Well Manda, I am a student from the EU but English is a first language for me. I still got mercilessly bullied by the post-doc in our lab, that too the form of my work/contribution being shot down all the time, being excluded from learning new technical skills, rumour spreading and so forth. This person in question often ranted about immigration and foreigners in the UK a la Daily Mail. I am not sure if it was down to simple antipathy towards me or because I tend to be reserved, but the rants sure made me question the possibility that the retribution was down to bigotry. I am not sure whether such experiences are representative, but I get the feeling that it's not a UK thing, it's more down to the individuals you (might have the misfortune) to end up working with.

You have all my sympathy Nocturnal. It was sobering to read your posts as I have had a somewhat similar experience during my PhD. I've had to endure the exclusion from training, harassment, spreading of rumours and backstabbing from the post-doc in my lab. There is not much you can do, and I refrained from taking the issue up with the university as I felt that rocking the boat would degrade the already strained relationship with my advisor even further. Like you I was somewhat forced into self-imposed isolation out of fear of more retribution. Although it's been mainly 1 person, the rest of the lab seems to be in SEP (somebody's else's problem) mode... and thus prefer to look the other way, if not side with the post-doc because it makes their life easier that way.

Unless it becomes really bad I'd suggest you concentrate on your work and try to ignore what's being done to you. The worst thing that you could do is to allow them to affect your work and productivity..