch of statements to the effect that LGBT is a foreign ideology

You can thank the radical left and their very real gender-based ideology for that development - they just gave bigoted politicians everywhere a handy excuse to attack basic freedom of association. Genius of them, really.

They’re supported by the national ruling party. As a gay person I wouldn’t currently be particularly enthusiastic about going to Poland.

I’ve also heard of gay married couples from EU countries (ie having an effective automatic right of admission) having trouble at airport border control.

XDC2017 was located in the US which has an infamous situation in regard it its airport border control, with people being denied entry or detailed without explanations. I also know people who in 2017 (and still are) refusing to travel to the US because of those issues. With the demands for unlocking encrypted computers, password to social media accounts, secret black lists, and profiling, there is a lot of to be worried about.

Maybe they should just do as fosdem and always have it in Belgium.

There is no border control within Schengen zone.

Sure there is. They have checked my id on about half of the arrivals the last years.

Participating countries are allowed to check your identity documents at a Schengen border in order to confirm that you are entitled to cross it without any other steps. They're even allowed to record that you crossed, using the ID to track who you were (and Poland does), though they aren't allowed to record that on a passport or similar travel document.

Having confirmed you're an EU citizen who isn't subject to an arrest warrant you're entitled to cross the border and there are no other checks permitted. They aren't entitled to ask you to explain where you're going or why or anything like that.

There's a similar internal border not far from me at the local airport. There's a painted line and it has a nice sign which explains that they don't actually have any officials present at the border, but if you don't have documentation allowing you to cross or if you've arrived with products that are prohibited you can phone them, they'll send somebody over in a few hours to interrogate and if necessary arrest you. There's a phone provided, it looks pretty dusty. I guess it's possible that people decide not to call?

They are still allowed to have police present at the internal border and checking both your id, itinerary and asking questions about your visit as long as it’s not “systematic”.

They said airport, so they probably flew in from outside the Schengen zone (US, UK, Asia, etc.)

> from EU countries

Not really.

There are EU countries that are not in Schengen (although the most notable one is about to leave).

TIL four EU countries (plus three micro-states, but they have open borders) are outside the Schengen area. So I stand corrected.

But I see that they are all expected to enter the agreement. Does anyone know how long this will take? Romania and Bulgaria have been members for close to 13 years. What's taking so long?

Ireland and the UK have indefinite opt outs. Historically the common travel area with the UK made it impractical for Ireland to join unless the UK did too. It’s plausible that Ireland will join in the future, depending on what happens with Northern Ireland post Brexit.

I’m Irish; we’re not in Schengen (conflicts with the CTA).