As a right winger I applaud a spoonful of reality tossed into the cauldron of lies that has been the Economic argument. Where this article is disingenuous is the suggestion that, for the left, it has ever been primarily about Economics.
From EU regional Policy to open door immigration policy to state imposed multiculturalism the purpose has always been to dilute ethnic loyalty which the left see as an opponent to rational societally based management . It is also a hatred of ” Blood and soil” with its history extended to any notion of an English People having any special Relationship to England .

Anthony Neather revealed about Labour’s true feelings about 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.

So welcome article but one that fails to examine what immigration has meant to the left behind its rhetoric,

Additionally

Andrew Neather claimed that Labour ministers had a hidden agenda in allowing mass immigration into Britain, to “change the face of Britain forever”.
According to Neather, who was present at closed meetings in 2000, a secret Government report called for mass immigration to change Britain’s cultural make-up, and that “mass immigration was the way that the government was going to make the UK truly multicultural”. Neather went on to say 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was intended — even if this wasn’t its main purpose — to rub the right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”.

That is not an Economic argument is it

To be quite frank most anti-fascists already bleeding knew this to be the case, it was often apologists for the likes of the EDL etc who would wheel out the economic argument. Though in that case it took the form of “immigrants took all the jerbs! That’s why they hate Muslims specifically!”
That some along the blue labour lines decided they had a point, and that steps should be taken to address these “concerns”, is only a reflection on the non-anti-fascist centre.

“Like it or not, for significant numbers of people across Europe, immigration is a major concern.”

Racists everywhere like to blame anyone who’s ‘not from round here’ for their problems. It’s an obnoxious habit and worth nothing but contempt.

Good job Demos for studying the concerns of far right supporters. Surprise, surprise that you found them to be largely racist and nationalistic.

But I’m afraid you’ve had a bit of a logic fail if you’re extrapolating their attitude to immigration to the population at large.

Far right parties tend to concentrate on the “identity” (race and nation) aspect of immigration. So is it a surprise that their supporters share those concerns? No, they would not be supporters of those parties otherwise. You were always going to find whatever those parties’ fairly obvious priorities were reflected in their support, your sample was self selecting for those characteristics.

On the other hand, why is it that despite far right parties having superficial common ground with a significant proportion of the population on immigration, they receive a tiny amount of support in this country?

There could be any number of reasons for this, but the information you’ve collected doesn’t give us any clue as to why immigration is an issue for people outside far right parties, because it is simply sampling from the wrong group of people to tell us.

The real question is when immigration is such a concern to a large majority of people, why do these parties that focus on it get so little support?

If anything the fact that the far-right is so unpopular suggests that the 98.1% of the population who don’t vote BNP at the last general election probably actually have rather different priorities, even within the issue of immigration.

I’m afraid this study is what it is – a study of the members of far right parties. But you cannot extrapolate anything meaningful from it with regards to the population at large.

Multiculturalism and nationalism are square pegs that cannot be shoehorned into a round hole and while immigration alone cannot be blamed for our public services being overwhelmed it certainly highlights problems associated with the shrinking stock of council houses, getting access to a decent state school, as well as an array of healthcare demands – on top of this there is a sizable welfare bill for immigrants trying to sort out employment, or a place to live, etc.

Increasing numbers complain there are too many people in the UK competing for too few services – improving provision will require increased funding (obviously) but given the dire situation in Europe it seems that less, rather than more cash will be available to help those in the UK.

I suppose the cultural arguments might be less toxic if everybody is doing well, but as the recession deepens it is almost inevitable that competition for dwindling resources will foster a climate of resentment?

There could be any number of reasons for this, but the information you’ve collected doesn’t give us any clue as to why immigration is an issue for people outside far right parties, because it is simply sampling from the wrong group of people to tell us.

The answer is “a bit of everything“…

The largest group of survey respondents (though not an outright majority) agrees with statements that migrants hurt the British economy, increase crime rates, and disagree that migrants improve British culture by making it more “open to new ideas”.

Racists everywhere like to blame anyone who’s ‘not from round here’ for their problems. It’s an obnoxious habit and worth nothing but contempt.

Translation: any deviation from the party line–fervent and uncritical support for immigration–is doubleplusungood.

@1 and @2

Yes, but Neather was talking tosh. I spent a while debunking all this a couple of years ago http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/10/27/immigration-policy-when-evidence-actually-counted-for-something/

Hi Jon,
Thanks for your comment. Of course you’re absolutely right – our study tells us about online supporters of populist groups, not the population at large, and I’m sure outside the group we sampled there is a different picture of the sources of frustration towards immigration. I certainly didn’t mean to suggest otherwise! Still, supporters of anti-immigration populist groups are I think important to understand and engage with. Whilst the BNP is doing poorly in the UK, in other countries in Europe these parties have a lot of support. They get more than just a handful of extremists voting for them.

Newsflash: The reason that people join these groups is because they are completely cut out of the conversation. Most of the country is extremely sceptical of the benefits of immigration, and a great many people never wanted to have significant amounts of immigration in the first place.

Nobody listened to them and it happened anyway. Now it’s a done deal! They lost! As in, completely and utterly lost, and they are losing still.

Moreover, as we can see from the comments at this blog ‘pon the regular, the strategy of the winning faction is to demonise anyone who is not fully supportive of the programme, in order to delegitimise all dissent and ensure that it is impossible even to question the disinvestment of the native population.

Paul,

Your debunking is anything but. It’s just more of the same: the winning coalition bashing the losers over the head. You lost, losers!

The “immigration debate” will, of course, get as far as other favourites “the Israel/Palestine debate” and the “two baldies/one comb debate”. The trouble is that people don’t part ways on fact claims – its effects on employment, say, or economic growth. They disagree on these points, yes, but what I mean is that they’ve never had a “way” to part from. They’ve never been on the same track. People who are generally supportive of migration are preceding from the assumption that (a) borders are wrong and (b) immigration is to be welcome because of the good it does to migrants, not just their new neighbours. People who are generally opposed to immigration tend to proceed from the assumptions that (a) borders are right and (b) immigration is to welcomed if it’s in the interests of the host country. There’s no way that people – except a very few of us – are going to be argued out of such emotionally-charged positions. That goes for liberals as well as conservatives.

“dilute ethnic loyalty which the left see as an opponent to rational societally based management . It is also a hatred of ” Blood and soil””

This is just juvenile. There is an obvious counter-example: Plaid Cymru.

Plaid Cymru is clearly a left wing party, containing politicians who openly declare themselves socialists and with policies such as advocating energy company nationalisation. It is also a party with policies designed to preserve and promote the welsh language, welsh culture (s4c), and welsh history.

But it manages to do this without advocating ethnic minorities lose their civil liberties, children get locked up or groups of people get deported to places where they have only a minor ancestral connection.

In Scotland, you will find the Scottish Socialist Party does the above, but with even more left wing policies. And the Scottish National Party, but with slightly more right wing policies to Plaid.

It is only England which lacks a party intellectually capable of wanting to preserve culture and identify without advocating the removal of the civil liberties of ethnic minorities. I’d say that says more about political culture in england than it does about left wing philosophy.

Paul Cotterill – Your refutation seems to consist of an ad hominem attack on Anthony Neather and the fact that a bloke called”Alex” says “different”. Can`t say I am getting much more than ooh he makes me mad. It was inevitable that the long held position that immigration was an economic good would have a back story and inevitable that some case could be sewn together . That was the point , similarly every political power grab made by the EU has a National economic rationale.It can be evidenced if you try hard enough. Does anyone think it is only an economic project ?Only cretins .
Tell me Paul , just so we know, do you approve of multiculturalism or not ? Just so we know you are not desperately casting around for any old way to muddy the waters for the sake of your wish to dilute the ethnic core of the English and turn the country into London as Neather claimed .

Well ?

Planeshift- Its easy to adopt Municipal Nationalism when you have no immigration and the history of National Socialists ,which is what Plaid Cymru are ,is instructive in that is has tended to get worse You would be amazed how left wing and progressive Mussolini was in 1919.
I don`t think anyone is advocating that ethnic minorities lose civil Liberties on the grounds they are ethnic minorities or that children are locked up unless they are illegally here and must be detained if we are control borders at all.
If you think the SNP has no ethnic component you are living in dream land . Being black in Scotland is not easy .Jesus being English is getting harder, no Englishman can be a Scottish MP.
No-one is advocating intolerance I think most people ,however feel that there is such a thing as an English People who have some special place in England. That people would clearly like the level immigration vastly reduced so it should be .
Simple enough isn`t it ? The political class wish to rule a country of 70,000,000
They must be stopped .Belonging to a country consists of more than the set of legal entitlements Britain is reduced to.

As collectivists by the way you would do well to sneer less and listen more . When you have destroyed all sense of a “we” you have also destroyed the communality that built the post war consensus as well as “Rubbed conservative noses in it ” a pathetic ambition anyway

Andrew Neather, who right-wing tinfoil hat wearers love to wheel out, himself said it wasn’t a conspiracy, and that his words had been twisted out of context

@16

No-one is advocating intolerance

I’ll think you’ll find the BNP and EDL actually do. Hell the BNP doesn’t even limit itself to one group in it’s advocacy of intolerance. They’d be more than happy with an abridgement of my rights for starters, despite my being White English.

Why are you trying to “engage” members of those groups? You’re going to have to distort policy to reach any number of then…and you’ll lose far more other supporters in the effort.

As this thread demonstrates, you’re also opening basic policy for attacks from the xenophobes on the right.

This is a good starting point for understanding populism. I think it’s worth raising a few questions that don’t initially appear to be related, but ones that I think make a difference here.

The most obvious one for me is of collective action (and I don’t have time to go through my bookmarks for footnotes here, but…) – one of the big differences between the left and right is the question of ‘how we do stuff together’. The right lean towards PLCs and ‘the ties that bind’ – traditional hierarchies. Liberal lefties are keener on more spontaneous and less rigid class/social alliances to do things.

Immigration and cultural diversity present problems – particularly in places where the left’s preferred forms of collective action have worked well – e.g. Scandinavian countries. The problem with immigration, for me, is that we haven’t properly addressed the way it impacts on social capital – and the impact is felt most severely nearer the bottom of the social ladder than the top.

It’s a genuine structural and ideological problem for the left. It’s easy to find a well-financed and structured way of learning and practicing the (imho inferior) forms of collective action advocated by the right – business school, corporate training etc – than it is to learn and practice mutualism, co-op models etc. Working at a co-op a few years ago, I found that we were hitting problems to which there were almost no standard approaches. This wouldn’t have happened within a PLC – there would have been a pile of textbooks to turn to.

Socialists really struggle to answer the ‘how would you do it then?’ question – you often just hear unfocussed burbling about Scandinavia, Yugoslavian worker-coops or something about Cuba. When all of this depends upon high levels of social capital, it’s an even bigger problem.

I say this not because I want less immigration (I don’t, and I think the moral liberal case for allowing people to live where they want to is absolutely solid) but to argue that the left need to think more about solving some of the problems that come with big movements in population. How do you do this without *looking* like you resent immigration is a tough one, given the way public debate happens in the UK.

Also, bear in mind we have a *remarkably* uniform population in ethnic terms, with few immigrants compared to most countries, especially English-speaking countries.

@1 – Well, you chose rivers of blood, I see. We’re going to end up with another cable street, with casualties from the police’s actions. But the defenders of democracy will hold.

@8 – Translation: BASH THE PAKKIES. Don’t like it? Don’t use straw men yourself then.

@16 – Really? You’re attributing your own national socialism to others now? Pathetic. You say you’re not intolerant, then go right on to launch a xenophobic attack on the non-pure.

16
The post-war settlement (as against the post-war consensus) was facilitated by thousands of immigrants, many from the British colonies, and moreover, many of them believed that they were part of the ‘we’ you talk about. I have seen no-one complaining about the number of Asian doctors in the NHS which has been a major feature since its’ inception. So what we are really talking about is class/race, that’s one of the major reasons why many on the left support immigration. But let’s be fair, the social democratic left rarely mention ‘class’, as if it wasn’t the single most important factor in the debate.
From my observation (anecdotal I know) most working-class people are concerned that immigrants drive the cost of labour down, not so much from legitimate employers, who pay the going rate or the NMW, but illegally employing immigrants at almost slave labour rates.
The ‘identy, card, although not new, is now being amplified by the right-wing to drum-up support and move the focus away from the real structural problems of our economy Blaming minority groups for the ills of society is their major trump card and now that public services are being cut-back, well we know who we can blame for consuming the scarce resources available.

@20 Paul Evans – Well put.

@22 – Er…I see complaints about “darky doctors” on far right sites. You just haven’t been looking into the sewer hard enough.

@14 Planeshift

The initial problem has always been defining English culture. Every time it’s been tried we end up with a few universals that could apply anywhere or warm beer and cricket. Perhaps it’s because England is the dominant entity in the Union and that we are a rather jackdaw people ready to adopt from other cultures as we see fit.

I’ve talked to EDL people. They often mention Christian values but I suspect they actually mean liberal enlightenment values that have strongly influenced Anglicanism. If this is true then I can’t see Lefties having any issue, surely there’s an argument here for us to make?

I have the greatest sympathy for people who see their neighborhoods rapidly and dramatically change. If the change involves people who don’t even speak english who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed and alienated and experience a sense of loss? Add to the mix religious conservatism preaching values alien to most of us and a hostile reaction is probably the most reasonable one.

Lefties can argue for liberal enlightenment values and against religious conservatism with no concession to racism or nationalism and without having to apologise for immigration per se (though we may need to look at how it has been managed in some areas).

The argument about English culture is unnecessary. We are not seeking to mathematically model it; it doesn’t need definition. Any distinct group will naturally develop its own distinct culture over time. We have one as well. It has been remade rather radically (some might say disastrously, at times) in the postwar years, but it exists, even if it evades some kind of hyper-rationalist analysis.

Claiming that it doesn’t is rather like claiming that there is no such thing as “society”. Sure there’s no such thing as society, Oh Robot Overlord. Consequently, it can’t be society that you have bent over your desk, getting what it deserves good and hard.

Immigration is a means to an end, prov iding cheap labour to the recruitment agencies, who then secure a valuable contract with their clients. The system, no matter who sits in Number 10, looks at the balance sheets for the recruiters and their client companies, sees a turnover figure and then declares that all is well because X amount of people are working, paying taxes, keeping the wheels turning. The system has no interest in the cultural make up of the workforce, that would require taking interest in people as individuals, as a particular ethnic or cultural group. As far as the system is concerned, we are but numbers to be crunched, analysed and converted into statistics. The problems with immigration are many, but we can only start to deal with those problems when we all admit one simple truth. Immigrants are not the cause of immigration, they are just people looking for something better, or people who see the flaws in the system and, as is the way of the human race, exploit those flaws to their advantage.

[21] “Also, bear in mind we have a *remarkably* uniform population in ethnic terms”.
That surprises me – in my son’s school class, for example, one child has a Brazilian Mum, another has Russian parents, one was from S Africa (but the family have since moved back home). Then there are children with an asian background, others with an african heritage, one boy is Jewish, etc, etc.

I can still remember my first Indian friend at school (Hi Roger) – he was the only Indian boy in the school.
I know we are deep in anecdote territory here, but there is absolutely no comparison (in terms of cultural diversity) between my educational experience and those of my children.

I followed the link provided by BenSix [7] – interesting stuff – I tend to agree that most people arrive at a view about immigration and it’s companion multiculturalism largely based on personal experience – in other words they are not always empty vessels being filled up by the likes of the Fail (although a few might be).

To my mind two things are likely to reduce anxieties around immigration – first of all people generally doing OK in terms of access to jobs, homes and services.
In the longer term I think the shagging factor, especially children that ensue between the different groups will also play it’s part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4PBgtFHl58

Leon we do not have a remarkable uniform population you are not comparing like with like. The type of post Imperial and widely divergent immigration torrent we experienced in this country is only present in France, Holland and a few other places all of which have far right movements and serious problems even without the housing and services issue our disastrous open door Policies have allowed.

Steve- The Immigration of the 60s to this country only gained momentum when it became harder to get into America .This idea that the West Indian Immigrants were upset at rejection form the motherland does not fit the facts .

English culture- It is not just culture.It is an imagined community to which you have allegiance and you participate in the collective memory. This is why I say it is interesting that Remembrance day has disappeared from London.
The fact it is hard to define is irrelevant as is the fact it changes and contains disparate elements.
The English language of 1066 was more like German than modern English. Since then it naturalised the entire Latin vocabulary often twice via Norman and other kinds of French. Does that mean we do not know immediately when English is being spoken, or that Chaucer , writing in Middle English has no importance for us?

It’s not ‘leftists’ issue to deal with at all; it’s the right’s problem that they can’t reconcile free markets with nationalism, no one else’s.

As soon as you buy into their game you’ve lost, so don’t do it – simple.

@26 – Yes, we do. You’re outright lying there.

England and Wales is 85.6% White British
Scotland is 88.09% Scottish

Overall “white” rates are 92.14% (arguably that’s low, too) England/Wales and 98.19% in Scotland

Canada? 18% “Canadian”
Australia? 37.13% Australian
America? 63.7% White American
France? 62% French
Germany? 64% German

There is no disaster. You’re simply a xenophobic bigot.

Sorry, that’s @29

The far right in this country are simply a display of the Little Englander tendencies of some English people, rather than anything else. I used to list myself as White British, but the sort of hatred from that group now leads me to the more correct White (Other).

29
I have never stated that the West Indian immigrants were upset about rejection from the motherland and, of course, it doesn’t fit the facts, because they were not rejected.
There have been massive changes to the UK over the past 50 years, one major difference is the demographic changes, mostly this has nothing to do with ethnic minorities. For example, I was born in a mining village where most of the families had been there for generations, I’m sure I don’t have to explain why my own environment and local culture has changed. But development of docklands and rural areas in all parts of the country has led to the dispersion of specific local cultures, which has nothing to do with immigration. Even the ideology of Thatcher has created a culture of consumerism and that’s quite recent.
The cultural identity argument is a red-herring, the UK population has embraced new cultural products and ideas and has so for decades, even the Victorians started using oriental art and cultural products.

@33 – Absolutely. It’s about fear of change. Immigrants (I’m 3rd gen, for reference) are just a handy target for the fear and hatred…

“I used to list myself as White British, but the sort of hatred from that group now leads me to the more correct White (Other).”

So because of the rantings of a minority of clowns you have somehow changed your ethnic identity. How bizarre.

If people can’t move around freely, why should capital be allowed too.

It is the hypocrisy of the Right that they belive in both national sovereignty, and open markets. They hop around on those two pillars, constantly arguing against themselves.

It always amuses me when the right wing pro British Empire brigade get all upity about people coming here. They had no problem with us strutting around the world moving people about for economic reasons.

These would be the same people who have their Sunday Times overseas property section to see where they can buy a second or third home, so they can retire to a warmer country. Their lack of irony is priceless.

The really bizarre thing about how people identify themselves, for me, is the strange situation with official forms. You can mark yourself as White British, but there’s no option to mark yourself as White English, Welsh or Scottish. It seems that officialdom would prefer that we avoid these descriptions, most likely as a concession to the PC Brigade. Obviously, if you let people call themselves what they actually are, the world will jump to conclusions, somebody in government will panic and the whole system will collapse. I’m white, I’m English and I see no good reason to describe myself any other way. The PC Brigade would doubtless prefer us all to think of ourselves as citizens of the world, but in the real world, people identify each other based on what they see and hear, not through some liberalist utopian dreamland where everybody gets along and nobody feels different to anyone else. We are citizens of the world, but without the differences between us, we’d be nothing but mindless clones, awaiting instructions from on high.

@35 – Because of the hatred of their type, yes, who constantly make it plain I’m not pure blooded enough.

Well, so it it – they’ve made me feel FAR less of an attachment to Britain, and I am technically not British-ethnic at all (although I certainly LOOK like I am).

@38 – Conspiracy theories again I see.

@20 Paul Evans: The problem with immigration, for me, is that we haven’t properly addressed the way it impacts on social capital

I don’t think immigration, per se, necessarily reduces social capital, but some immigration does. Something I’ve not seen acknowledged in this debate is that not all immigrants are equal; some are better than others.

Social capital is reduced when people don’t trust others. And a person is more likely to trust someone if they see that person as someone like themself. The ideal immigrant would:

- speak English
- be happy for their son or daughter to marry outside their ethnicity/religion/community
- not be a bigot, e.g. a homophobe

Someone with those characteristics is more likely to integrate into the community and not be seen as an “other” than someone without those characteristics.

We also have ot acknowledge that there are some immigrant communities in which these factors are somewhat lacking; particularly ones who adhere to a religion which I’m not going to name but which every one of you can guess which one I’m talking about.

There are many Brits who are not bigots, and don’t have anything against immigrants, but at the same time do resent people from immigrant communities who are seen as not having British values — for example those who burn poppies on remembrance day — and also resent those governments that allowed large numbers of such people into the country.

If the left wants to win the debate on immigration it needs to acknowledge that some immigration, and some immigrant communities, have been problematic.

@40 – Judaism, of course. The usual suspect for the far right. We DON’T, again, have large numbers of immigrants compared to other countries. We have a lot of xenophobes, it’s not the same thing at all.

And of course, it’s got to be “acknowledged” that some people are sub-human. Got it.

Leon Wolfson; I’m on your side when it comes to being against the right wing xenophobes and their hate-based attitude, but calling me a conspiracy theorist is both insulting and rather missing the point of what I was saying. YOU KNOB!

Leon @ 41:

“Judaism, of course. The usual suspect for the far right.”

Actually the “far right” (assuming you’re using the term as everybody else does, not in your own idiosyncratic way of “anybody who disagrees with me”) usually get more worked up about Muslims than about Jews.

“We DON’T, again, have large numbers of immigrants compared to other countries. We have a lot of xenophobes, it’s not the same thing at all.”

Depends on which countries you’re comparing it to. We have less than America, but more than (say) Finland.

Also bear in mind that a lot of immigration is concentrated in a few relatively small areas. So even if we accept for argument’s sake that the physical volume of immigration is quite small, it’s still going to seem large to those living in areas where immigrants tend to live.

@43 – You’re not familiar with the far right, are you? Believe me, they think the Jews are behind it all. It’s the conspiracy theory lurking in their cupboards.

“Also bear in mind that a lot of immigration is concentrated in a few relatively small areas”

Thanks to the legacy of Thatcherism, yes. We should look at that. Instead, we’re creating a situation where unless you live in those areas, you’re screwed. And the poor won’t be able to in the next few years. It’s writing off most of the country.

@42 – You stated a conspiracy theory. You’re on no side related to mine, either. I’m with Searchlight.

“These two points suggest that for many sympathisers of the new wave of anti-immigration populism it is issues surrounding cultural identity – not the economy – that motivate their support.”

Well duh. We all know this is a major reason for hostility to immigration. Mainstream right-wing politicians can’t voice support for this attitude of course, but of course it’s why many people are against immigration. Otherwise they’d be just as angry about people from other parts of the country moving to their towns.

It’s racism

Mmm. Were slavery or apartheid abolished because their opponents “understood the concerns” of the other side?

Opposing immigration because of economic concerns is not racist, it’s just stupid.

Opposing immigration because you don’t like foreign people *is* racist, whether you dress it up as “identity issues” or not. Pandering to it isn’t going to help.

@46: We all know [issues surrounding cultural identity] are a major reason for hostility to immigration. It’s racism

No. On the whole this is just not true. Apart from a few neaderthals still living in the 20th century, xenophobia is mostly directed at people seen as culturally different rather than those seen as racially different.

Race is not culture.

So for example, a British citizen whose ancestors came from China (and is therefore non-white) will typically face less hostility than a non-English-speaking Eastern European (who is white).

@47 JasonW: Opposing immigration because you don’t like foreign people *is* racist, whether you dress it up as “identity issues” or not.

So a white British person who hates white people from other European countries is a racist, even though those people are not visually racially distinct from British people? No, you are wrong.

Race and identity are totally different issues, and if in the UK these are confused it’s merely a historical accident (i.e. because in the second half of the 20th century, many migrants into the UK were visually racially different from the majority population).

@47 JasonW: Opposing immigration because you don’t like foreign people *is* racist, whether you dress it up as “identity issues” or not.

I don’t like homophobes, including homophobes who happen to be immigrants. Does that make me racist IYO?

Phil Hunt; we can quibble about definitions of words if you really want, but judging somebody based on their country of origin is no better than judging them on the colour of their skin.

Judging individuals on their homophobia, on the other hand, is fine by me.

@ Jason W

“Judging individuals on their homophobia, on the other hand, is fine by me.”
So in that case you must judge against Islam and its adherents then?

Seems to me, for someone who appears to want to be seen as a beacon of tolerance, you do a hell of a lot of judging people.

@50 Depends really doesn’t it, I mean if you spend equal time tackling all homophobia where encountered, then no. If however you make apologetics for say, Christian inspired homophobia, on the basis that “Muslims are much worse offenders for homophobia, so complain about them instead, you hypocritical bastard” then the answer is much more likely to be yes.
Modern day xenophobes, racists and general bigots have enough nous to try and pit various minority groups against one another, falsely playing up to people’s inclusive and liberal sensibilities, the EDL’s “Jewish and Gay” divisions being a prime example.

On anti Semitism

The myth of the Jewish conspiracy is rather more prevalent on the left and it still manifests itself in a rabid loathing of money changers and a uniquely critical attitudes to Israel that took absolutely no interest in the dictatorships that surrounded this democracy. Fascism itself was a movement with left wing roots and Jews have been notably over represented in the Conservative Party, there were eight Jews in Margaret Thatchers cabinet at one time.
Anti Semitism was not actually a part of Fascism until quite a late stage Jews were over represented in Mussolini’s Party.

JasonW @ 47:

“Mmm. Were slavery or apartheid abolished because their opponents “understood the concerns” of the other side?”

I can’t comment about apartheid, but slavery was got rid of in the UK because the abolitionist movement made the effort to persuade people that slavery was wrong, rather than just sticking their fingers in their ears and saying “La la la, you’re all racists, I’m not going to bother talking to you.”

Paul @ 54:

“Jews have been notably over represented in the Conservative Party, there were eight Jews in Margaret Thatchers cabinet at one time.”

And of course Benjamin Disraeli, who was of Jewish origin, even though he had converted to Anglicanism by the time he became PM.

Leon some of those examples are obviously specious but take France which is useful comparison, as I said .
Firstly it has tightened its immigration regulations considerably beyond ours and so if it is supposed to be an exemplar has already taken the sort of actions I would like the country to take. It has done so because of pressure from Nationalist politics that is part of the main stream . The National Front gets about 6 million votes , slightly less important than the Liberals here shall we say to give you some idea of its place in the country .I think we can say then , that there is considerable dislike of the immigration into France you mention.
Your figures though, I struggle with. Immigrants or their direct descendants make up 19 5 of French population , 11.8 million but of this figure , 5,000,000 are European, most of the remainder are Moroccan, Tunisian etc. which forms 9.11% of the population
6% of the English population is of subcontinental origin and 2.2% black, so it is slightly lower than France

The question of European migration on the Continent is a complex one . Boundaries are not historically fixed and France is surrounded by French speaking people. The question is to what extent that sort of movement is part of life , as we would not count the Scots say in England and certainly it is a pattern of great antiquity quite unlike our own where a look at the phone book shows that we have experienced little immigration until recently .
Taking the Empire immigration as the comparison it is not very different as I said
but we are talking about a country with a depopulation problem in rural areas and very low housing costs
Overall France and England , two comparably sized countries have had a similar experience excluding long term UK and Irish migration and European migration patterns . England is clearly very much more tolerant of this and has far laxer immigration laws.

“England is clearly very much more tolerant of this and has far laxer immigration laws.”

Really? Because even you admit that there is a far higher direct immigrant population in France, and the try and waffle only about skin colours, which shows where YOU are coming from.

The main difference is that no major party in France will treat with the far right, while in the UK the major parties are willing to suck up to them, see the nonsense with Labour “reaching out” to the EDL.

Your premise fails, and hard, on the facts. England is remarkably mono-ethnic, outside Greater London. Wales and Scotland are worse. N. Ireland is far more diverse, as there are plenty of people considering themselves Irish rather than British…

Why can’t we all just get along?

All this insane multicultural experiment has done is balkanised Northern Europe therefore ensuring its future will be balkan-esque.

In fact far worse: In the Balkans there are only 2 main grinding elements (as in Northern Ireland) with a minor 3rd in the background but the animosity has simmered for countless generations, frequently boiling over into violence.

In Northern Europe now we have hundreds of different tribes, cultures, religions all pushed together, many of which have ancient enmities towards each other, and a constant stream of resentment built into them by being told their ‘hosts’ are racists.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this will all lead.

In the meantime, we have higher crime rates featuring huge over-representation by immigrants and their offspring and new types of crime, such as gang rapes and suicide attacks, as well as willing ghettoisation.

The best we can hope to emulate is Brazil. Yea.

The worst, the Balkans x300.

Leon @ 58:

“Wales and Scotland are worse.”

What exactly is it about ethnic homogoneity that makes a place inherently bad?

I see… So the problem isn’t so much immigration as globalisation. No matter how many immigrants France has, the biggest threat to French culture, customs, traditions and language is the American empire.

Have Gemma k stuffed!!

I rare event indeed, an actual common sense post on this Lefty pit of anti-English, anti-England, anti-Britain, racist, racial/cultural genocide approving websit.

What exactly is it about ethnic homogoneity that makes a place inherently bad?

Exactly. I hear that Japan, South Korea and Iceland are, aside from economic woes in the last few years, of course, nice places to live. As for this…

England is remarkably mono-ethnic, outside Greater London. Wales and Scotland are worse. N. Ireland is far more diverse, as there are plenty of people considering themselves Irish rather than British…

Yeah, I’m always telling my friends in Bradford, Birmingham and Manchester what mono-ethnic cities they reside in. They just laugh. I’m not sure why. Anyway, if you don’t think there’s loads of Welsh and Scottish people who don’t see themselves as Welsh and Scottish rather than “British” you can’t have travelled there. I have no great desire to argue on these premises but if you do, at least stick with the facts.

Anyone who thinks concerns with culture and immigration must be explained by “racism” – never mind the notion that this explains all concerns with immigration – is effectively accusing a tremendous chunk of the British population of being bigots. Fair enough. But I put it to you that a country where even David Cameron is 18 times more popular than Nick Griffin is, with no desire to underplay the gross bigotry that’s still expressed in sentiments and actions across the land, not particularly racist. I would then propose that (a) the mixing of distinct cultures, to any great extent, is an experiment – whether it’s meant to be or not – without a lot of precedents that could give cause for optimism, so it’s only natural to be concerned about its outcome, and (b) the cultural mix we have in Britain has had many implications that inspire concerns – tribal conflict, say, and the arrival of distinctly unpleasant practices and beliefs – that can’t be explained by someone’s prejudices because, well – they’re real.

All of which is to say – despite how tempting it seems when you’re subjected to attack by keyboard-warriors such as those in this thread – these aren’t opinions to be treated with glibness or contempt. (Full disclosure: I did.)

@58 Leon Wolfson: Your premise fails, and hard, on the facts. England is remarkably mono-ethnic, outside Greater London. Wales and Scotland are worse.

Casting aside your bigotted prejudice in using the word “worse”, this isn’t true. In Scotland, about 12% of the population are from ethnic minorities — the largest being white English people.

What’s that, you say? White English people are the same ethnicity as white Scots? That’s clearly not true, because if it was true the Scottish National Party wouldn’t get 45% of the vote, and there would be no call for a referendum on Scottish independence.

@60 – Absolutely, if we’re civilised. It’s called “against you and your bigotry”. Meanwhile, you’re trying to cause social divisions by attacking anyone not like you.

@65 – You’ve evidently utterly ignored my use of England/Wales and Scotland, i.e. you haven’t read my posts.

….

And THAT kids, is why talking about it in anything but economic terms to each other is a mistake – the right will admit of no facts pertaining to immigration and it’s a complete and utter waste of time.

47. JasonW

Opposing immigration because you don’t like foreign people *is* racist, whether you dress it up as “identity issues” or not. Pandering to it isn’t going to help.

So you think those Palestinians who rioted over Jewish immigration in the 1920s and 1930s were all racists?

How about the Native Americans who fought to keep white people out of their lands?

How about the Welsh who burn English holiday homes down?

6. the a&e charge nurse

I suppose the cultural arguments might be less toxic if everybody is doing well, but as the recession deepens it is almost inevitable that competition for dwindling resources will foster a climate of resentment?

Social democracy and welfare go together with ethnic homogeneity. Countries like Sweden have welfare states because they are essentially one people and have been for a long time. Countries like America do not even have a socialist party because, it seems, they have a large Black population. High levels of trust are necessary to have a strong welfare state. Countries with low levels of trust can have welfare states, Italy for instance, even when they are relatively homogeneous, but they also tend to have massive tax evasion.

We are moving towards a population more like Brazil with a few rich whites and a large Black underclass. It is inevitable that we will also move towards a political system more like Brazil too – weak democracy, low trust, incompetent and corrupt government and no welfare state.

All resources are scarce. All the time. If we don’t trust poor people not to mug us or murder us, we won’t want to give them our money. We will want the military to step in and protect us instead. The whole of Europe has become more multi-cultural. The whole of Europe is stepping back from the welfare state.

@29

This is why I say it is interesting that Remembrance day has disappeared from London.

It has? Well cor’lummy if I wasn’t up Whitehall way a few weeks back and there wasn’t a shitting great marble memorial to our war dead, just ripe for putting a set of wreaths upon right about, say, now. And are you telling me that when I go down to visit my family over the next few weeks, I won’t see several bundles of said wreaths at the bottom of every memorial in every London borough I pass through? Someone should be tole, I say!

It’s quite simple really – populist xenophobic groups will always pick on the minority or minorities it’s easiest to blame for the predicament people find themselves in. For Germany in the ’30s it was the Jews, because their currency was going down the shitter thanks to hyperinflation and the Rothschilds had no problem with that. Couple that with the dregs of Christian recollection – something about the Pharisees? – and you’ve got yourself an instant target. These days it’s the Muslims because – well – aren’t they all terrorists or oil millionaires or something? Oh, and those bloody Eastern Europeans – didn’t we see a movie once about them taking over the world and nuking us all to glass? It shouldn’t be stood for.

Let’s face it though – English culture has little going for it that your average fascist would be willing to understand. It’s not about politics and it’s not about identity – it’s about finding someone or something that they can blame for the maw of inadequacy that slowly tears at their insides, telling them that they are a spent force, no use to anyone or anything. As long as you’ve got a number of people with reason to feel that way numbering in the millions, this is a problem you’re going to have.

@68 – Ah right, the blackies are out to get you! Run, SMFS, run!

Back in reality, the UK is remarkably monocultural. And yet we have a fairly large, radical racist movement. The link you’re looking for exists only in your head.

69. bluepillnation

It’s quite simple really – populist xenophobic groups will always pick on the minority or minorities it’s easiest to blame for the predicament people find themselves in. For Germany in the ’30s it was the Jews, because their currency was going down the shitter thanks to hyperinflation and the Rothschilds had no problem with that.

And for us in the 10s, it is the Bankers? 1% is a pretty small minority after all.

Phil Hunt`s example is a nice demonstration of how the flux of ethnicities within moveable continental borders can be used to entirely misrepresent a comparison with England which is not to say we are unique. France clearly does have a problem and if Leon is under the impression the main Parties will not deal with the National Front he has clear not thought about why it is France has such draconian immigration laws . I would say that France allowed its politics to become to polarised and made a mistake by excluding ethnic resentment form the normal process early enough

Blue Pintillion – I lived in Islington for many years and every ear the lack of any interest in remembrance was a subject of the local Press. I don`t say it is non existent. Of course we can blather on about it all day long but why would people who are not ethnically English have any interest in the central National myths of the English ?
Anthony Neather ,if you recall said , perhaps for a mixture of motives, that the model was London. Hardly surprising London is always being cited as an example of a functioning multicultural City .The problem with that is that London is inhabited in mixed areas overwhelmingly a young mobile population fir whom it is a dormitory not a home and when people, establish families ..we encounter the phenomenon of “White flight ” .It functions as an economic machine then. It does not function as a community and we can see this is a problem because the state has to tip endless funds into organisations which include the word ‘community’ For many people , as David Milliband remarked , Labour has thought about everything except the very things that make life worth while .
I am talking here about the decline of social capital and trust and there is firm evidence that trust is much harder to acquire in an ethically mixed population. David Willets quotes it in his book the Pinch

You are quite wrong if you think I am racist or in a panic . I feel that social capital is being squandered and I would like England to remain fundamentally English including the tolerance and gregariousness of the English. I , in common with the majority , feel that the rate of change has been too fast and not done with any consultation with those affected . The answer is simply to slow change down and allow people time to accommodate. There is nothing dreadful about such views and , as I say they have been the consistently held views of the English for a very long time . Why can we not simply ask our politicians to listen and act with caution in this area ?

SMFS (#67);

Did the Jews in Palestine and the American colonists intend to abide by the existing political structure there? Immigrants into the UK aren’t stealing your land.

I’m a bit baffled by your inclusion of the Welsh example though – those are unequivocally racist actions.

(if you put aside the tedious quibbles we’ve already been over about whether it’s really “race” or not. I could call it xenophobia perhaps but that has more implications of cheeky quirky grumbling and fewer implications of violent hatred.)

XXX (#55); I’m not saying we should ignore the problem, I’m saying that accepting and validating their “concerns” as legitimate is entirely the wrong direction to take.

The left can only talk about immigration once they apologise for lying about it (according to Lord Glasman), and for changing the face of British society without asking the people whether they wanted the changes that were being imposed from up high. Is it any wonder people are scared about what’s happening to the country? An E-Petition asking for stricter immigration controls reached 100,000 signatures in only 4 days which shows the depth of feeling on this issue.

As Nick Ferrari said on the Today Show, we must have an honest debate about immigration and it’s effects on wages, employment, quality of life, environment etc. The Political Classes simply don’t talk about the issue, or brand anyone with concerns as racist. If we keep going on like this, the BNP will make a come-back. The best way to stop the BNP is to discuss openly about immigration without the PC brigade on our backs.

73. JasonW

Did the Jews in Palestine and the American colonists intend to abide by the existing political structure there? Immigrants into the UK aren’t stealing your land.

The Jews did not steal land in the 1930s either. They intended to abide by the law in the 1930s too. Were the Palestinians wrong to correctly surmise that they only intended to do so as long as they had to and that they intended to build another country in their own land? Were they wrong to resist this immigration?

I’m a bit baffled by your inclusion of the Welsh example though – those are unequivocally racist actions.

And yet the Left tends to endorse them.

@75 Lord Glasman is a bellend, even his blue labour chums would agree with that one, since he effectively killed off his own sub-movement with his clueless pronouncements. Plus Glasman is either centrist, or centre right, so I think “the left” can take any demands he makes of them with a pinch of salt.

SMFS; are you taking the position that immigration is being driven by some as-yet-unrecognised conspiracy to take over the country?

Also, fortunately, I’m not responsible for the views of “the Left” and they’re not responsible for mine.

78. JasonW

SMFS; are you taking the position that immigration is being driven by some as-yet-unrecognised conspiracy to take over the country?

No. But I don’t think there was such a conspiracy in Palestine either. Although we do know that some people in the New Labour movement intended to introduce mass immigration to screw the Tories and permanently change the population and hence the voting behaviour of Britain.

Also, fortunately, I’m not responsible for the views of “the Left” and they’re not responsible for mine.

But you are responsible for your view that the Palestinians who rioted and the Welsh nationalists are racists. Is that what you think? Native Americans too? How about Australian Aboriginees?

To be perfectly honest, DisgustedOfTunbridgeWells @30 hit the nail firmly on the head.
It is the right that marches up to unemployed/underpaid people and says “You! Worthless creature! I demand that you get on your bike and uproot yourself to where the work is, you miserable parasite!” Then when complying with this modest proposal requires said people to cross national boundaries that’s when the shit hits the fan, and the same right that demands free movement of capital, jobs and labour then decides it’s actually in favour of closed borders, for labour.

The left on the other hand is not so much in favour of immigration, as it is opposed to discrimination or persecution on bigoted or arbitrary grounds, which immigrants suffer by being immigrants. Pro-immigrant, a different beast to pro-immigration. If everyone in the world decided of their own accord that they simply weren’t going to immigrate to the UK the left would not be concerned about that in the slightest. (Except quite possibly over the reasons why people don’t want to move here, I mean how much standard immigration does say, Chernobyl see?)

The left has no ball in play in ensuring that large numbers of people be transported here, as opposed to the right, who wish to ensure the supply of labour outstrips demand, thus keeping Britain “competitive”.

If the right wants to keep Britain “competitive”, they don’t need to allow mass immigration. Thatcher was strongly anti-immigration, and yet she was able to achieve her aims of keeping Britain “competitive” by weakening trade unions, employment protection acts, contractionary fiscal and monetary policies etc etc.

It’s not true that the right are conflicted when it comes to immigration. If they want to undermine the working class, using immigration to do it is quite a convoluted way of going about things. They can simply use economic policy to do that.

And there are many on the left who argue for no borders at all. For example,

http://www.noii.org.uk/

And this is not a libertarian website, it’s a far left organisation that has support from some trade unions as well. And this is another thing I find surprising, how the UK Trade Unions are so pro-immigration. If you look at the US, their unions are much more protectionist and opposed to mass immigration.

@Paul Newman #72:

I lived in Islington for many years and every [y]ear the lack of any interest in remembrance was a subject of the local Press.

Really? I take it you don’t live in Islington now, then?

Residents are invited to join the 5 events for Islington’s Remembrance Week being held this year.

At 11am on Wednesday 9 November, a wreath-laying ceremony will take place at the Civilian and Military War Memorials at Islington and St Pancras Cemetery in East Finchley.

At 11am on Friday 11 November, members of the Islington Veterans’ Association will observe the Royal British Legion’s Two Minute Silence with a short ceremony on the Town Hall steps. Police will stop traffic on Upper Street.

At 10am on Sunday 13 November a Remembrance Parade will set off from Highbury Fields to Islington Green via Islington Town Hall. A full Inter-Faith Service we be held from 10.40am at Islington Green with a two-minute silence at 11am.

Further Remembrance Sunday events will take place at the War Memorial at Spa Green, EC1 at 11.40am and at 2pm at the WWI Memorial Arch at Manor Gardens, N7 (the site of the former Royal Northern Hospital).

http://www.islington.gov.uk/Environment/parks/manage_greenspaces/greenspace_events/?extra=1

Your own opinions – fine; your own facts – just no.

@ JasonW

“if you put aside the tedious quibbles we’ve already been over about whether it’s really “race” or not”

Actually a very important consideration for someone who likes to label people as racist in every other sentence.

@ -JasonW

“if you put aside the tedious quibbles we’ve already been over about whether it’s really “race” or not”

Actually a very important consideration for someone who likes to label people as racist in every other sentence.

@81 Look at the name of the link “No one is illegal”, now what did I say was the left’s primary concern? That they were pro-immigrant, not so much pro-immigration?

The right likes to make the case that the left intentionally wants people to move here, that they actually undertook the task of transporting unprecedented numbers of people to Britain during New Labour’s neo-liberal reign for, er, some reason or other, that probably involves hating White British people, or something.

Immigrants are playing by the rules rightwingers have set, that capital and jobs have the freedom to move where they will, so the labour needs to follow, the left takes the stance that it is unfair to punish people just for having danced to the tune that the the right compelled them to. As DOTW said, it’s the right’s problem that they cannot reconcile free markets with nationalism, not the left’s.

Robin Levelt – Yes and the lack of interest in such events was always the subject of sad refection from people who remembered the days when the streets were lined and the place had a community instead of a Community Officer.
I live in Lewes now and everyone will be involved today . My eldest son marched with the school and will be doing so with “Beavers ” this afternoon. Two minutes was observed this morning at Lewes RFC and throughout the Town , on top of the famous bonfire celebrations, which have an element of remembrance.
In Islington, unless you wanted to,you could easily spend a day and not even know something was happening. Do you get it ?
Honestly ,why do you have to cloud the glaringly obviously true . It only makes you look like a liar with an agend . Are you ?

Cyclux that is an infantile characterisation of the Conservative view. No , it is not suggested that New Labour engaged in a policy of aggressive settlement. It is suggested that under circumstances where inward migration pressure was inevitable New Labour were pleased with the results of loosening migration laws and the changes this has caused.They were pleased for a variety of reasons but as Neather said

“Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.
“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.”

Rings true to me but perhaps Liberal Conspracists regular audience would like to prove me wrong but suggesting how they would like to see immigration reduced in line with the wishes of the people

Otherwise it might look as if the left do hate Englishness at least to the extent they will not lift a finger to protect it

‘Paul Newman #85:

Yes and the lack of interest in such events was always the subject of sad refection from people who remembered the days when the streets were lined and the place had a community instead of a Community Officer.

I have attended the last 13 Remembrance Sunday events at Islington Green and this was the biggest I remember. What was particularly impressive was the large number of young people from the borough’s many youth organisations who were there.

One only had to look at the cards on the wreaths which were laid to see the wide spectrum of Islington life represented.

http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/islington-life/letters/the_people_honoured_islington_s_dead_1_736641

@Paul Newman #86:

Rings true to me but perhaps Liberal Conspracists regular audience would like to prove me wrong but suggesting how they would like to see immigration reduced in line with the wishes of the people

How do you know that this is the wish of the British people? That is, how do you know how much and whether the British people would wish to see immigration reduced if in possession of the full facts? Because the facts certainly aren’t out there now – and the Daily Mail tendency bears a large part of the responsibility for that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/27/support-poll-support-far-right

According to the survey, 39% of Asian Britons, 34% of white Britons and 21% of black Britons wanted all immigration into the UK to be stopped permanently, or at least until the economy improved. And 43% of Asian Britons, 63% of white Britons and 17% of black Britons agreed with the statement that “immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country”. Just over half of respondents – 52% – agreed with the proposition that “Muslims create problems in the UK”.

Cylux @ 84:

“The right likes to make the case that the left intentionally wants people to move here, that they actually undertook the task of transporting unprecedented numbers of people to Britain during New Labour’s neo-liberal reign for, er, some reason or other, that probably involves hating White British people, or something.”

I believe the phrase used was “to rub the Right’s nose in diversity”, actually.

Jason @ 74:

“I’m not saying we should ignore the problem, I’m saying that accepting and validating their “concerns” as legitimate is entirely the wrong direction to take.”

So what are you saying here, that nobody has or ever will suffer as a result of immigration, and therefore any supposed “concerns” they raise are illegitimate? Or that they do, but for some reason they shouldn’t be allowed to express concern at this?

Also, other surveys have found that people in this country are more concerned about immigration than other countries in Europe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2011/02/why_are_we_so_concerned_about_im.html

“According to the research commissioned by US and European think-tanks, people in the UK are much more likely to say there are “too many” immigrants than comparable nations. In Britain the figure is 59% compared to 27% in Germany and the Netherlands – both countries with a higher level of foreign-born residents.

British respondents to the survey by Transatlantic Trends [976KB PDF] are the most likely to say that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are a burden on social services. Two-thirds of Britons see immigration as “more of a problem than an opportunity” compared to around 50% in the US and mainland Europe.”

There is significant concern about immigration in this country. You read the comments section of any newspaper article concerning immigration, even in the liberal press like the Guardian, and the vast majority of the comments are for much stricter limits on immigration and anger at the way the immigration has been handled.

In a democracy, politicians are supposed to respond to people’s worries and concerns. So it’s only fair that the political class finally take notice of what people have been trying to tell them for a long time. If we get tough on immigration, the threat from the far right will disappear.

Also, the liberal left needs to realise that many of the people most affected by immigration are those that you claim to help, the working classes, as they’ve had to fight over scarce resources in terms of housing, health and schooling due to mass immigration in certain parts of the country.

People like David Goodhart of Prospect get it, it’s about time the Labour Party and the left movement do as well. There are actually encouraging signs from people like Yvette Cooper, who seems to want to get a grip on immigration. Moreover, Ed Balls’ suggestion that the free movement of Labour within the EU be halted was courageous as well.

Robin @ 88:

“Because the facts certainly aren’t out there now – and the Daily Mail tendency bears a large part of the responsibility for that.”

When one side refuses to enter their debate, and indeed often acts as if even acknowledging that there is a debate makes somebody an evil racist, you’ll find that things tend to get a bit unbalanced like that.

It’s quite simple really – populist xenophobic groups will always pick on the minority or minorities it’s easiest to blame for the predicament people find themselves in.

Of course populist groups are complaining about immigration–populist groups always pick on minorities. Therefore, we can disregard the opinion of anyone who complains about the current immigration regime.

@XXX #93:

When one side refuses to enter their debate, and indeed often acts as if even acknowledging that there is a debate makes somebody an evil racist, you’ll find that things tend to get a bit unbalanced like that.

Are you seriously suggesting that the reason why the Mail is so viciously xenophobic is because no-one wants to engage their vicious xenophobia with sweet reason? That the paper of “human responsibilities not human rights” is not responsible for its own coverage. That the paper of “Winterval” would correct its coverage immediately if someone would give them correct information?

Most politicians fear negative coverage in papers read by millions; they will not enter into a fight that they know they can’t win (because the editor of the paper controls what goes into his paper’s pages). That doesn’t absolve the papers of responsibility for what they publish.

IMO the social cohesion aspects of large scale immigration are politically and socially important as well as the economic consequences for the labour market but there are many signs that some folk are absolutely obsessed about immigration to the extent where they would have us believe no other issues really matter – and that certainly ain’t so.

Majorities of the public have been in favour of reducing immigration for some decades. The Mail and the Express are read by a 30th and an 100th of the population respectively. Imma take a wild guess that it’s not just tabloidism that makes people fans of borders.

The left is indeed all over the place on this issue. We have a process that is sure to increase inequality, poverty, social disharmony, wage stagnation, etc, etc, etc–basically, across every dimension that the left claims to care about, its impact is negative. Yet anyone who proposes to speak honestly about this, like Glasman, is pilloried and driven from the village by poo-slinging natives.

@98 Exactly, immigration has damaged the people the left are supposed to represent, and there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement of that. Mass immigration puts downward pressure on wages at the lower end of the distribution, it puts pressure on housing, schools, community cohesion; the increased competition for jobs leads to unemployment and pushes people in poverty, and yet the left are silent on all this. David Goodhart was right that the the left need to become the anti immigration party. It’s not the right that are ideologically troubled by their opposition to immigration, it’s the left.

Lefty creeps are all for nationalism and indeed Blood & Soil if that nationalism, blood and soil is African or Middle Eastern.

Then the culture, history, society and indeed racial makeup of the country (and that makeup not being swamped and forever changed) is so important and a just cause!!

Racists, bigots and/ or self-loathers the lot of you.

‘benSix #97:

Majorities of the public have been in favour of reducing immigration for some decades.

And for some decades the narrative has been dominated by the xenophobes. I don’t remember any mature discussion of the issue at any time since I began reading papers daily – decades ago.

The Mail and the Express are read by a 30th and an 100th of the population respectively.

Sorry, Ben, but wrong on two counts. Firstly, isn’t it a bit disingenuous to include in your figures newborn babies who wouldn’t be able to express an opinion on immigration even if they had read the Mail.

Secondly, according to the Mail, its readership is 4,622,000:

http://www.mailclassified.co.uk/circulation-readership/circulation-readership

@101: “I don’t remember any mature discussion of the issue at any time since I began reading papers daily – decades ago.”

Try the memorandum submitted by Professor Rowthorn to the HoL Select Committee on Economic Affairs for the Committee’s report on The Economic Impact of Immigation:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/7100902.htm

That is, how do you know how much and whether the British people would wish to see immigration reduced if in possession of the full facts?

And what are these “full facts”?

It seems to me that, were the British people furnished with the “full facts”–absent the usual absurd lump of labour-type fallacies–they would be quite enraged. Is it a coincidence that they are not furnished with these facts? I suspect not. But that’s me, I’m a suspicious kinda guy.

@vimothy #103:

It seems to me that, were the British people furnished with the “full facts”–absent the usual absurd lump of labour-type fallacies–they would be quite enraged.

So which facts are they missing that would make them even more enraged than they already are?

Robin -

And for some decades the narrative has been dominated by the xenophobes. I don’t remember any mature discussion of the issue at any time since I began reading papers daily – decades ago.

Basically, I suspect it’s a mistake to think public attitudes are determined by the meeja alone. They can be, of course – think of Iraq – and I’m sure they’re coloured by the phenomenona of the daily news, but I suspect it’s a determinant of temporal trends and not sustained opinions. If attitudes have been maintained over a period decades not by, say, the philosophical premises of citizens, and their own observations but their morning reading — well, I doubt it. And, by the way, I’ve become extremely sceptical of mass migration and I’ve never bought a paper except the Grauniad!

Fair point about the Mail, though. I retract the claim.

SR819 -

David Goodhart was right that the the left need to become the anti immigration party.

Sorry to be Mr Semantic but “anti-immigration” is misnomer that’s worth burying. Opposition to the mass migration of recent decades doesn’t mean you’re “anti-immigration” any more than opposition to the kind of regulation-free-for-all that our financial sector’s been in recent years means you’re “anti-market”.

Well, I summarised some of the effects of immigration in comment #98.

Of course, I didn’t take into account the implied trends wrt demography, which I don’t think people will be too enthusiastic about, to say the least.

Basically, if politicians were to say to the public, “immigration is making the rich richer and the poor poorer, but don’t worry, because whatever you lose in welfare is more than made up by what immigrants gain (and what we gain, of course)–oh and by the way, they are gradually replacing you in your own country”, I think that would be sufficient to make large numbers of people freak out in a rather epic fashion.

Robin -When we are reduced to “The Public only know what the Mail tell them” the soft thud of towel being thrown in can be discerned. I am yet to be convinced you occupy some loftier perch than average. If that…
At another time we will discuss the bias this way or that,of the media. Lets just remember that the BBC and the Liberal Press along with the entire political class colluded in the fiction that immigration was an economic good . This was such an obviously simplistic position, at odds with people`s experience that eventually the matter was dissected by the House Of Lords Economic Affairs Committee .They concluded there was no Economic Advantage to immigration, that it increased House Prices and competition for employment and that the main beneficiaries were the immigrants themselves
These facts had been hidden and misrepresented for years by the media

On Remembrance -My mother has tells me it seems to be coming back into fashion a bit. This is obviously not to be compared to the whole Borough `s involvement years ago.So I return to my question. Why will you not admit what is so patently true,do you not understand that there is a point at which is actually self defeating ?

SMFS@71:

And for us in the 10s, it is the Bankers? 1% is a pretty small minority after all.

Even if it weren’t for the right-wing press basically indoctrinating their readers with the idea that we must do everything the bankers want, the fact is that the 1% tend to live in high-security gated communities in the upscale areas of London and the Home Counties, thus it’s harder for your average fascist to start a ruck with them – as I said, it’s all about unleashing their rage at their feelings of impotence onto a weak and easy target.

@PaulNeumann (Always sounds better in the original German :

I’ve lived in Islington and Haringey for the last 15 years, and while you’re not going to get the mass participation you get in a small town like Lewes (which I also know well – I have friends who live there), the ceremonies still take place and are noted. It’s not even a question of holding with English traditions – given that a significant number of “our” dead in both World Wars were from all over the then-Empire, including modern-day Indians, Pakistanis, Nepalese, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders – not to mention Irish-, Scots- and Welshmen. It’s just that for most people living in and around the central London boroughs these days, the wars were a long time ago. There has been no “white flight” from the centre of London since the early ’70s at the most recent, but the real reason that most of the people for whom remembrance is a personal thing live outside central London is because they were offered larger houses in the Home Counties and suburbs for less money from the ’50s to the ’70s. They stayed put, and a lot of their kids and grandkids moved back into the city later on.

” … some as-yet-unrecognised conspiracy to take over the country?”

Someone needs to tell this women to keep shtum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53A5AJoRxF0

@72 – “including the tolerance and gregariousness of the English.”

That’s a spit in the face and “get the fuck out of out country” then, from your comments, given the already extremely homogeneous nature of England. I hear what you’re telling me.

@81 – Ah, is that what you call Thatcher causing massive amounts of damage, which still hasn’t healed, to this country.

@98/99 – You forgot the satanic souls of immigrants which poison those around them. In your conspiracy theory about the “damage” that occurs when people dare cross a national boundary.

@103 – It seems to be that if they were told how many jobs have lost because of the skilled migrants turned away or discouraged by the new “system”, and the loss of foreign, paying students they would most certainly be enraged, yes.

And if they lied as your post 106 suggests then they probably would cause the murder of perfectly innocent people. It’s no surprise you advocate that, of course. Rivers of blood!

:@107 – Ah yes, another conspiracy nut I see. Here’s a free hint to the solution: The Jews Dun It.

According to this BBC Newsnight report from 2008, 40pc of London residents were born abroad:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7368326.stm

By reports, the number of jews living in Britain has been falling but that doesn’t mean Britain is becoming less multicultural.

Of course the number of Jews is falling and attacks on them increasing…follows the timeline of the fetid Islamic invasion of the country…ironically helped along by idiots like Leon!

But suicide is what this country’s now best at

Even if you got rid of every non white person in the UK the Right would find some other group to hate. Jews,gays,catholics, were the usual targets before immigration.

As the former televangelist Jerry Falwell once said ” if gays did not exist, we would have to invent them.”

The Right needs a constant bogey man to keep it’s base energised. It’s cultural wars keep the sheeple distracted.

@81

If the right wants to keep Britain “competitive”, they don’t need to allow mass immigration. Thatcher was strongly anti-immigration, and yet she was able to achieve her aims of keeping Britain “competitive” by weakening trade unions, employment protection acts, contractionary fiscal and monetary policies etc etc.

You’ve just proven my point perfectly and the terrifying part is this massive contradiction is so internalized on the right you haven’t even noticed.

Capital? Let the market decide.
Goods? Let the market decide.
Labour? Well, we’re clearly going to need the state to sort this out.

Even ‘Mrs TINA’ was at it, by your own admission and yet you don’t think it represents any kind of conflict.

Bizarre.

115 Nails it.

To these people the market is a religion that has to be worshipped. Buy to let is the classic folly of these people. Foreigners buying up numerous properties, which prevent the Englishman from buying a house is seen as just fine.

The market trumps everything in their flat earth mind.

@112 – Sorry to debunk another conspiracy theory, but from the mid 2000′s the number of Jews in England has been rising.

@113 – The Jewish community in this country gets on remarkably well with British Muslims. The VAST majority of attacks are from EDL/BNP members like you.

@45; MyJewish Great Grandfather would disagree. I also support Searchlight in their efforts to expose the insidious racism that pervades our society. I didn’t state a conspiracy theory, I made a statement of fact, white English people are discouraged from identifying themselves as such, at the behest of the PC Brigade. If I identify myself as white British, that’s fine. If I identify myself as white English, suddenly I’m a racist. The PC Brigade took what was a basically sound idea, promoting tolerance and understanding between different cultures, and they mutated the thinking until they became some non-uniform wearing branch of the fascist movement. Racists, homophobes, woman-haters, man-haters, religious bigots and the PC Brigade, all the bad elements of society who create tension between different groups. I wish people would realise that the only good reason for hating a particular group is their political position, which is why I despise the tory party.

“Europe is not going to be the monolithic societies that they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the center of that; it’s a huge transformation to make they are now going into a multicultural mode and Jews will be resented because of our leading role, but without that leading role and without that transformation Europe will not survive.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53A5AJoRxF0

@117: “Sorry to debunk another conspiracy theory, but from the mid 2000?s the number of Jews in England has been rising.”

“From 1990 to 2006, the Jewish population showed a decrease from 340,000 Jews to 270,000. According to the 1996 Jewish Policy Review, nearly one in two are marrying people who do not share their faith. From 2005 to 2008, the Jewish population increased from 275,000 to 280,000, attributed largely to the high birth rates of Haredi (or ultra-Orthodox) Jews. Research by the University of Manchester in 2007 showed that 75 percent of British Jewish births were to the Haredi community.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Jews

By my admitedly secular way of counting, 280,000 is less than 340,000.

Leon the moaning old Jewish moaner who screams abuse at anyone but Muslims for Increasing attacks on Jews.

Thus nothing is done. An apologist for the religion that’s wiping your people out in the uk.

Oh well. Keep on bitching about the EDL as the mosque ring out with hate.

Sad cunt

@119: “Jews are going to be at the center of that”

With a population in Britain of 280,000, it’s difficult believing that, not least because the number of ethnic Indians living in Britain is so much larger and the Muslims claim to number 1.8 million. Besides, I thought the master race angle had rather gone out of fashion since the demise of the Third Reich c. 1945.

@Bob B #102:

Try the memorandum submitted by Professor Rowthorn to the HoL Select Committee on Economic Affairs for the Committee’s report on The Economic Impact of Immigation:

I meant in the printed and broadcast media. The one thing both vimothy and I agree on is that there is a dearth of sensible discussion of immigration in those media; albeit we differ as to who is to blame for it. His view is that the pro-immigration establishment/ruling class suppresses intelligent debate on the issue in the public square – ie in the media; mine is that the coverage from certain news sources is so poisonous that it is impossible for any politician to put a case for the benefits of immigration for fear of being howled down.

I would be interested to know which papers you are aware of that properly covered the HL report and the memorandum to which you have referred me.

@vimothy #98:

We have a process that is sure to increase inequality, poverty, social disharmony, wage stagnation, etc, etc, etc–basically, across every dimension that the left claims to care about, its impact is negative.

Irrespective of the truth of that claim – are you seriously telling me that it has not been aired ad nauseam over the least few decades? I asked you what facts the British public hadn’t been exposed to that would increase their rage.

@Paul Newman #107:

Robin -When we are reduced to “The Public only know what the Mail tell them” the soft thud of towel being thrown in can be discerned.

What a good job, then, that that isn’t what I said.

…the matter was dissected by the House Of Lords Economic Affairs Committee .They concluded there was no Economic Advantage to immigration, that it increased House Prices and competition for employment and that the main beneficiaries were the immigrants themselves…

Which version have you been reading?

@ – 117 “The VAST majority of attacks are from EDL/BNP members like you”

Really? Care to prove that? Let me go first:

“The organisation, which monitors incidents against Jewish people and organisations, said the rise was linked to last year’s Gaza conflict …”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8499450.stm

“The number of attacks on Jews in Britain has risen sharply since Israeli attacks began on Gaza last December …

Among the crimes recorded by the trust were violent street assaults, hate e-mails and graffiti threatening British Jews …

… prominent British Muslim scholars and progressive thinkers denounced the attacks, saying British Jews “should not be held responsible” for Israel’s actions in Gaza.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7887511.stm

Now you.

Lets see these BNP / EDL attacks on Jews and how they make up the vast majority …

@ 122

Yet still this government sponsored, award-winning, lecture-touring organisation director still makes these claims.

Why? Is she making it up completely? If so, why no universal condemnation.

Could it be that disproportionate influence in politics, banking and media – to which no Muslim can compare – play a part?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/16/pro-israel-lobby-conservatives-channel4-dispatches

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_American_businesspeople#Banking_and_finance

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein19-2008dec19,0,4676183.column

@123 Robin

The Telegraph printed an article on immigration by Prof Rowthorn on immigration in 2006:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3626107/Never-have-we-seen-immigration-on-this-scale-we-just-cant-cope.html

Why I noticed this is because Prof Rowthorn is normally regarded as a “leftist”, after the Cambridge tradition, and with Marxist leanings in his case too so it was a little strange when the Telegraph printed a piece by him.

An economic case can be made for immigration – just as a case can be made for inward investment which most consider beneficial and which successive governments have sought to attract. But just as inward investment is inclined to depress the returns to capital of established producers, so inward migration is inclined to depress the returns that workers earn in the job market in terms of the same theoretical analysis – the relevant citation is Donald MacDougall: “The benefits and costs of private investment from abroad” Economic Record 1960. Donald MacDougall became chief economic adviser in HM Treasury following Sir Alec Cairncross

There is nothing particularly unorthodox in what I’m posting here.

Robin,

I don’t recall any politicians making this argument to the public. As a principle of logic, this is not something that I can prove, and we cannot very well review every statement made by every politician ever. You can prove me wrong though–if in fact I am wrong.

Robin -

…it is impossible for any politician to put a case for the benefits of immigration for fear of being howled down.

I agree that Blunkett, Woolas and others have tapped into anti-immigration feeling to court public favour but I’m not sure they have a splendid rationale for mass migration they’re too scared to offer. For one thing, when Blunkett, Blair and others have come out in defence of their migration policies, after they’d stood down, they’ve only offered vague platitudes.

It could be said, of course, that that’s all Blair knows.

Robin @ 95:

“Are you seriously suggesting that the reason why the Mail is so viciously xenophobic is because no-one wants to engage their vicious xenophobia with sweet reason?”

No, I’m suggesting that, when the pro-immigration side think it beneath them to explain their position, it’s not surprising that public opinion is largely against them.

@Bob B #102:

The Telegraph printed an article on immigration by Prof Rowthorn on immigration in 2006:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3626107/Never-have-we-seen-immigration-on-this-scale-we-just-cant-cope.html

Why I noticed this is because Prof Rowthorn is normally regarded as a “leftist”, after the Cambridge tradition, and with Marxist leanings in his case too so it was a little strange when the Telegraph printed a piece by him.

As a leftist with Marxist leanings the idea that Rowthorn would have any sympathy with the Blair government is remote; and that is presumably a good reason for the Telegraph to print the article – Blair not being their kind of Tory.

More directly – I was asking about sensible coverage of the HL select committee report and Rowthorn’s memorandum.

@XXX #131:

No, I’m suggesting that, when the pro-immigration side think it beneath them to explain their position, it’s not surprising that public opinion is largely against them.

Beneath them? Politically inadvisable – closer to the truth. The Sun, the Mail, the Express, will all “stand up for the British working man” against any suggestion by a politician that immigration is in any way for the benefit of the country. It is fear, not arrogance, that prevents the arguments on the merits of immigration being put – that and difficulty in finding a mass medium in which the arguments will be accurately reported.

The participation of the colonies, as they then were, is irrelevant, Remembrance day is about our past not another country`s.Immigration form the 60s in any case has been simple economic migration and we were not the first choice .

When I think to all the people I know, the second their children reach school age they make a choice and the vast majority get out of Dodge City.Amongst the people with tricky choices when their kids went to school were Dianne Aboot who sent hers to Public school, Emily Thornberry, who found some ancient connection between Islington and a Potters Bar Grammar and Ruth Kelly one of whose brood discovered Middle-class dyslexia got statemented and moved. In fact when we are not being told there is no white flight we are being told white flight is responsible for the ghettoes of our Major Cities so I `d appreciate it if you would make your mind up . Evidence ?
This is also mixed in with a “Stage of life ” chromatography which is equally atomising and nothing to do with your just so story of housing. The growth in value of your main asset makes people want to stay as does the vast amount of social housing which accommodates about half of Islington, 70% of which are on benefits of some kind .
London was once a City of villages and close knit communities. Now it is a lonely place where no-one knows their neighbours and a largely transient young and immigrant population don`t argue much because they have nothing worth protecting.

By the way I see a number of posts which say …Ho ho but the logic of your vile Gladstonian Laissez Fair Capitalism is that workers should be free to move.
I think that is the position, to some extentof the more Liberal Conservatives and business interests. It is, however highly un conservative in other ways , the ways that value the diffuse knowledge and value of social institutions and traditions. Nationhood , for example .
What you have come upon is the reason we get so excited about Europe
That is the fault line between philosophical Liberalism and Conservatism. Only for you ” Children of the book” is it unbearable to leave such a dissonance unresolved .
Its a growing up thing really .

@133: “Now it is a lonely place where no-one knows their neighbours and a largely transient young and immigrant population don`t argue much because they have nothing worth protecting.”

In fact, London’s population was already in decline since before WW2 and that decline continued until the late 1980s. It has been growing since. If London is so awful, why do so many want to come and live in London?

London’s population was already a million at the time of Britain’s first census in 1801 – when it was the largest urban conglomeration in the world at that time. Disraeli famously wrote about London as the modern Babylon in 1847.

Try this map of Britain showing the largest concentrations of residents who were not born here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/html/overview.stm

@119 – Ah yes, another anti-Semetic conspiracy theorist has turned up.

@121 – FACT: The VAST majority of attacks on Jews come from your kind of person, the EDL/BNP, not Muslims. Facts of course have no place in your world, and your attacks on me show your anti-Semitism.

BobB, you’re just showing you don’t understand the mentality of the far right on this. They REALLY DO believe the Jews are behind it all, that there’s this vast conspiracy.

@128 – Of course, if you buy into the moral panic then you’re not going to look outside it.

@133/134 – Absolutely. Nation states for the 99% are a recent phenomena which has little real relevance to them, as opposed to their local area.

And I like your repeated slams against the poor…people in council houses tend to stay put. But don’t worry, the government is working on displacing them with their new rents, which will soon be above housing benefit rates in most places, leaving poorer people without housing options and thus richer people will take council housing…

@ 136

“Ah yes, another anti-Semetic conspiracy theorist has turned up.”

Actually, no – these are not my words as anyone who watches the video can see.

“FACT: The VAST majority of attacks on Jews come from your kind of person, the EDL/BNP, not Muslims. Facts of course have no place in your world, and your attacks on me show your anti-Semitism.”

Then you should have no problem whatsoever proving that ‘fact’ then.

Put up or shut up.

“Economics professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge University …
In evidence to Parliament, he said: “Large-scale immigration will lead to a rapid and sustained growth in population, with negative economic and environmental consequences in the form of overcrowding, congestion, pressure on housing and public services and loss of environmental amenities.
“It also undermines the labour market position of the most vulnerable and least skilled sections of the local workforce, including many in the ethnic minority population, who must compete against the immigrants.”
The professor also said there was no evidence to back the Government’s ecomomic case for allowing large numbers of people to move here …
He told a House of Lords committee: “Large-scale immigration is of minor economic benefit to the existing population of the UK as a whole, although it is certainly of benefit to the immigrants, their families and sometimes their countries of origin.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-488938/Immigration-set-increase-Britains-population-third.html#ixzz1dcauw4da

@ 128

By Economics professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge University.

The Cambridge expert is a consultant to the International Monetary Fund, the UN Commission on Trade and Development and the International Labour organisation.

“If you repeat something often enough, you can perhaps make people believe it. What you cannot do is turn it from being false into being true. And the Government’s claim about the economic benefits of immigration is false. As an academic economist, I have examined many serious studies that have analysed the economic effects of immigration.

It is bizarre that the Labour Party, which still continues to insist that it is the party of the poor and vulnerable, should endorse a policy the purpose of which is the creation of what Marx called “a reserve army of labour”: a pool of workers whose presence ensures that rates of pay for cleaners and ancillary staff in the NHS can be kept as low as possible …

The only justification the Government has ever given for increasing immigration is the economic benefits it alleges immigration has for the existing population. But those benefits are a mirage, and if they are the only justification the Government has, it is following a policy which is based on a fundamental error.

We desperately need an honest debate on the issue. But if the Government’s record is anything to go by, it will do everything it can to prevent one.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3626107/Never-have-we-seen-immigration-on-this-scale-we-just-cant-cope.html

@ 128

Economics professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge University:

If you repeat something often enough, you can perhaps make people believe it. What you cannot do is turn it from being false into being true. And the Government’s claim about the economic benefits of immigration is false. As an academic economist, I have examined many serious studies that have analysed the economic effects of immigration.

It is bizarre that the Labour Party, which still continues to insist that it is the party of the poor and vulnerable, should endorse a policy the purpose of which is the creation of what Marx called “a reserve army of labour”: a pool of workers whose presence ensures that rates of pay for cleaners and ancillary staff in the NHS can be kept as low as possible …

The only justification the Government has ever given for increasing immigration is the economic benefits it alleges immigration has for the existing population. But those benefits are a mirage, and if they are the only justification the Government has, it is following a policy which is based on a fundamental error.

We desperately need an honest debate on the issue. But if the Government’s record is anything to go by, it will do everything it can to prevent one.

@138 – “My conspiracy theory isn’t a conspiracy theory”.

Ha.

“77 references to far right discourse, 52 mentions of Israel or the wider Middle East and 12 incidents which involved Islamist discourse”

“78 utilised far right discourse; 44 used anti-Zionist discourse; and 12 used Islamist discourse”

http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/CST_Incidents_Report_first%20six%20months%202011.pdf

@139 – And…it’s not the disaster the right claim. Your point? Yes, some of the money it makes needs to be put back into solving the issues local immigration causes. That’s all.

@140 – Yes, and a honest debate starts with an exam on evidence. Most of the right would immediately fail this…

[140] “The injection of large numbers of unskilled workers into the economy does not benefit the bulk of the population to any great extent. It benefits the nanny-and housecleaner-using classes; it benefits employers who want to pay low wages; but it does not benefit indigenous, unskilled Britons, who have to compete with immigrants willing to work hard for very low wages in unpleasant working conditions” – this only matters if if we make distinctions based on nationality.

Some might see the nationality of workers as virtually irrelevant while others approach the issue from a perspective of national or regional self interest – a situation that can result in this sort of horrible situation.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/all/3323256/part_2/why-would-the-english-working-class-consider-voting-labour-again.thtml

Anyway, the immigration issue goes way beyond name calling (racist, xenophobe, fascist, etc) although as an aside these epithets have become so debased, by virtue of their relentless usage, that they are now virtually meaningless.

@143 – I disagree. They retain the original meanings, but the strong streak of them in Britain has lead to people becoming blasé about people displaying those characteristics!

Looking back over this thread it is a mix of the usual ” Racist racist ” chant ,and a more reasonable but equally fundamentalist defence of ultra high immigration . Phil Hunt and Ben 6 occupy more nuanced positions and I just wanted to pick up Phil Hunts comment 40 about some types of immigration being better than others.This is what Phil said :

I don’t think immigration, per se, necessarily reduces social capital, but some immigration does. Something I’ve not seen acknowledged in this debate is that not all immigrants are equal; some are better than others.

- speak English
- be happy for their son or daughter to marry outside their ethnicity/religion/community
- not be a bigot, e.g. a homophobe

This is just to back up his point
In 1997 a study for the Institute for Public Policy Research showed that32% of Hindu’s , Muslims and Sikhs and 29% of Jews would be repelled if a member of their family married an Afro-Caribbean , whereas only 13% of white Britons said they would have a problem.

On the relative difficulty and unlikelihood of trust and reciprocity between widely divergent ethnicities I can quote Leeda Cosmides and John Tooby” Cognitive Adaption for Social Exchange ” . They did experiments in risk /giving trade off games and discovered a direct reduction in trust between differing ethnicities.( From The Pinch)
There is nothing malign about this necessarily. People within a close group know a lot about each other from very little. They know people who know, them, they know their family and their record …they are happy for them to look after their children .
We are supposed to pretend this transaction is the same with an Australian as with a Sumalian, but it is not and everyone knows that. Its easy to call this racism but ordinary judgement to me.
When this survey says people are concerned about identity this is the sort of real value that is removed from their lives .

@145 – Well yes. Some communities participate fully in this country while retaining a higher intermarriage rate than others; Of course that’s intolerable to some (And not only on the right, on that issue).

(Also, there are Jews of many apparent ethnicities… there was absolutely no issue when one of my Anglo-Saxon appearing Jewish friends married a very dark-skinned Mizrachi Jew. If she hadn’t been Jewish, well…yes, some people within the community would have disapproved)

Focusing on skin colour and breeding rather than participation in this country is the sort of superficial obsession which grips many here. “Class” is routinely used to denigrate anybody not-white.

Compare this with America, where they’ve come to grips with the issue. They’ve HAD to come to grips with the issue. Kids brought up in mixed society don’t have the same degree of xenophobic response, quite simply.

@144

How many nobel prizes does Mr Rowthorn have?

Seeing as he’s apparently refuted the entire basis for competition, he must have them coming out of his arse; when are they putting him on the back of the £20 note?

In fairness Mr Rowthorn is a Marxist, he adopts the position that Marx outlined in the very first chapter (might even be on the first page of some editions, though it isn’t in mine) of the Communist manifesto; that the ‘bourgeoisie mode of production’ leads to a ‘cosmopolian character of consumption’ to the “great chagrin of reactionaries” the result of this is that ” All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed”.

Ergo we can have more respect for Mr Rowthorn than we can of your average tory because at the very least he’s consistent and principled.

Marx also claimed that “The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it [the bourgeoisie mode of production] forces the barbarians’ [by which he means you] intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate.” Though here we are one hundred and fifty-ish years later and not so much.

Here is a pertinent passage you might enjoy;

Instead of looking upon competition as the baneful and anti-social principle which it is held to be by the generality of Socialists, I conceive that, even in the present state of society and industry, every restriction of it is an evil, and every extension of it, even if for the time injuriously affecting some class of labourers, is always an ultimate good.

To be protected against competition is to be protected in idleness, in mental dullness; to be saved the necessity of being as active and as intelligent as other people; and if it is also to be protected against being underbid for employment by a less highly paid class of labourers, this is only where old custom, or local and partial monopoly, has placed some particular class of artisans in a privileged position as compared with the rest; and the time has come when the interest of universal improvement is no longer promoted by prolonging the privileges of a few.

If the slopsellers and others of their class have lowered the wages of tailors, and some other artisans, by making them an affair of competition instead of custom, so much the better in the end. What is now required is not to bolster up old customs, whereby limited classes of labouring people obtain partial gains which interest them in keeping up the present organization of society, but to introduce new general practices beneficial to all; and there is reason to rejoice at whatever makes the privileged classes of skilled artisans feel that they have the same interests, and depend for their remuneration on the same general causes, and must resort for the improvement of their condition to the same remedies, as the less fortunately circumstanced and comparatively helpless multitude.

- John Stuart Mill.

@151 – I’m all for his “Economic Democracy”, sure!

It’s basically compatible with free-market anti-capitalism.

“Planeshift- Its easy to adopt Municipal Nationalism when you have no immigration and the history of National Socialists ,which is what Plaid Cymru are ,is instructive in that is has tended to get worse You would be amazed how left wing and progressive Mussolini was in 1919.”

Plaid consider themselves a post nationalist party though. Their aim is to get wales to be like a scandanavian social democracy with EU membership. I doubt they are secretly plotting to invade poland, or even Cornwall for that matter. Most of their recent supporters were largely attracted to the party because of its anti-war stance more than anything.

You’re wrong about immigration in Wales though. We’ve had a substantial somali community in Cardiff since about 1850, and out of the 4 nations we’ve got the highest proportion of the resident population born elsewhere. That the vast majority of these are English born people who’ve moved here means people don’t see it. And in some areas this has created tensions, particularly with regards to the Welsh language and housing. See this article for example: http://waleshome.org/2011/11/no-home-homeland/

Also note how prejudiced and silly it is. When English people become the victims of racism and prejudice everyone can see it, and realise how stupid it is. Yet in the above article all you would have to do is replace ‘english’ with ‘somali’ and you’d have a standard right wing tabloid rant.

[153] “note how prejudiced and silly it is” – well yes and no?

Competition for resources (which is what we are mainly arguing about) can be argued from a Marxist point of view, or even a god-like Olympian perspective – both however deal with populations rather than the nitty gritty of individual experience.

On a micro level immigration produces winners and losers.
In the Liddle item [see link 147] he memorably says “my guess is that there will be a final net cost to the taxpayer of those glorious seven or eight years when you could get your sink unblocked for 20 quid”. Here he is referring to east european tradesman undercutting local plumbers in Newcastle, Swansea, or Tottenham.

Great if you are a customer but not so great if you are a long standing member of a community struggling to compete – surely it is the affect on quality of life for some (rather than the odious Fail) that is the main driver of resentment to open borders in the EU?

@vimothy #131:

I don’t recall any politicians making this argument

We have a process that is sure to increase inequality, poverty, social disharmony, wage stagnation, etc, etc, etc–basically, across every dimension that the left claims to care about, its impact is negative.

to the public.

Try David Davis this year:

The first reason for Labour’s commitment to mass immigration was obvious. If you bring vast numbers of immigrants into the country, this inflates economic growth figures, even if they all only earn a minimum wage. This of course flattered Gordon Brown’s performance as Chancellor, even though it did not increase the income per person of the population at all.

The second reason was even more cynical. A combination of measures, from the minimum wage to Brown’s easy credit and low interest rate policy, all threatened to increase inflation, particularly wage inflation. Bringing in large numbers of immigrants depressed wages, particularly for unskilled workers. For low skilled jobs in places with high immigrant populations, like London, the minimum wage almost became a maximum wage. In the high immigration years from 2004 onward, the income of the bottom 20% fell despite the economic boom.

Third, Labour’s immigration policy helped disguise a serial failure in the education system. Britain was simply not providing enough young people with the range of skills and personal attributes a modern economy needs. The answer was simple; plug the gap with recruits from everywhere from Poland to Pakistan, from Estonia to India.

Finally, it also covered up another even more serious problem, largely created by Brown himself. When he became Chancellor, Brown imposed complex welfare schemes that undermined our national work ethic. All too often it paid more to stay at home than go to work. As a result we have created a generation where many accept life on welfare.

During the boom years of 2004-2008, youth unemployment grew by 100,000. Labour’s welfare and immigration policies combined to institutionalise a generation into the habits of unemployment.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2011/07/david-davis-mp-labours-mass-immigration-policy-inflated-growth-figures-and-depressed-the-wages-of-un.html

“Like it or not, for significant numbers of people across Europe, immigration is a major concern.”

Tough.

“Tough”

Will be when concern turns to something else because ‘superior’ muppets like you think you can dismiss the concerns of the majority.

@157 Milly: “Will be when concern turns to something else because ‘superior’ muppets like you think you can dismiss the concerns of the majority.”

By EU treaty commitments, there is free movement of EU citizens within the EU.

“The number of low-skilled workers born outside the UK more than doubled between 2002 and 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figures show that almost 20% of low-skilled jobs are held by workers born abroad, up from 9% in 2002. Workers coming to the UK from eastern or central European countries were the biggest single factor in the rise.” [May 2011]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13561094

“By EU treaty commitments, there is free movement of EU citizens within the EU.”

And how many people voted for this? I mean citizens?

Immigration restriction / stopped is what the majority of people, as poll after poll after poll proves, and hardly just in the UK.

@159 – What part of representative democracy don’t you understand?

I could make a poll “proving” people want to slap gingers. All it takes is the right wording.

And of course you want to isolate the UK for your Little Englander utopia, cut off from the world.

@159 Milly: “And how many people voted for this? I mean citizens?”

Try Article 21 of Consolidated Version of The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union:

“Every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, subject to the limitations and conditions laid down in the Treaties and by the measures adopted to give them effect.”
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:0047:0200:en:PDF

So long as Britain is a member of the EU, that applies unless the treaties are amended, which requires the unanimous agreement of all 27 member states. The possible limitations to free movement referred to relate to public security considerations but are only exceptionally invoked. Since accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) in January 1973, we have never elected a government committed to withdrawing from the European Union, as the EEC became with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.

Labour’s manifesto for the 1983 general election committed an incoming Labour government to negotiating withdrawal from the “European Common Market” but the Conservatives won that election with a majority of 140 seats so Britain remained a member. Since then, none of the mainstream parties have gone into general elections proposing to withdraw.

There was a recent vote in Parliament on whether to hold a national referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU:

“David Cameron has defeated a bid to grant a referendum on EU membership, despite the largest rebellion against a Tory prime minister over Europe.

“The motion was defeated by 483 votes to 111, after all Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MPs had been instructed to oppose it.

“In total 81 Tories are known to have defied the whips, while others abstained.” [25 October 2011]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15425256

Bob I am not quite sure what your point is. The Euro sceptic case is that the ruling class have betrayed us not that they haven`t and the EEC/EU et al , have always tied up edicts with the supposed advancement of the Free Trade area from the start. In France and Germany Euro enthusiasts have been quite explicit about this.
The vote we had was in 1975 and it was for a Common Market in the basis that only minor amendments to our self rule would be required. The Euro cause denied any suggestion that we would lose control of our borders. The immigration question has one Party UKIP gaining ground from within Conservatisms broad church and another from the left , the BNP , it is the number one concern of the British (apart form the Economy) and the EU is the first choice for a referendum.

I am struggling to imagine what would have to happen to show a lack of democratic legitimacy for open borders and mass immigration and after the election New Labour were full of apology and contrition. How soon they have forgotten.

@Paul Newman #163:

The vote we had was in 1975 and it was for a Common Market in the basis that only minor amendments to our self rule would be required.

Wrong; you’ve obviously been talking to UKIP again. We had been members of the European Free Trade Area – which was simply a common market – since it was signed. The vote we had in 1975 was on membership of the European Communities (Economic, Coal & Steel, and Euratom); the European Economic Community always envisaged free movement of labour and the removal of national regulations discriminating between Treaty state nationals on the basis of nationality. That was even in the Spaak report (http://aei.pitt.edu/995/ is the download page), which was way back in 1956 and formed the basis for the EEC treaties.

The Courts had by the time of the referendum already accepted the primacy of European law where it applied:

The Treaty [of Rome] does not touch any of the matters which concern solely England and the people in it. These are still governed by English law. They are not affected by the Treaty. But when we come to matters with a European element, the Treaty is like an incoming tide. It flows into the estuaries and up the rivers. It cannot be held back, Parliament has decreed that the Treaty is henceforward to be part of our law. It is equal in force to any statute.

(per Lord Denning in Bulmer v Bollinger [1974] Ch 401 at 418)

I was around and paying attention in 1975. Were you?

@Paul Newman passim:

You keep on using the term “mass immigration”; would you please explain what you mean by it?

To me, permitting “mass immigration”, means indiscriminately allowing people into the country without regard for any benefit or disbenefit they bring with them and without any check on numbers. What does it mean to you?

Robin- I think football was pretty much all I paid attention to then, you are either of Methuselan vintage, or weird, or both, which may explain a lot.
I appreciate that the Common Market was never a reality? I recall, and have subsequently read, that it was the fraudulent, subject of the referendum. All the things you say are right, and dismissed as scare stories, invented by the nutty antis. Are you seriously suggesting that a referendum, in 1975, on the basis of open EU borders, and inevitable loss of sovereignty ,could have been won? Come on; shall we exhume some of the propaganda, that would be fun, for me ..
Everyone, except you, accepts the basic facts, and this why Euro-philes such as Roy Hatterlesy have agreed that the problem with achieving their aims by stealth, was the overwhelming truth of the statement “We were never asked”.
This period has been meticulously documented ,and I mean this with kindly pity, but your fanatical partisanship has stretched your credibility to the point it disappears ,like the Cheshire cats smile …
Calm down dear

Robin- I think football was pretty much all I paid attention to then, you are either of Methuselan vintage, or weird, or both, which may explain a lot.
I appreciate that the Common Market was never a reality? I recall, and have subsequently read, that it was the fraudulent, subject of the referendum. All the things you say are right, and dismissed as scare stories, invented by the nutty antis. Are you seriously suggesting that a referendum, in 1975, on the basis of open EU borders, and inevitable loss of sovereignty ,could have been won? Come on; shall we exhume some of the propaganda, that would be fun, for me ..
Everyone, except you, accepts the basic facts, and this why Euro-philes such as Roy Hatterlesy have agreed that the problem with achieving their aims by stealth, was the overwhelming truth of the statement “We were never asked”.
This period has been meticulously documented, and I mean this with kindly pity, but your fanatical partisanship has stretched your credibility to the point it disappears ,like the Cheshire cats smile …
Calm down dear

@Paul Newman:

The “No” campaign was largely based (when it wasn’t majoring on prices) upon the loss of sovereignty involved; it is absurd to suggest that the British people weren’t told that the European Economic Community (Common Market) was something more than a free-trade area with a completely static set of rules.

At the time, it was broadly understood (by those paying attention) that the EEC was a project; that it would evolve. The term “United States of Europe” (copyright, inter alios, Sir Winston Churchill) had been around (with various meanings) for many years, and the EEC was seen as a step on the road towards that goal.

I ‘ll see your Hattersley and raise you Roy Jenkins:

On the political/economic point, I know there’s a general view that we sold it purely as an economic thing, but I do not agree with this view. When the campaign was over, Ted Heath and I, who probably had more and larger meetings than anybody else, talked about this and we both agreed that throughout the campaign the issue that really seized people’s attention, when one was talking to them, was the political issues of Britain’s orientation in the world. They were relatively bored by the small-change economic issues, but this is really what gripped people’s attention and this is my very strong recollection of the big 2,000 audience rallies we had, it was on the politics, which was always certainly central to what I said and to what Heath said.

(from the 1995 “European Referendum witness seminar”).

@163 Paul: “Bob I am not quite sure what your point is.”

I was simply trying to clarify @161 the legal and political basis for the commitment to free movement of EU citizens within the European Union, subject to public security safeguards, and to report the outcome of the recent debate in Parliament on whether there is to be another national referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.

Nothing more sinister, I have to confess.

@Paul Newman #167|:

A couple more things:

Calm down dear

I’m beginning to get an inkling of what Helen Lewis-Hasteley was getting at.

And if I’m being asked to believe what UKIP has to say about…well, pretty much anything, then no thanks. Do remember that Ms May’s Tory Party conference inaccuracies were plagiarised from a Nigel Farage speech – except that Farage also claimed that the Bolivian was a criminal.

@Paul Newman

This is a long thread and I’ve only just stumbled across it, so apologies if anyone’s addressed this already, but:

“According to Neather, who was present at closed meetings in 2000, a secret Government report called for mass immigration to change Britain’s cultural make-up,”

Isn’t true. He didn’t say anything about a secret report. If he did, show a link.

Leon Wolfson:

Most EU laws are diktats, not voted for.

People voted for the EEC, a trading block, not the EU, a super state.

Bob B:

The debate was forced upon parliament by the public, and against his promises, Cameron defied the wishes of the majority by forcing a vote against a referendum.

Why? Because he knew the EU would lose any referendum here.

@172 Milly: “Why? Because he knew the EU would lose any referendum here.”

Would that it were as simple and straight forward as that.

If Britain leaves the EU, the EU won’t disappear.

It will go on making regulations and setting standards which British businesses trading with EU countries will have to conform with except there will be no British representative at the negotiating table when the decisions are made.

Why do you suppose there was such a large majority in Parliament against holding another referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU – besides the fact that it would cost c. £100 million in these times of austerity at home and turmoil in European financial markets?

I’m terribly ignorant of the wider issues, so I tend to live by a simpler rule, if the Daily Mail condemns it, it must be good for me/society at large.

Saves a lot of time.

I do seem to remember a report that showed the less people knew about immigration, and the figures, and the less contact they had with immigrants, the more negative they were to the idea, whereas those who actually had bothered to be informed about immigration, and had maybe even met someone who’s ‘not from round here’ tended to be less completely mental.

I may have used language to slightly ease my opinions into that

I just still can’t beleive anyone takes the papers seriously or believes headlines like ‘Johnny foreigner took 99% of all our jobs! ‘ at face value, but it seems a large number of people do.

It will go on making regulations and setting standards which British businesses trading with EU countries will have to conform with except there will be no British representative at the negotiating table when the decisions are made.

90% of our trade is not with the EU and it is declining, other countries manage to trade with the EU perfectly well without being ruled by it, ticking a few boxes as we were promised . in any case the EU has a trade surplus with us partly because Germany has an artificially low currency making BMWs a jolly good buy. So you think they will want to stop selling them to us . Ich denke nicht Herr Bob

@Paul Newman #175:

90% of our trade is not with the EU

That’s a new figure – UKIP normally claims 60% (ie only 40%is with the EU). And we know how trustworthy UKIP is…

Or are you including internal trade?

Try this:

http://www.jcm.org.uk/blog/2010/11/uk-trade-the-eu-and-the-rotterdam-effect/

A lot of politicians and governments in Western Europe are either complicit or inept in tackling the awful cultural practices of the immigrant population like forced marriages, homophobia and theocratic agendas that are popular among Muslims and human trafficking that is popular among the Eastern Europeans.

There’s this prevailing notion that no matter how awful the cultural practices of immigrants, Europeans who don’t share them shouldn’t try to introduce them to values like rationalism, personal autonomy and opposition to theocracy, bigotry and corruption. The values which made Western Europe this highly developed
part of the world. Because that would be – somehow – chauvinistic and xenophobic.

It’s not unusual for Muslims in Western Europe to be supportive or apathetic to the death threats made against critics of Islam, and many governments and politicians – especially on the left – face the increasing Islamic violence and bullying with appeasement and self-destructive behavior to protect their economic and other ideological ties with barbaric regimes – viewing threats to kill girls for texting as an innocuous cultural phenomenon, just like eating with chopsticks or driving on the “right” side of the road – and calls for “unity” “solidarity” “dialogue” and blaming “Western imperialism” when Muslims fake asylum applications and abuse family reunification laws to bring wives abroad via forced marriages.

All critics of Islamic supremacy in Western Europe are either murdered, fled their countries or spending their lives surrounded by bodyguards, thanks to the corrupt and reckless immigration policies, cynical political establishments and the tribal culture of Western Europe – very modern indeed, still though, tribal.