Paul you have opened a can of worms here.
Actually most immigrants especially the Polish Eastern Europeans are free market roman catholics, more likely to vote Conservative. As for Somali immigrants most of them can’t or won’t vote.
There is an economic argument to control immigration (although surely if you were a man of the right you would believe in Smiths free movement of labour). As for this voting conspiracy, just pure insanity.
More cock up than conspiracy.
Also the biggest group of immigrants that have arrived in the country are white South Africans, they are sure to vote Labour.
But we get the
The irony is that the right used the same arguments against Jewish immigrants in the 19C, Mel’s ancestors.
But we get the same right wing tossers complaining about this planned super efficient multiculturalism conspiracy and in the next sentence calling them incompetent

The economic case is proven. Immigrants are good for a country, so in that regard the more the merrier.

What is required is management of the same. Here is the UAE immigrants are welcome and also under no illusion that they will be going home in the future.

The UK should manage it in a similar vein. Certain skills in seriously short supply may grant citizenship, but otherwise its a term stay.

Knee jerk reactions, like the main article above, is less about the topic and more about trying to undermine a columnist.

PS
As the election looms you will get more of these multiculturism hate stories from Right wing blogs (such as Guido’s, harry’s place and Dale’s) and from the Tory Press. Also I wouldn’t be surprised from right wing agent provocateurs such as Nick Cohen and Martin Bright.
I will put a grand on it.
The right always plays the race card in times when the polls are close .
Of course they will accuse Labour of the same, to hide their nefarious views.

Knee jerk reactions, like the main article above, is less about the topic and more about trying to undermine a columnist.
George
Isn’t this about playing the race card by assuming there is a conspiracy to gerrymander the election. That is nonsense

PPS
After reading Neather’s latest article I agree with most of his comments.
Immigration must be discussed but without the emotive language of multiculturalism conspiracies. I feel that may be too much for likes of Charlieman, shatterface and the other members of the right.
There have been advantages and disadvantages.

I don’t accept the conspiracy theory but I have two problems with taking Paul’s thesis fully on board.

1) There is a sound economic case for immigration but not when you are paying an indigenous underclass to avoid doing the work that needs to be done.

2) There is no requirement on immigrants to integrate socially. All sensible people are against racism and are pro equality but the multicultural experiment has been a disaster. Labour have promoted and encouraged diversity, where we are supposed to maintain and celebrate the differences in the cultural heritages. between racial and religious groups. That policy is bonkers.

Solve the above two issues and I am in favour of completely open borders. Let anyone enter Britain who wants to come here, integrate into our society, and work to improve their lot.

Hardly hateful or bile. How very odd. Fair enough if you have a difference of opinion regarding Migration Watch’s assertion but how that gets lumped into Phillips’ hateful bile seems gibberish unless you always think Phillips’ spouts hateful bile but just couldn’t be arsed.

Pagar @ 6

1) There is a sound economic case for immigration but not when you are paying an indigenous underclass to avoid doing the work that needs to be done

Surely even the most committed Libertarian must be able to look at reality even occasionally, even if by accident?

Take a dispassionate look at the position we have at the moment in this Country. Leave aside the welfare side of the argument for second.

Our Labour market is a relatively deregulated, casualised, model with a huge labour surplus. There are great swathes of the population that have no real job protection.

So, given that employers have a practically unlimited stock to choose from, is it any wonder that they have discarded millions of people and effectively excluded those least attractive (in terms of employment) from the labour market?

Why employ a single mother who requires time off to pick up children from school or the 50+ guy with a few underlying health problems, when the smartest people in Europe and beyond are beating a path to your door?

What is the real, practical alternative? Force employers to employ only the unemployed indigenous, irrespective of the needs of the business?

People like Melanie Phillips and other commentators who bang on about immigration and ”Eurabia” probably follow every bit of news that comes out of Europe about incidents and riots that involve ethnic minorities and immigrats.

Like this trouble a few days ago in Milan between North African and South American youths, after an Egyptian was stabbed and killed.
http://www.france24.com/en/20100214-italy-milan-youth-stabbing-riots-revives-anti-immigration-debate

I only heard of it because I happened across a hateful ”anti-jihad” site.
Otherwise it would have passed me by unnoticed.

As wrong as they might be, they don’t make everything up in their heads.

I think the original post here is actually confusing people more.

Let’s have some straight answers – did Labour pursue an intentional policy of allowing mass immigration into the UK? Did they do this to alter the make up of the population as part of a wider multiculturalism agenda? It sounds far feched yes, but I don’t see Neather actually deny that in the ‘this is london’ article linked to.

Ignore Mad Mel – let’s just discuss the actual issue of immigration here.

Jim @ 9

There are plenty of possibilities for the single mother and the 50 year old man to work and contribute. If they needed to, both could get a job, of some kind, but unfortunately our welfare system disincentivises them to do so.

The problem with mass immigration to a state with a welfare system like ours is that it can attract immigration for the wrong reasons- people who want to better themselves by leeching on the state rather than contributing to it.

For example, only 20% of Somali immigrants to the UK are in employment- which rather distorts the economic benefits derived from having open movement of labour.

did Labour pursue an intentional policy of allowing mass immigration into the UK?
Neather in 2nd article denies that. In fact the 1999 act was was the most draconian immigration act we have ever had. More than any Tory legislation
Did they do this to alter the make up of the population as part of a wider multiculturalism agenda?
It sounds far feched yes, but I don’t see Neather actually deny that in the ‘this is london’ article linked to.
What evidence ?
The new Community Cohesion initiatives are about communities coming together.
Just Tory race card propaganda.

For example, only 20% of Somali immigrants to the UK are in employment- which rather distorts the economic benefits derived from having open movement of labour.

It wasn’t I who put that forward , it was Adam Smith.

Somali immigration is a major problem but it was cock up more than conspiracy.
Roche did try to stop this type of immigration, but they are a frightened and hungry people and will do anything to get into European countries

Deleted eh?

Well let’s put it this way, if an affluent journalist and blogger suddenly found he was out of a job cos a new migrant was doing it for half the salary do you think he’d say “what a wonderful example of our liberal migration policy and flexible work force”?

There’s a fracture between the poltical elite, it’s media (and, it has to be said, the blogosphere) and the majority of the electorate and you lot wonder why politcal activism is dying on its arse, why the turnout at the next election will probably be a record low and why a white,working class, which is not inherently racist, now votes BNP.

But how many of you live on a big council estate? Come to our GP group practice and tell us about the unalloyed joys of mass immigration of the past 15 years.

@ 8 Why employ a single mother who requires time off to pick up children from school or the 50+ guy with a few underlying health problems, when the smartest people in Europe and beyond are beating a path to your door?

Er given that most of them are doing menial minimum wage (or below) work in factories, farms and hotels the idea that the “smartest” are “beating a path here” seems a little far fetched. The relaity is that our chav underclass cannot be coerced into work (benfits can in theory be withdrawn, but in practice hardly ever are) and therefore they don’t

I only heard of it because I happened across a hateful ”anti-jihad” site.
Otherwise it would have passed me by unnoticed.

Damon – what do anecdotes that involve immigrants tell you? That they’re like anyone else who may sometimes get involved in crime? Don’t understand what your point is. We can already turf out immigrants who are criminals (except in the EU where there is free movement).

The point is – people like Mel Phillips conjure conspiracies where there are none, and then claim that no one is debating immigration in the hateful way they are.

“Er given that most of them are doing menial minimum wage (or below) work in factories, farms and hotels the idea that the “smartest” are “beating a path here” seems a little far fetched.”

Some of them are doing such menial min wage work merely as a starting point – they hope to work their way up once they get established. We’re actually now seeing some of the Polish migrants moving into more senior positions now, but this isn’t reflected in the data because the WRS only records the first job somebody does.

Sunny,

I must disagree with your choice of words to describe Melanie Phillips.
She is by no means hateful. She is prepared to argue her opinions clearly and forcefully but since when is that being hateful?

@ 18

Not hateful? Read this interview with Grauniad’s wooly, old liberal Jackie Ashley in which she replies to a few anodyne questions by comparing Ashley to a complacent pre-Nazi-era German and to Stalin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/jun/16/media.politicsphilosophyandsociety

‘Mad’ is a word liberally thrown about to describe many people nowadays and is usually baseless. With ‘Mad Mel’ it has resonance; I have an acquitance who knows her and she thinks she is being followed.

Matt @ 15

Er given that most of them are doing menial minimum wage (or below) work in factories, farms and hotels the idea that the “smartest” are “beating a path here” seems a little far fetched.

Has it ever occurred to you that Polish people can earn much more doing a menial job on the minimum wage than they ever can hope to make in their own Country? Is it really a concept that immigrants tend to be the more resourceful of the population? Who are the type of people who leave this Country for a better life? No doubt Poland has its share of lazy people, but guess what? Lazy people tend not to get onto 30 hour coach trips for a better life.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/from-a-cleaner-to-a-concert-pianist-the-polish-immigrant-who-hit-the-right-note-in-britain-763577.html

Even the 400 a month he earned as a cleaner, which put him right at the bottom of the UK pay scale, was a substantial improvement on a music teacher’s wage in Poland, which is around 900 zlotys, or 180, a month.

Can you imagine a music teacher from this Country cleaning offices for a better standard of living?

Why bother trying to actual research the issue when you have A typically Tory set of blind prejudice to rely on?

I think my point is Sunny, that these Spectator type journalists have got it into their heads that something pernicious has happened in Europe because such large levels of immigration. And they give countless examples of what they see as proving that. (What you call anecdotes).

There is a lot for them to chose from – and I have always wanted the left to take on their examples and to disprove them. You only have to type the word ”muslims” into youtube, followed by the name of a European country or city to get loads of videos that show some rather alarming things.
Maybe I’ve got too much time on my hands, but I have looked at quite a lot of them, and sometimes you do see that even if you disagree with Phillips et all, they do have plenty to draw on.
Just as an example, here’s one from Oslo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jksJXJ08i8

I suppose one could just say this is no different from a bit of anti-social behavior that you might get after a football match or on a saturday night in town centers ….. and maybe that’s the way it should be looked at.

If you type in ”Malmo” Sweden you also get film like that, and policemen saying that when they go into the high rise blocks of flats in a neighbourhood with lots of immigrants, they have to take two cars. One pair of officers go and deal with the police work, while the other car guards the parked police car from local youths who might otherwise put a brick through its window.

Phillips and Liddle lap this stuff up, and it can be a bit persuasive when presented in the way that they do.
I suppose my point is that I am often disappointed with the left’s response to their arguments.

I thought this documentary about Muslims in Europe was very good btw.
This bit is about Malmo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjpLXH20NqE
Check out the guy at 1:00 who says he’s from ”Palestine”. Just a big kid really.

I have seen for myself that these problems of alienation of sections of young men like that in European cities is a difficult one to deal with.
It shouldn’t be hushed up (which I have felt the left would sometimes rather do) or sensationalised – which the right always do.
So I’m just a bit disappointed at the way that these ‘debates’ go.
I’m disappointed with the liberal left.

Pagar @ 11

There are plenty of possibilities for the single mother and the 50 year old man to work and contribute. If they needed to, both could get a job, of some kind,

But is there, Pagar? Are you sure that is not just wishful thinking on your part? Do you genuinely think there are enough opportunities for everyone to find work of some kind? Given that there is a huge disposable workforce and a virtual unlimited supply of labour from Europe (and the Commonwealth), surely it is inevitable that the left hand of the Bell Curve are going to find themselves unemployed, irrespective of whether or not the Welfare State exists or not? Given that we can find plenty of Countries that have no welfare State but huge unemployment, is it likely this Country would be any different?

To be honest Pagar, I have yet to see any evidence of the labour market tightening up, quite the opposite in fact. I see terms and conditions pretty much falling apart. That hardly is evidence of a ‘jobs for all’ is it?

There is a lot for them to chose from – and I have always wanted the left to take on their examples and to disprove them.

What is there to ‘disprove’ exactly? If an immigrant commits a crime you want me to pretend it didn’t exist? Perhaps you want me to post up a story of a white person committing a crime showing that white people are just as bad (shock!).

that these Spectator type journalists have got it into their heads that something pernicious has happened in Europe because such large levels of immigration.

And how do they sound any different to Enoch Powell 40 years ago? These lot have always been complaining. If they’re going to create conspiracies, why should I take it seriously?

So I’m just a bit disappointed at the way that these ‘debates’ go.
I’m disappointed with the liberal left.

Not sure what you want the liberal left to do Damon perhaps other than scream in delight and lap up all the hateful bullshit that Rod Liddle and Mel Phillips churn out.

Perhaps if you want a more intelligent debate on the impact of immigration – you could ask – but don’t look to the Spectator for that. In fact we had a series right here on LC on the issue.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/lc/topics/immigration/

Sorry to disappoint you but the liberal left still debates the issue far better than a bunch of idiots churning out anecdotes to try and have a “debate”. Perhaps you’ll feel better if we started churning out anecdotes of ‘white crime’. Would that make you feel better?

Jim @ 22

There are job vacancies out there- they may not be jobs that, in a perfect world, I would choose to do. But given the choice between work or starvation, I would do them.

Given the option to do nothing and have around the same or perhaps a greater income than if I took the the job I would…..err………….do nothing.

Now tell me, Jim, forgetting about the macro side of things, what do you think would be better for my own personal well being?

Working or not working?

Pagar @ 24

There are job vacancies out there- they may not be jobs that, in a perfect world, I would choose to do.

No-one disputes that, Pagar and these jobs will attract candidates and the best candidate for the job, will, by and large, fill these jobs. However the fact that vacancies exist does not mean ‘enough’ vacancies exist to employ everyone on out of work benefits. You will see that these vacancies are often oversubscribed by a huge factor.

Even if a job is not filled, it does not follow that there are unemployed people who have the necessary skills to fill the role. Let us say that a job is advertised and 10 people apply, none of which have the desired experience. Then what? Does the ‘State’ force the employer to take on the ‘best’ candidate, irrespective of the needs of the business? ‘Lets focus on what people can do, not what they can’t’ style. Or allow the employer to choose to do whatever they feel necessary to fill the role?

Given the option to do nothing and have around the same or perhaps a greater income than if I took the the job

What would you deduce for such market conditions, Pagar? I would suggests that ‘the market’ has worked out the cost of labour, given the vast surplus that exists.

Given that millions of British people work for those rates, I think that proves the point there is a surplus of labour.

Perhaps the cost of housing in this country should be factored into arguments about why people do or do not work at low-paid jobs.

The benefit trap has been mentioned but nobody seemed to pick it up and run with it. However, consider how many people who would like to work but simply cannot afford to because they would not make enough to even cover housing costs, let alone the rest of their living expenses. A few poor immigrants who are prepared to live in caravans are suddenly the only people available to do some jobs.

Arguing against immigration while arguing against the welfare state and arguing for free, unregulated markets simply does not add up unless you are prepared to allow a return to the social conditions of the 18th century. How can someone who considers themselves a moral person, as Phillips does, advocate such a thing?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with immigration if a country needs more people.

If it doesn’t, it’s merely stupid.

We have a severe housing shortage, our health service is under huge strain, our roads are crowded, unemployment is huge and growing.

This would seem to suggest stupid, would it not?

Sunny

What is there to ‘disprove’ exactly?

This is hard, but I’ll give it a try.
This is a sensationalist Fox News report from a suburb of Malmo Sweden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzLECtFT4aU
So maybe it’s easy to brush it aside. It’s certainly the kind of thing that Melanie Phillips would pick up on. But it does sound that that suburb, (called Rosengård), has a few serious problems to deal with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseng%C3%A5rd

It’s not just about punnishing individuals who cause problems.

Another Swedish town south of Stockholm has taken in more Iraqi refugees than the United States and Canada combined. It’s called Södertälje, and the wikipedia says of it: ”Södertälje has the largest group of Assyrian/Syriacs than any other city in Europe, with more than 22,000 Assyrian/Syriacs living in Södertälje (35% of the population),”

Which is fine when things are good, but looking at the Malmo suburb one can see how things can go wrong too.
This youtube (below) is about the Iraqi’s of the town, and is a much more level headed and sympathetic portrayal of the realities of so many refugees turning up in a short space of time. Even the Iraqi mother towards the end of the video thinks that there are too many Arabs in the town. (That’s something you’d never hear from a person on the left in the UK).
I think it’s perfectly undrstandable if some Swedes had reservations about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sm0-E0L_KI

The best way I can show why I’m disappointed with the liberal left on issues like this is to show an article written by John McWhorter where he highlights something that US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech last year.
Holder said that: ”we are “a nation of cowards” for avoiding “frank conversations” about race?”

McWhorter wondered what kind of ”conversation” that Holder might be suggesting, and reckoned it wouldn’t be a conversation at all, but more that ‘this conversation” would ”entail blacks teaching whites about institutional racism, ensuring them that black people still experience racism, and that our having a black president doesn’t mean that white people are “off the hook?” ”

I know alot of people on the left regard McWhorter as a ”media whore” who has built is career on being a black man who says things that the conservative right like to hear. But I find that way to simplistic. There is substance there, but I think it’s a starting point from which the anti-racist left does not like to start a conversation from. (I was told that quite bluntly on another left/liberal website and told to clear off).

This website talks about these issues a lot, but I always feel somethings are just left not discussed fully. Leaving those Spectator like people to move into that ground and put her own slant on things.
(Ali Dizaei was one such subject that I feel only just got started, before it was all over).

I suppose I should have shown the link to the John McWhorter article I was talking about.
http://www.tnr.com/blog/john-mcwhorter/defining-nation-cowards-down

The problem for the Western liberal is well put by Richard Rorty.

Their liberalism forces them to call any doubts about human equality a result of irrational bias. Yet their connoisseurship [of diversity] forces them to realise that most of the globe’s inhabitants do not believe in equality, that such a belief is a Western eccentricity. Since they think it would be shockingly ethnocentric to say ‘So what? We Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the better for us’, they are stuck.

http://www.kenanmalik.com/essays/against_mc.html

Hence the contortions of the diversity lobby to defend the equal status of a religious movement that, at its extreme, is homophobic, misogynistic and intolerant.

Damon – I wrote about that issue here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/13/race-conflict-obama-america

I’ve repeatedly talked about race on my blog, and its impact. Amusingly, I’m told by rightwingers that talking about race makes me a racist.

This website talks about these issues a lot, but I always feel somethings are just left not discussed fully. Leaving those Spectator like people to move into that ground and put her own slant on things.

That’s just not true. There have been several articles on immigration and race here. I’ve said in the past that multiculturalism should be dropped as a policy.

The Spectator aren’t putting a slant on things – they’re actively publishing conspiracy stuff.
So you can choose between more intelligent comment here or Speccie loonyness. but I suspect what you mean is – you don’t see people on the left saying they also feel uncomfortable with people of a different colour, or immigrants moving in. Perhaps they’re not?

Why should we publish something that confirms racist narratives? That’s like saying ‘sometimes it may be alright to beat your wife’? I’m not surprised some immigrants are saying they’re uncomfortable with immigrants in the area – no one said racism was only limited to whites.

The point isn’t about the existence of people of different communities – the question is how you deal with the changes and whether some people get left behind. That should be what you should be trying to get at. Just trying to get people to accept they’re somewhat racist isn’t really an answer is it?

Analysis: Foreigner Policy was all about this very topic. Still available to listen, and there is a transcript of the programme too. You can hear Mr Neather speaking for himself:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qh0zf

You are a very sad person whoops I should have said Liberal!
Your neo-Nazi censorship of any comment that does not support the swamping of this country by welfare scroungers who hate our society but love our freebies simply disgusts me.

I never saw that piece of yours in Cif Sunny and I didn’t mean to say these things are not discussed. Of course they are, and to a very high level.
And that’s maybe where I have the problem. The debate does seem often to be so liberal that it will almost inevitably become too much for many people to go along with.
If the aim is not to try to provide discussion and ideas that can be picked up by the mainstream, but to try to lead debate, then that’s fine. That kind of discussion certainly has its place. I know that you have called into question some of the old ideas about multiculturalism, which is good (I think).

I agree that the Spectator is actively producing conspiracy stuff. It would be surprising if there weren’t loads of people (an industry even) pointing to supposed conspiracies. Some of them seem quite creditable – if you are already disposed of that way of thinking.
I just listened to the radio 4 link that Trofim did above. A very interesting programme by David Goodhart.

I’m not going to fall for ”Speccie loonyness” (as you call it), and it’s not a case for me, or the left I think, of feeling ”uncomfortable with people of a different colour, or immigrants moving in”. But some Swedes in Södertälje might. Maybe the’ve read Spectator like articles about what happened in the Paris suburbs in 2005 and wonder if the same things might happen there in ten years time.

I accept the only real way foreward is as you say, to deal with the changes, and to try to make sure that people don’t get left behind. And no, just admitting that ‘many of us’ are a bit racist is no answer either.

But I find that the way that the left deal with the ‘backward’ opinion is somtimes too ‘pure’ and pius. And is at it’s basis, idealogical. Like David Goodhart talks about in that Analysis programme.

His last words on it were these (which I think are probably fairer and more accurate than what Mellanie Phillips and Andrew Green have suggested):

Governments send out conflicting signals and do contradictory things in many policy areas. Immigration is no exception. But I would hazard a
guess that one of the reasons for the lack of a more clear-eyed and
consistent national policy over the past 12 years is attributable to a kind
of cultural gulf. Almost everyone involved in taking these decisions had
a broadly benign view of mass immigration, yet they made policy with
a nervous glance over their shoulder, aware that their instincts were not
shared by the majority of British citizens. For whatever reason we did
it, we seem to have acquired a whole new population in a fit of
absence of mind.?

There are 3 issues involving immigration.
1. The immigrants that are already settled in this country. Nobody can honestly be talking about repatriation.As long as we remain a liberal democracy that follows basic human rights (not even Mel, the right wing press or rightist blogs such as HP believe in that, or I hope not). We are after all a “bastard race”, historically and genetically . I believe the community cohesion policies of bringing races and religions together is a step in the right direction.
2. Legal immigration. Are you going to base it on ethnicity. I know many white immigrants (south Africans, poles and Aussies ) working in this country, you could say taking British jobs. Yet you don’t hear much about them. The 1999 act was pretty draconian . How would you make it more draconian , when we are in a free EU market zone.
3. Illegal immigration. How do you stop immigrants hiding in lorries. That is going to be very hard. Also it is a myth that Illegal Somalis get straight onto the welfare trail. That is not true.
How we improve these areas I don’t know without breaking human rights and EU law.
On this thread I see a lot of nasty name calling but no solutions.

Damon
“Governments send out conflicting signals and do contradictory things in many policy areas. Immigration is no exception. But I would hazard a
guess that one of the reasons for the lack of a more clear-eyed and
consistent national policy over the past 12 years is attributable to a kind
of cultural gulf.
Was it any different under your Tories. It was Enoch Powell as health security encouraged Commonwealth immigratin because of a labour shortage in the NHS

Almost everyone involved in taking these decisions had
a broadly benign view of mass immigration, yet they made policy with
a nervous glance over their shoulder, aware that their instincts were not
shared by the majority of British citizens. For whatever reason we did
it, we seem to have acquired a whole new population in a fit of
absence of mind.?
Have you read the 1999 act, it is most Draconian anti immigration act ever tabled.
I would say the opposite about the present Labour government it is populist in nature and reacts to any stir in the opinion polls, including immigration

Also Damon I see anti labour and liberal rhetoric. But I don’t see any solutions

First of all GG, I’m not looking for any ”solutions” – and I hope I haven’t come across as illiberal. I don’t care who goes and lives where. I just was looking for ways about being honest about what happens, and when sometimes (and surely they can sometimes), your ideological opponents from the right, raise some points that are not so easy to deal with.
Is attacking them anyway a legitimate tatic? It might be. I’ve seen it happen.

I have read for example a high profile American right winger writing about immigration in a ”we’re all doomed if it continues like it has been” kind of way, but some of the things he said are actually true. Like how he talked of chain migration and how the surest way of developing a large overseas community from a particular region was to have a small group of people from that country or region come to a particular place in the first place.

Not really controversial on the face of it as that’s how minority communities develop. From Blackburn to North Carolina to Milan, that’s how it works.

I’ve been watching a Somalian community in south London seemingly get bigger and bigger from when I first noticed it about ten years ago. Just along one part of a longer High Street. They have quietly made one block of shops and cafes their own little community – and good luck to them for that. On a friday when they all come out of the mosque at once, they do make you look twice as they are quite visually striking as a group.
Who knows how much more this community will grow? And maybe it’s not my business. But surely it’s only the logistical and red tape difficulties that stop the community from doubling or tripling in size. If most of the Somalian comunity got to be there as asylum seekers, they must have loads of family and clans-folk still in Somalia who could/should also be granted asylum.

So that town in Sweden has become a magnet for Iraqi’s. Fine.
There was an article by Madeleine Bunting in the guardian a while back which was about the particular culture of Scandanavia back into the past, and that you could still today see ”this set of social relations born from Calvinist protestantism”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/15/denmark.norway

I wonder what do you say when someone tells you that multi-culturalism kills off this kind of culture?:

On successive visits to Denmark, Norway and now, just back from two weeks in Finland, I’ve kept bumping up against the same puzzling phenomenon: a kind of unquestioning assumption of how things should be, a form of social control about the way to behave and one’s responsibilities to others. The point when it became starkly apparent in Finland was at Sunday family lunch in a country barn restaurant; every table was full but all you could hear were murmured whispers and the scrape of cutlery on china – until our families arrived, anarchic, squabbling and full of chatter, despite my Finnish friend’s attempts to get us to be quiet.

“Everyone knows exactly what you have to do in every circumstance, everyone tries to do it, confident that everyone else is doing it and anyone who fails will be subjected to the justified scorn of everybody,” says Andrew Brown of the remarkable degree of mutual trust and expectation that characterises Scandinavian social relations.

Brown’s thought-provoking book on Sweden, Fishing in Utopia, explores how this powerful social fabric has been eroding over the past 25 years. He argues that a set of social relations born from Calvinist protestantism and the intense interdependence of small rural communities is unlikely to outlast the decline of both. Consumerism is a direct challenge to the ingrained self-restraint of countries whose grinding peasant poverty is only at a couple of generations’ remove.

damon
How do you solve it.
It’s no good saying well I agree with chain migration when he doesn’t give solutions. The trouble with the debate is that NOBODY apart from the BNP give solutions and we don’t want to go down that road.
I find it galling, blaming labour or Tories for the problem of immigration without giving ideas to solve the problem..

Solve what Golden Gordon? I’m talking about language and how you discuss things with people who might not take the strongly left and liberal view on things – that’s all. Do you castigate them for their ‘ignorance’ and call them racists?
I’m not talking about stopping or ”solving” anything.

Here’s another bit of that Analysis programme that Trofim linked to @32 – and this time it’s Andrew Neather in his own words, where he talks about New Labour people being ”politically programmed” to be rexaxed about large scale immigration:

NEATHER: One of the reasons they don’t really seem to have cared that much was because you know they broadly viewed immigration as a
good thing, both culturally and in terms of the labour market. They
were committed to multiculturalism sort of as a facet of social justice, if
you like.

GOODHART: Which in itself is connected to the collapse of so many
other left-of- centre ideas – I mean giving up on any sort of distinctive
left-of-centre political economy, giving up on the working class.

NEATHER: Absolutely, absolutely, and I think diversity as a leftist
language of social justice and, if you like, I mean crudely seeing ethnic
minorities as essentially the standard bearers of the sort of social justice
rather than the working class and traditionally the white working class.
And that’s definitely something which emerged in this country in the
sort of 80s, 90s.

I was just reading almost exactly the same thing this afternoon reading Kenan Malik’s book ”Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate”.

He said that too. That having given up on the working class as being worthy agents of change, third world liberation movements, civil rights struggles, and diversity itself, became the new champions of the British left.

That is just three points of view. Also I agree with you about racism but where do draw the line, Enoch Powell’s supporters or the BNP and call somebody a racist. In reality both believed in repatriation.
Also this belief in a mythical working class I find patronising.
Why should it just be the white working classes be the guardians of change. As an internationalist I believe everybody should be involved in the process. Workers of the world unite, without the Marxism
Also what is the point of rhetoric when it doesn’t solve anything.
I personally won’t call anybody a racist if they can give me a workable idea that doesn’t involve abusing anybody’s human rights.
In the end when your Tories re elected , they will have the same problems.

What are you on about ”your Tories”? You seem to be confirming one of my prejudices about certain kinds of people on the left.
Not everyone fits into neat little boxes.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/issues/C44/

Who said Damon I was of the left. Now your making assumptions.
Perhaps my remark was a little OTT, I do apologize.
But why send me a link to an ex Trot now corporate capitalist magazine.
In my view they don’t give solutions.
Ex trots always turn to the right.
You still haven’t explained how you will solve the problem of immigration

Maybe you’re not so left Golden Gordon. You seem to be insisting that immigration is a problem. I certainly haven’t said I see it as a ‘Problem’, but it does bring about some very significent changes in a society, and can cause problems along the way. Issues of integration and infrastructure.

And that link I did from the ”corporate capitalist magazine” contaied some insighful articles – maybe some dross too. The fun of it is to try to pick out the good stuff.