Excellent article.

The right’s response on this has been a prime example of clownsourcing:

“Clownsourcing is a method of processing information in order to promote foolishness and manipulate people into bad choices. Unlike the traditional method, in which propaganda is produced by hacks utilizing a certain measure of cleverness and guile, clownsourced information is fashioned to maximise message efficiency out of the very stupidity it is meant to produce.

In clownsourcing a message, the right’s email briefings and action alerts will geyser out allegations and counter-allegations, as they do, and the blogs will roar and fulminate, and the radio and TV talkers will pick it up, such that a mass of online wingnuts will be attracted by the base flattery offered by the message, as per the right’s spite- and self-pity-based messaging system, and will repeat it back and forth in an ecstasy of self-drama, competing to fill in context and details and to create the most emotionally stimulating presentation.”

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/28622.html

‘there was also an undercurrent in early 2000s Labour thinking that reasoned that immigration would also increase multiculturalism, which was a good thing.’

This is a good place to start. Is multiculturalism a good thing? Has it worked? Surely the rise of the far right and the Islamic terrorist threat suggest otherwise.

This is a good place to start. Is multiculturalism a good thing? Has it worked? Surely the rise of the far right and the Islamic terrorist threat suggest otherwise.

Yep no racists before multiculturalism.

No terrorists either.

You had a theory – I presented evidence which refuted it – can we move on?

Sunny‘s latest article seems quite apt, blaming minorities or immigrants for racism.

Good article.

The UK has always followed the USA and it seems that the right wing are determined to follow the loony right republicans. They wallow in outrage over lies and misinformation. It is not just on immigration, the vocal rise of climate sceptics, the BNP, pro-smoking lobbies, anti pc brigades….. are all part of the same right-wing movement.

Their nonsense is not just spread by newspapers, but in comment pages like HYS on the BBC, emails that circulate linked to downing street petitions, or contain “jokes” about immigrants winning Council Houses.

It can be quite depressing, as there are many who just seem to take these things at face value.

“This is a good place to start. Is multiculturalism a good thing? Has it worked? Surely the rise of the far right and the Islamic terrorist threat suggest otherwise.

Yep no racists before multiculturalism.

No terrorists either.

You had a theory – I presented evidence which refuted it – can we move on?”

If we were handing out awards for ‘The Concise Rejection of Ignorance in the History of Prose’, this would win.

“suggest otherwise”, not sure that can be applied to such a ridiculous argument or statement. The word “surely” at the start of the sentence is also the give away to your ploy of asking ‘clever’ rhetorical questions to appear like your starting a debate – your not.

By the way the BBC are ditching their much maligned and manipulated recommend button on Have Your Say. The proposal has caused some outrage, I suspect mainly from the right, who used to do the manipulating. See comments on the link below

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/02/changes_to_have_your_say.html?page=2#comments

Dr Alex Balch (University of Sheffield) on Barbara Roche,Home Office Minister in 2001 (the time of the supposed ‘Neathergate’), and in an article written well before Neathergate:

‘She was very keen to differentiate the question of policy towards asylum seekers from a new policy of ‘managed migration’. This new policy focus would be open and responsive to evidence and expertise on migration in general, but the question this research was supposed to address was clearly formulated in purely economic terms.’

There is no smoking gun. More at http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2010/02/14/the-hateful-bile-of-melanie-phillips-and-andrew-green/, with reference to the relevant academic article, which I asked Dr Blach if he’d make available as free content for just this purpose. The article is at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122637735/HTMLSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 and is based on Dr Balch’s PhD completed in 2008ish.

There was a time when the anti-immigration right used to argue largely in terms of economics. Then Powell shifted it to ‘culture’ (i.e. race/ethnicity). Thatcher tried that line and presided over the ’81 riots for her pains. Now the anti-immigration right are pursuing the same failed policies with an added dose of seven-feet tall giant lizards, as if the government’s main objective was ‘multiculturalism’ rather than economic growth. And that’s before we get into migration from within the EU: some of those seven-feet tall lizards are from Poland … and they look just like everyone else (assuming you’re white, of course). I’m sure Phil Woolas is stroking a fluffy white cat and cackling at his own genius even as we speak. (Mind you, Woolas v Migrationwatch is perilously close to ‘Can they both lose?’ territory.)

Can I just say, as a right winger, I don’t give a flying turdfuck about immigration where immigrants are working and paying tax. For the most part they’re doing the jobs that lazy Brits with eight A GCSEs think they’re too good for. A little bit of freakonomics possibly, but the only reason we’re such an appealing location for an immigrant workforce is because we’ve got an education system that produces young people who think they;re alot cleverer than they actually are, so they won’t take a shitty job stacking shelves or cleaning.

And before anyone asked, yes I have stacked shelves, done cleaning and worked on a production line in a factory spreading tomato purree based paste on to those shitty frozen pizzas you buy from the supermarket.

The descent into conspiracy fruitcakery by some elements of the right is inevitable when you rely on talking points rather than evidence. The blurring of the divide between the sane and nutcase right happened a long time ago in the US. If one reads the comments on right-wing blogs and after newspaper articles it is obvious that conspiracy is becoming the dominant theme for the permanently angry. If online is any indication then there is no doubt that whether the subject is the EU, climate, immigration or the economy fruitcakery is on the rise amongst the core right.

Good to see dizzy join the ranks of the conservative class warriors.

I should add, don’t buy those shitty frozen pizzas from the supermarket. Seriously.

By the way the BBC are ditching their much maligned and manipulated recommend button on Have Your Say. The proposal has caused some outrage, I suspect mainly from the right, who used to do the manipulating. See comments on the link below

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/02/changes_to_have_your_say.html?page=2#comments

OH THE HUGEMANATEE.

Is this the end of brane speaking?

This is the original article: -

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23760073-dont-listen-to-the-whingers—london-needs-immigrants.do

“But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.”

We can assume this is a factual statement, as no one has accused him of libel.

I think we can also assume that as this was never stated publicly or debated, the labour government clearly felt it was something it didn’t want to share with the british public. This would seem to fit the dictionary definition of “conspiracy”

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conspiracy

Alas, it doesn’t meet the egalitarian definition of conspiracy, the above article immediately makes the connection between the reaction to Andrew Neather’s admission and CIA plots to blow up the twin towers. I struggle to see the connection, except in the egalitarian mindset which attempts to immediately tie in any right wing perspective to the loony right fringe. I’m surprised the author didn’t mention Planet X or attempt to make a link with the people who think the Haiti earthquake was caused by the US goverment.

Is immigration a good thing? It isn’t a yes or no answer, there are positives and negatives.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/19797/1/The_Impact_of_Immigration_on_the_Structure_of_Male_Wages_Theory_and_Evidence_from_Britain.pdf

Immigrant labour has been shown to be paid significantly less than native british workers, implying that immigrants have a lower standard of living than natives. I fail to see how a liberal mind could see importing labour in order to exploit them as a positive result of immigration. And that’s without even touching on the social costs of immigration.

This isn’t the point though, the point is that the recent wave of immigration has had a huge impact on the population of Great Britain, for better or worse. It was never debated, and worse, was actively concealed. I think you can concede at the very least that this is a bad thing for democracy.

@ Ducth

This is the clarification from the same author:

“There was no plot.”

We can assume this is a factual statement, as no one has accused him of libel.

Whoops! We’ve reached an impasse.

The evidence we have now doesn’t support Neather’s original assertion – but I don’t think I need to go over that again.

However – even if the government did think immigration would increase multiculturalism and that was great it doesn’t mean that was the reason for shifting to a policy of managed migration, or that a secret conspiracy was the reason for the government focusing on economic objectives.

“Alas, it doesn’t meet the egalitarian definition of conspiracy, the above article immediately makes the connection between the reaction to Andrew Neather’s admission and CIA plots to blow up the twin towers.”

That’s because I didn’t make that connection. I made the connection between 911 troofers and Andrew Green’s assertion that Labour were deliberately importing Labour voters.

“This isn’t the point though, the point is that the recent wave of immigration has had a huge impact on the population of Great Britain, for better or worse. It was never debated, and worse, was actively concealed.”

What was concealed? That the government thought there would be positive social benefits of immigration? Afraid not, since the final draft of this document includes a whole chapter on it.

@14

‘ immigrant labour has been shown to be paid significantly less than native british workers, implying that immigrants have a lower standard of living than natives. I fail to see how a liberal mind could see importing labour in order to exploit them as a positive result of immigration. And that’s without even touching on the social costs of immigration.’

The paper you cite do not say that. It could find no evidence that immigrant labour drives down native born wages. This is an anecdotal talking point that ant-immigration groups often claim. It is hardly a surprise that they could find no evidence because migrant labour raises productivity. Therefore, higher productivity will result in higher wages for native born workers. Exploitation is an emotive term. Immigrants for many reasons do not exploit their full human capital through taking work below their educational experience. Qualifications not recognised and language skills being two examples, it is hardly exploitation.

“There was no plot.”

I assume you’re quoting the guardian article : -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/26/labour-immigration-plot-andrew-neather

“Somehow this has become distorted by excitable rightwing newspaper columnists into being a ‘plot’ to make Britain multicultural. There was no plot. I’ve worked closely with Ms Roche and Jack Straw and they are both decent, honourable people who I respect …”

But he said in his original article: -

“But ministers wouldn’t talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.”

Is it safe to say that that the same ministers who were loathe to disclose their multi-cult agenda to voters in Sheffield and Sunderland were the same honorable ministers he holds in such high regard? So that’s how honorable elected officials of the labour party behave, ignoring their core voters because they know best. Very honourable.

“That’s because I didn’t make that connection. I made the connection between 911 troofers and Andrew Green’s assertion that Labour were deliberately importing Labour voters.”

Why mention 911 at all, except to smear Green by implicit association? Does Green’s comments not qualify as reaction to Neather’s commentary? Andrew Green uses hyperbole for dramatic effect the same as you do. How many times is the word “conspiracy” mentioned in your article? milking it’s negative connotation to maimum effect.

“What was concealed? That the government thought there would be positive social benefits of immigration? Afraid not, since the final draft of this document includes a whole chapter on it.”

Nothing was concealed? I beg to differ, the reasons behind the immigration drive were concealed. Neather’s own words: -

“In part, too, it would have been just too metropolitan an argument to make in such places: London was the real model….

But Labour ministers elsewhere tend studiously to avoid ever mentioning London. Meanwhile, the capital’s capacity to absorb new immigrants depends in large part on its economic vitality and variety. There’s not a lot of that in, say, south Yorkshire. And so ministers lost their nerve.”

How patronising and arrogant is that?? the dumb racist hicks up north wouldn’t understand it and aren’t metropolitan enough so we won’t tell them. In democratic conutries, people elect officials to represent their interests, not decide what their interests are and implement them on the sly. London didn’t elect the Labour governement, the people of the United Kingdom did. When exactly did the people of London get consulted about this anyway?

Whatever Neather said in his original article about Ministers saying things about multiculturalism, the evidence that has just been published does not support the idea of a secret plot, and Neather explicitly stated that there wasn’t one in a later clarification headlined ‘How I became the story and how the right is wrong‘.

“Why mention 911 at all, except to smear Green by implicit association?”

Because the evidence doesn’t support the idea that the CIA perpetrated 9/11, and the evidence does not suggest that the government increades immigration in order to import Labour voters.

I also compared him to the shouty man on the bus who claims to have invented paint. That was for the same reason. I think Green’s assertion is in the same league as both. Plus, I wanted to take the piss.

“But Labour ministers elsewhere tend studiously to avoid ever mentioning London.”

That is not equal to Labour concealing secret plots. It’s politicians tailoting ther message to their audience, which is sneaky and I don’t like it., but what politicians do. It is not plotting though.

@16

“The paper you cite do not say that. It could find no evidence that immigrant labour drives down native born wages. This is an anecdotal talking point that ant-immigration groups often claim. It is hardly a surprise that they could find no evidence because migrant labour raises productivity. Therefore, higher productivity will result in higher wages for native born workers. Exploitation is an emotive term. Immigrants for many reasons do not exploit their full human capital through taking work below their educational experience. Qualifications not recognised and language skills being two examples, it is hardly exploitation.”

Where did I say that immigrant labour drives down native born wages? I made the same point as you just did and backed it up with data, that immigrant labour drives down immigrant wages. If the point of immigration isn’t to create and “exploit” a cheap, skilled labour pool, then what is it? The nature of our society is exploitation, corporations exploit individuals to make profits and individuals exploit corporations so they can get better their circumstances.

It’s important to remember there are three strands to what people have been saying here, which are:

1. Labour ministers thought there were social benefits of multiculturalism that increased immigration would encourage, but didn’t discuss. This is Neather’s original assertion.

2. That this constitutes a secret plot to increase immigration to increase multiculturalism. This is the assertion of early press articles about this.

3. That Labour concocted this plot so they could import voters from abroad. This is Andrew Green’s assertion.

The evidence of the draft document that appears in the papers over recent days doesn’t even prove support 1. It definitely doesn’t prove 2 or 3. Especialy 3.

5cc,

Good post. You should write here more often.

hmm, it’s true that no one has suggested publicly that labour wanted immigrants because immigrants vote labour, but vote labour they most certainly do: -

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Archive/Publications/ethnic-minority-voters-and-non-voters.pdf

If we can both agree on and dislike the fact that politicians tailor their message to an audience and are sneaky, it may not be an enormous leap to imagine that they might be aware of the voting trends of immigrants. Just a thought.

This is an excellent article btw, though cut down from the original at: http://www.fivechinesecrackers.com/

Yes, they are making a meal of it and making loads of exaggerations.
But you’d expect them too, that’s their job.

This was Neather on the radio 4 Analysis programme with David Goodhart, talking about the attitude to some New Labour people to mass 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.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8494275.stm
So he said that. I can see how that has been spun by Migration Watch and the right wing media. Why wouldn’t it be? Everybody spins and distorts to further their own agenda.

Has anyone ever discussed the pros and cons of Churn and flow migration on here? (see BBC link).
I saw that 5cc went into great detail about Julie Spence, head of Cambridgshire police and the things she was quoted as saying in the media a few years ago about the increased difficulty of policing in the county with so many people coming and going, not speaking English and driving foreign cars.
Could be an interesting discussion.

I saw this article in the Economist the other day about California’s central valley, with its problems of poverty, poor education, and now water shortages (and legal and illegal immigration of poor people to do agricultural jobs – a bit like Cambridgeshire), and I wondered how Migration Watch, Melanie Phillips and the Daily Mail would spin that story into the kind of thing discussed in this thread.
http://www.economist.com/world/united-states/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15331478

A big problem is that the workforce in the Central Valley is badly educated, says Carol Whiteside, the founder of the Great Valley Centre, a not-for-profit organisation whose aim is to improve the region. The largest farms are often still owned by the families that arrived a century or so ago—the descendants of Portuguese and Dutch immigrants are big in dairy farms, for example. But most of the whites tend to be “Okies” who arrived from the dust bowl of the Great Plains during the depression, such as the fictional Joad family in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, who drove up and down in search of work on the stretch of Highway 99 where Paramount Farms now sits.

Economically, socially and educationally, their descendants have barely moved up. Nor have more recent immigrant groups such as the Hmong, Thai and Mien, who came to work in the fields during the 1970s and now live in Central Valley cities such as Stockton, Fresno and Modesto—or, of course, the Mexicans, who have been coming since then and are now the majority of workers in the fields, where Spanish is the common language.

These demographic trends, combined with the water shortage, are causing worry. The Central Valley is already one of the poorest regions of the country. And its population, about 6.7m in 2008, is among the fastest-growing; it is expected to double in the next 40 years, as new immigrants continue to pour in looking for farm work.

I think it would be quite easy for someone like Phillips to work that into one of her columns. Stockton and Modesto regularly make the ”worst cities to live in” top ten.

Hang on a minute.

What sparked talk of conspiracy wasn’t tabloid spin or right-wing paranoia, it was these words Andrew Neather used in his first article:

the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn’t its main purpose – to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.

If Neather was accurate in his perceptions, then there WAS a deliberate policy of changing the facts on the ground for political/ideological purposes.

You can call this a ‘conspiracy’ if you want to. Or you could call it politics-as-usual or par for the course for New Labour.

Whatever you choose to call it, the fact remains that there were people at the political centre who Neather believed were willing to re-configure the social and demographic ambiance of Britain without the informed consent of the British people. For that they should be held politically accountable.

It’s telling that people have to keep going back to Neather’s original article or comments in the R4 doc as if the clarification where he categorically stated that there was no plot never existed to prop up the idea of a plot – and nobody has used the drafted document as proof.

My point wasn’t particularly what he said in his clarification, but what he actually did say in that R 4 doc. The point being, that it’s perfectly reasonable for right wing hacks to then pick up this ”dropped ball” (so to speak) and run with it.

And when I say ”perfectly reasonable” I mean – for people of that Daily Mail mindset.
Of course they are obnoxious, but they have a certain view which is very common.
Much more common than the left/liberal view that most people have on here.

I just had the misfortune to listen to Nick Ferrari on his LBC radio programme, ranting about this case of the Somali mother who has been given a council house even though she only qualifies to be in the country because her husband, a Dutch national who no longer lives here, worked here for a short while as a bus driver.

Something like that anyway – even though I’ve read the Daily Mail piece he was referring to, it’s still rather vague in my mind.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1253151/Somali-woman-claim-benefits-burden-social-assistance-landmark-EU-ruling.html

Maybe someone could debunk that one too, because I’m kind of confused by it.

Dutch @22

A couple of points:

1. We’re talking post hoc fallacy here. A study conducted in 2006 does not prove motives of something done in 2000.

2. ‘Immigrant’ is not equal to ‘ethnic minority’. There is little evidence of the voting of immigrants in the documet.

3. The paper you cite shows that most of the BME population who were not registered to vote because they were ineligible were first generation immigrants.

4. You have to ignore all the evidence put out by government about how immigration is good economically to conclude that they increased immigration to import voters. Do you think they made it all up as a smokescreen?

What happened to Andrew Green’s draft document as proof that Labout imported voters?

I agree there is no conspiracy here – this was clearly deliberate govt. policy;

“that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.”

theres no conspiracy to it, it’s the actual policy.

Charlie @29

See point 4 in my last comment.

I’ve missed something I think… Of course the language of the daily mail is inflammatory, that’s the language of their demographic, but have any of you ever questioned the fundamental reasons why these kind of opinions are so widespread? I’ve never read the daily mail, the language is infantile and biased, but the original article on this page, whilst well written, was similiarly biased and inflammatory.

It’s almost like left wing ideologues are good at debunking the minutae and bias of right wing articles but are completely oblivious to the broad historical strokes at work which have necessitated them.

The native population of this country is in demographic collapse, now at well below replacement rate, it’s difficult to think of an example of a society where this has continued as a long term trend and they have survived. Is it feasible to just “replace” people of a sliding demographic, as if human beings were simply interchangeable economic units without a history or identity. Well it seems as though this experiment is being tried and the results are dubious.

Can you refute that the crime rate of ethnic minorities is higher or that their presence causes social fragmentation?

What do you percieve to be the end result of the current demographic trend? Can immigrants replace native brits directly? Or will they eventually reach a critical mass and assume wider political power?

I for one don’t agree with doomsayers who say things like “we’ll be an islamic republic by 2050″. I predict a slow, miserable decline of concession after concession and increased fragmentation. It’s not even a prediction, it’s already happening.

I object to being socially engineered, so do most people. Are we all idiots? What is it that you can see that I don’t with regards all this? It’s a genuine question, I really want to know.

‘Immigration is good economically’.

If you’re an employer who wants to drive down labour costs – yup, it’s brilliant.

If you’re a plumber or a builder – less brilliant.

Always nice to see the left buying into neoliberalsim when it suits them.

I recommend the discussion on this between Evan Davies, Philippe Legrain and frank Field on this morning’s Today prog. Very interesting in many ways. Legrain is at least honest that he is in favour of widespread immigration because it keeps capitalism’s wheels oiled.

Here’s one fella who might disagree with the “all immigrants vote Labour” meme…

‘Immigration is good economically’.

If you’re an employer who wants to drive down labour costs – yup, it’s brilliant

Problem with this is that there is no empirical evidence this ever happened.

Employers will normally want to source labour locally, because demand for their goods requires the speedy filling of vacancies to fulfill orders.

I worked with a construction company which in the mid 2000s set up an Agency to source Eastern European labour specifically because they just could not fill the vacancies with local heads. In the end the Agency went unused due to some local economic issues, but the episode ought to demonstrate to the hard biten xenophobes that there are sensible practical reasons why British companies hired foreign labour which blow talk of conspiracies way out of the water.

@34

“Problem with this is that there is no empirical evidence this ever happened. ”

There isn’t a lot of data for the UK, but the US has lots: -

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/gborjas/Papers/BGH2008.pdf

Where’s your empirical data, a story about one time you worked on a building site?

Didn’t make the claim, Dutch. I’ll defer to anyone who provides evidence that the wave of immigration the UK experienced lowered wages, but your link ain’t it.

Since the House Of Lords report concluded there were no economic advantages to immigration that has been quietly dropped, no ? I would be interested to know what the social gains are actually supposed to be.
The moderate majority have no strong objection to foreign people coming here as long as they do not come in overwhelming , numbers or with contempt for what, in some indefinable , way people feel to be a home . Feelings of shared memory and allegiance are as important to the left as to the right and I see no reason why they should be decried simply because like much that is important they elude managerial analysis.

For Conservatives it is question of rate of change , of wishing to retain the English character if England but not fossilize it .On pragmatic lines, and in view of the frequently expressed wishes of the electorate, moderating the numbers seems to sensible route.
Quite why New Labour have been so determined to force the pace is something of mystery especially when they are quick to bang on about British Jobs and even have a pop at the Poles in Crewe when it suits them. It is possible I suppose that electoral advantage did not ether New Labour’s calculations , people will have to make their own minds up and this thread is illuminating. It would require an almost Bambi-esque naiveté in my view but I may be paranoid . I detect here no more ad hoc dislike for what we have, and an assumption that change is necessarily good .Not always.

One thing I notice is that the immigration and implied racism folderol, is couched here in terms of the left inflicting , or not , multiculturalism on the right .That is not quite the case. The right has internationalism in its make up both as new Liberals and as international Conservatives ( as we can see from the EU debate of the 70s ) Ethnic determinism is as often associated with collectivism as in the IRA or the PLO and , for example in the orbit of the USSR it is still part of the Liberal armoury. Fascism is a word that comes form an Italian idiom for Union and Mussolini was a prominent socialist, Moseley a Labour man
You see these conflicts in the side of the mouth whispers form Margaret Hodge ( defending Barking of course ) and the faintly ridiculous flag waving Brown went in for.
The BNP are a threat to Labour not to Conservatives appealing to communitarian instincts , collectivists need. I would not accept that the Strasserist BNP ,whose policies have an odd similarity to the Green Party ,are part of the “ right “ not ,certainly , the British tradition of Conservatism

Thaersites:

“Since the House Of Lords report concluded there were no economic advantages to immigration that has been quietly dropped, no ?”

No. The Lords report didn’t conclude that. You may have got the impression that it did from the ridiculously exaggerated tabloid headlines, but what it actually concluded was that the benefit should be measured by contributuion to GDP per capita rather than GDP as a whole. If you have evidence otherwise, by all means show it.

Even if it did (which it didn’t) the HoL report was made years after the government went for a policy of managed migration rather than restricted migration. So it’s kind of irrelevant to the matter at hand.

“Quite why New Labour have been so determined to force the pace…”

Sorry, I’m going to need evidence that Labour ‘forced the pace’ of anything. References please.

“It is possible I suppose that electoral advantage did not ether New Labour’s calculations…”

We’re talking here about whether Labour deliberately engaged in a secret plot to increase their vote here – not whether the idea entered their calculations (which I’d also need to see actual evidence of before I accepted).

As for the fascism being left wing and who the BNP are a threat to stuff – yawn. Not bothered. I’m not even a Labour supporter.

I just don’t think the evidence presented by MigrationWatch supports the notion that Labour increased immigration for nefarious motives to import voters.

Dutch @31:

“I’ve missed something I think… Of course the language of the daily mail is inflammatory, that’s the language of their demographic, but have any of you ever questioned the fundamental reasons why these kind of opinions are so widespread?”

Of course I’ve questioned why these kind of opinions are widespread – and one reason is that papers like the Daily Mail do more than use inflammatory language. They actively misrepresent evidence to create a false impression. I can include several referenes if you like.

“It’s almost like left wing ideologues are good at debunking the minutae and bias of right wing articles but are completely oblivious to the broad historical strokes at work which have necessitated them.”

Eh? Historical strokes necessitate misrepresenting evidence and pretending there are shadowy conspiracies?

I fail to see what the rest of your comment has to do with whether Andrew Green has evidence that Labour deliberately engaged in a secret plot to import voters.

“I object to being socially engineered, so do most people. Are we all idiots? What is it that you can see that I don’t with regards all this? It’s a genuine question, I really want to know.”

You’ve yet to demonstrate that anyone was ‘socially engineered’ with immigration. You’ve missed a bit out.

I think we can accept that there was no conspiracy. And a lot or nearly all the coverage in the tabloids, from Melanie Phillips and Migration Watch is compromised because of it’s shrill assertions that don’t stand up when scrutinized.
However, I still get this gut feeling that sends a message to my brain that says ”too clever by half” when reading some of the ”tabloid watch” kind of reporting.

Like Dutch said @31 about the broad historical strokes. Not that I agree that these have ”necessitated” these alarming articles – but I think that the facts on the ground have made them inevitable.

So yes, Leo McKinstry’s Express articles are pretty vile when you take his overall message, but some of the things that he says are true, and they probably are more in tune with more people’s feelings than the sophisticated political left view.

So when he writes something like this:

Even now, in the face of this incontrovertible evidence, Government policy remains cloaked in dishonesty. The Immigration Minister Phil Woolas had the nerve to claim that the Government had actually “tightened immigration rules” a decade ago. It was a patently absurd boast given that 2000 was pre-cisely when the Home Office began to dish out passports, work permits and student visas like confetti, while making little effort to tackle illegal immigration.

……… we can dismiss the line about ”incontrovertible evidence” of government dishonesty, and in some area’s the government did tighten the immigration rules.
I know two Indian NHS workers, and they have some difficulties and expense to go through to keep their jobs and work visas here.

But on the other hand, huge amounts of new people from outside the EU did settle in Britain. I was doing deliveries to factories last year, and at one food processing plant in north west London, nearly all the staff seemed to be Indian nationals or people raised in Africa. They even had some signs (like for ”fire exit”) in an Indian script.
It was a really crappy working environment, with everyone wearing wellington boots and hair nets – making sandwiches and pies. The employer would have difficulty finding people who had been to school in England to work in a horrible place like that – so I presume that some of the Indian people had been given work visas to come to England and preform this miserable kind of job.

And then, these people who are on or near the minimum wage, can only really live in squaller outside of work. In overcrowded flats in ‘bedsitland’.

Some people might argue that if a food processing factory like that can’t find people in this country to preform those jobs, then tough – and the factory can close down rather than import 200 people to work in it, as it’s only sandwiches and pies. It’s not like the country couldn’t do without that kind of food product.

What I would like to see the left do when combating the bile of the right wing press and the hate of the BNP, is not just go around shouting ”Nazi scum off our streets” – and talk about ”exposing the BNP” (or whatever it is this week), but to pull apart some of their arguments like this one which has had 233,000 views on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1b9J8D3tOg

On another forum I was on, when I did a link like that, people would complain about linking to the BNP and the moderator would delete it. They were of the UAF kind of left – who thought that to even view something like that was helping the BNP as it allowed them to brag about how many hits they were getting.

The Welsh bloke in the youtube says that the change that has happened in Wembley ”is horrific”. I’d like to see the argument, that pulls this racist assertion apart without getting all shouty and just going back to the ”Nazi” accusations.
I feel that resorting to those kind of UAF tactics just kills real debate and hardens the resolve of people who might be in some agreement with the message of that youtube.

And you have to admit, that at the end when he’s talking to the camera in Welsh, that it’s a very clever bit of propaganda.

No. The Lords report didn’t conclude that. You may have got the impression that it did from the ridiculously exaggerated tabloid headlines, but what it actually concluded was that the benefit should be measured by contributuion to GDP per capita rather than GDP as a whole. If you have evidence otherwise, by all means show it.
The overall conclusion was …and I quote ” The Economic benefits to the resident population of net migration are small …” This is , however a cautious summary of the rest of the concluding section which dismantles one by one the false claims of New Labour and the misleading way in which they have framed the debate . Read it for yourself .

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/82.pdf

Given the source this is as close to a demolition both of New Labour`s policy and tactics as it is possible to imagine ..and incidentally an endorsement of Migration Watch.

I am afraid we are unlikely to uncover a Protocol of New Labour in which they identify the English as an enemy to be ethnically diluted, this is why you have withdrawn to your miniscule Straw man position .In real life things are rarely quite as cut and dried as that . Such an explicit objective would be somewhat inadvisable for a political Party in this country don’t you think ? I would ask you to consider the position New Labour are in in terms of regional vote , the Celtic fringe (reliance on) ,collapse in the South , the immigrant vote and so on . Use your brains , in short .
The phrase ‘managed’, Migration is rather amusing not what many would call it given that most is by chain of relatedness . New Labour encouraged this by , for example, removing the checks on marriage as a means of serially qualifying further entrants . Why did they do that then , you tell me ?
I take it you are now withdrawing what you previously said about the “ Right” being the constituency who are the “Enemy “ from your pro immigration / anti English , point of view . In Nick Coen’s book “Whats left and also in the history of the white working class ,“The likes of us “, a survey is quoted which shows that 35% of Labour voters have the BNP as their second choice .
I was only suggesting that when you set up your left v right debate you have not correctly identified at whom a policy of disinformation might be aimed at . Your own affiliations were not my concern .

You may say that your phrase ” Right wingers “ implied predominantly Labour Party voters but I would suggest this might have been more felicitously expressed for the avoidance of confusion … J

Oh you forgot to clarify on the “Social advantages “ What are they ?

Didn’t make the claim, Dutch. I’ll defer to anyone who provides evidence that the wave of immigration the UK experienced lowered wages, but your link ain’t it.

What would you expect to happen to “Price ” when supply of anything is increased ? Seems to me the onus of proof is on you to show that the obvious conclusion is not correct otherwise people will reasonably assume it is. Where is your evidence for this , on the face if it , bizarre claim ?
Can you admit this is what you would like to believe and can you understand that if your liveliehood is under threat you would be less sanguine ?

Thersites @41:

There are some things to unpack here. The headline isn’t mine, Sunny added it when he cross posted from my place. I haven’t made any statements about ‘the right’ – and although I think the BNP are right wing, it isn’t relevant to the discussion. (It rarely is – usually it’s wheeled out to derail discussion).

The discussion is about whether Andrew Green’s Draft Executive Summary of a document presenting evidence for discussion (not a policy document, as it has been falsely labeled by Green and the press) is proof that Labour engaged in a secret plot to increase multiculturalism back in 2000/2001, and whether it’s proof that Labour did so to deliberately import voters.

I’m also not defending Labour’s reasoning from that time here (although I may agree with it outside this discussion) – I’m pointing out that Labour pushed the idea of immigration being good economically back then. Whether or not that argument was correct, you have to pretend the government never followed it, or were lying when they did to cover the real reason for immigration policy – which was to increase multiculturalism or import voters.

“The overall conclusion was …and I quote ” The Economic benefits to the resident population of net migration are small …” ”

It didn’t conclude there were ‘no economic advantages’ then. As I said before though, it’s kind of irrelevant, since this report came years after the government argued that immigration was good economically. At best it proves the reasoning was wrong. It’s also an appeal to authority, since it’s perfectly possible to disagree with the Committee’s findings.

I’ve read it myself already, thanks. That it treats MigrationWatch as an authority at all is one of its flaws. Still – irrelevant to the discussion.

“I am afraid we are unlikely to uncover a Protocol of New Labour in which they identify the English as an enemy to be ethnically diluted, this is why you have withdrawn to your miniscule Straw man position”

Eh? Who’s withdrawn and what’s the straw man? My position hasn’t changed. To see Green’s draft document as proof (or even good evidence) of a plot to increase multiculturalism or import voters is to engage in crazy conspiracy theories. Especially the latter, which is on a par with the shouty man on the bus who claims to have invented paint. Your ‘Protocol of New Labour in which they identify the English as an enemy to be ethnically diluted’ is the straw man here.

“I take it you are now withdrawing what you previously said about the “ Right” being the constituency who are the “Enemy “ from your pro immigration / anti English , point of view”

I never said anything about ‘the right’. The headline isn’t mine. But as we’ve been talking about strawmen, your ‘anti English’ comment is one right there. And so is “enemy”, which you put in quotes although you’re the only person on this thread to have used the word.

“Oh you forgot to clarify on the “Social advantages “ What are they ?”

Dunno. Didn’t write the document and wasn’t involved in its drafting.

“Oh you forgot to clarify on the “Social advantages “ What are they ?”

Dunno. Didn’t write the document and wasn’t involved in its drafting.

So, if you cannot offer a better interpretation, why do you object to the conclusion that the so-called ‘social advantages’ were to make the UK truly multicultural and to to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date, just as Neather originally said?

“So, if you cannot offer a better interpretation, why do you object to the conclusion that the so-called ’social advantages’ were to make the UK truly multicultural and to to rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date, just as Neather originally said?”

The same as if someone said the social advantages were increasing vampirism and re-introducing the werewolf to British soil. ‘Social advantages’ is pretty vague language, and you have to make a whole bunch of assumptions to make it mean those things.

Plus, we’re talking about the Executive Summary of a full document here. The final draft of the document still includes a section on Social Outcomes. If you want to know what the summary might have meant, read the section in:

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/occ67-migration.pdf

Someone seems to have got hold of the full draft document and pulled out quotes about anti-immigration sentiment being closer aligned to racism. No qoutes about increasing multiculturalism or rubbing anyone’s face in anything though, which rather implies it’s not there.

Finally, we’re talking about a document intended to present information for discussion here. We’re not talking about a policy document – Andrew Green and the papers are not telling the truth on this point.

Even if the document was two pages long with a massive scrawl in crayon across both pages saying ‘IMMIGRATION WOULD BE BRILLIANT BECAUSE IT WOULD REALLY PISS OFF THE RIGHT AND MULTICULTURALISM IS BRILLIANT AND THAT. ECONOMIC REASONS ARE ALL RUBBISH!’ It wouldn’t prove that that was government policy.

We’re talking about things that were edited out of a document here. things that weren’t included for discussion on policy. Here’s what I’ve said about this at my place:

Here, watch this. I’m going to brandish Occam’s Razor at you. See how the light glilnts off the blade.

Maybe as the document was scrutinised, people found that the evidence for the social benefits wasn’t that strong. Just a thought. Here’s some supporting evidence from the actual final draft of the document:

Not enough is known about migrants’ social outcomes.

That might suggest there wasn’t enough known about social outcomes to include everything in this kind of evidence-based document.

This is such a big storm over something actually pretty small. This evidence is incredibly weak.

My own personal observation working in many southern English towns and cities in the last 10 years or so is that while there was a very large influx from the EU and non EU from the late 90s until a year ago, this seems to have stopped and even receded.

Am I alone in thinking this.

Are ministers (for once) telling us the truth ?

5cc @ 45

The same as if someone said the social advantages were increasing vampirism and re-introducing the werewolf to British soil.

But Neather, who reported this first, did so on the basis of having actually attended the drafting meetings where the report was discussed. He did not hear anyone talking about vampirism, but clearly DID hear people talking about making the UK irrevocably multi culti and DID hear people talking about rubbing the Right’s noses in it.

we’re talking about a document intended to present information for discussion here. We’re not talking about a policy document – Andrew Green and the papers are not telling the truth on this point.

Once again, I refer you back to Neather in his Holy Innocent phase (before the Left Establishment nobbled him):

It {the huge influx} didn’t just happen: the deliberate policy of ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year…. was to open up the UK to mass migration.

…..That speech was based largely on a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit….Drafts were handed out in summer 2000 only with extreme reluctance: there was a paranoia about it reaching the media.

So, the document WAS instrumental in a real policy shift. And the motivation WAS thought to be so sensitive that it had to hidden from the media.

This is such a big storm over something actually pretty small.

Nope, this is a big fuss over something that millions of ordinary citizens, in poll after poll, list as a pressing concern, but which the political and media elites tend to brush under the carpet.

Public School Lefty @ 46

a very large influx from the EU and non EU from the late 90s until a year ago, this seems to have stopped and even receded.

The number of non-British citizens immigrating long term to the UK in the year to June 2009 was 431,000, similar to 454,000 in the year to June 2008.

The number of citizens of the A8 countries immigrating long term to the UK in the year to June 2009 was 68,000. The number of A8 citizens emigrating from the UK in the year to June 2009 was 58,000.

So, only a small increase in the net number of Poles etc. but still very large numbers of non-EU.

FlowerPower@ 47:

“But Neather, who reported this first, did so”

[Bangs head on desk] But [bang] he [bang] explicitly [bang] stated [bang] there [bang] was [bang] no [bang] plot! No plot!

“on the basis of having actually attended the drafting meetings where the report was discussed.”

No he didn’t. He saw early drafts and had discussions about it. Nowhere in either of his articles does he state he was at ‘drafting meetings’.

“clearly DID hear people talking about making the UK irrevocably multi culti and DID hear people talking about rubbing the Right’s noses in it.”

Hearing people discuss things is not equal to these things being a secret plot. It means there was at best a subsidiary effect of immigration that these people liked the idea of.

“clearly DID hear people talking about making the UK irrevocably multi culti and DID hear people talking about rubbing the Right’s noses in it.”

Now you’re introducing yet another layer of complexity. Neather was now nobbled by the left. Is there anything that would be bad for your argument that you wouldn’t invent a new reason to sweep under the carpet?

“So, the document WAS instrumental in a real policy shift. And the motivation WAS thought to be so sensitive that it had to hidden from the media.”

Yes, the document was instrumental. Have you read the final draft? It’s very big on economics. The government are usually keen to make sure draft reports – especially about sensitive issues – don’t make the press. Because they’re not finished yet and might end up being changed.

“So, the document WAS instrumental in a real policy shift. And the motivation WAS thought to be so sensitive that it had to hidden from the media.”

Media elites sweep immigration under the carpet? We must be looking at a different media. By ‘something so small’ I mean an early draft of a discussion document presenting evidence being different from the final. It’s not even that different.

I’ve pulled everything about this together in one place at MailWatch if anyone’s interested.

Flowerpower@:

Posted something like this last night that seems to have been eated by the internets. Apologies if this ends up appearing twice.

“But Neather, who reported this first, did so”

The same Neather who said there was no plot, right?

“on the basis of having actually attended the drafting meetings where the report was discussed.”

No he didn’t. He did so on the basis of having seen early drafts and had discussions about them. He does not claim to have been in ‘drafting meetings’ and does not abppear on the list of authors.

“but clearly DID hear people talking about making the UK irrevocably multi culti and DID hear people talking about rubbing the Right’s noses in it.”

And later pointed out there wasn’t a plot. As Peter Hoskin said in the Spectator at the time:

But it seems to me that there’s something different between a) having solely political motivations for a policy, and b) recognising (welcoming, even) the political implications of a policy.

“Once again, I refer you back to Neather in his Holy Innocent phase (before the Left Establishment nobbled him)”

You’re introducing another layer of complexity here. He was ‘nobbled’ by the left! Is there anything that might make the idea of a plot look stupid that you wouldn’t find an excuse to sweep under the carpet?

“So, the document WAS instrumental in a real policy shift.”

Umm…yeah. Because it was, you know, published? Actually, quite a lot that seems to have been cut from the Executive Summary people are so up in arms about makes it in one way or another into the final full document. I’ve written more about this particular aspect at MailWatch.

I know you really, really want there to have been a plot. It’s why you add new bits to the conspiracy, but the evidence we’ve seen so far doesn’t support it.

I notice you (and others) seem to have stopped talking about the draft document that’s been behind the latest headlines and shifted back to talking about Neather’s original article and ignoring – or inventing extra layers of the consspiracy to explain away – the fact that he clarified his article and said, explicitly, that there wasn’t a plot.

There’s a reason for that.