Brown has exploited immigration to hide from deep problems

Austin Barry

The sinister shuffle of the burka along our streets represents the dark, unsettling side of immigration which you've studiously avoided mentioning. Why?

Edward Barnard

The transformation has happened by accident ? A rather generous, some would say naive, interpretation.

Ray

"Not so much a ‘British dream’, as what happened when ministers were asleep."

Methinks electoral calculations could well have been at the back of someone's mind: although, of course, no one in the New Labour glitterati will ever admit to as much.

Either that, or they really are more incompetnet than even I give them credit for!

Forlornehope

A modest proposal

A committee of the great, good and learned, aka a quango, will decide who does and does not merit the privilege of working in the United Kingdom. Mathematics teachers are in, care workers are out.
Presumably American bankers will be OK but Bangladeshi chefs will have to stay at home. What we get is more civil servants, more questionnaires and a system, like all central planning that will be full of perverse consequences. To borrow from a well known high street bank:

“There is another way”.

Who is to say that a well cooked lamb jalfrezi does not add more to the sum of national well-being than a sub-prime mortgage? For the answer we are, of course, indebted to Adam Smith and the invisible hand. Let the market decide. The individual or organisation that can profit most from being part of the UK economy should be prepared to pay most for the opportunity. By auctioning work permits, in whatever number is deemed appropriate, those who can make best use of them will get them and those who cannot, will not.

One inevitable consequence of a points system is people trafficking; rationing creates a rent and that creates a black market. A straight economic system has the potential to put the traffickers out of business. Why go illegal with all the risks when you can buy a legitimate permit, even if it does cost a bit more? If auctions were run every month, those to whom the permit was worth most and who needed the convenience would bid more to ensure that they got their permits when needed; those to whom the permits were worth less would bid at the margin. The New York financier would end up paying more than the Asian chef.

What should be done with the money? If there is a value in coming to work in this country then it should accrue to the British people and not solely to those who want to come here. The money could be used to support those local authorities that have to deal with immigrants or it could be used to train up British nationals to do some of these jobs. It could even be used to help police illegal immigration!

Richard Lowe

Just out of interest Fraser. I haven’t bought the magazine yet this week, but I thought I’d print up this piece, using the Print Article facility, to read during a tea break. The print size is small it’s barely legible (and I have pretty good eyesight). Is this deliberate so that cheapstakes can read the contents without lashing out on a proper copy? I’m not complaining by the way, just curious.

biggestaspidistra

"Annoyingly, for supporters of immigration like myself"

Hari is a pip, Toynbee is superb, and now immigration is super. Nothing disingenuous here then. As already mentioned, it isn't the Polish plumber the British have complained of, much, but the ghettoisation of parts of our northern towns and cities.

Max Thomson

It is clearly incorrect to suggest that this happened by accident, when it has been happening for 11 years, during which time the shrieks from the people having their communities changed forever have been getting louder and louder. The Government has not done anything about it becasue they approved and kept winning elections. Now they are worried about losing, all the principles go out of the window and you'll see them start kicking the immigrants in the very racist way that they would taunt the Tories as being guilty of, when the Tories wanted a debate on the issue before (Crewe and Nantwich anyone). Brown is now telling people whatever they want to hear. However, they are incapable of writing legislation that judges don't strike down or running depts with any degree of efficiency. Whenever the Government proposes even legislation I would normally support, my hear sinks because you know it will involve more incompetent civil servants, running round the country uselessly, producing report after report while in the real world everyone notices that in fact nothing is changing.

Monica

I don't know wether Mr. Nelson Fraser is a liar or a fool, but it is very obvious to all people with a brain that this transformation did not happen by accident. Gordon Brown may be stupid, but he is not THAT stupid. This transformation was planned by the ruling elite. And it has worked out EXACTLY AS PLANNED.

John Gillman

Government foolishness has created all of these problems...its passivity before the EU; fear of going back on empty abstract ideas(human rights); indiscriminate welfare; refusal to share the problems of working people in towns and cities being submerged by utterly foreign populations; the pretence that mind, spirit, culture makes no difference to human feeling ... and we end up facing the vast social catastrophe of mass immigration. In view of the numbers now here, immigration should be halted forthwith. Grants should be given to persuade large numbers of those here to leave. Compared with the social unhappiness and cultural damage inflicted upon the nation, economics and GDP, whether marginally plus or minus, are irrelevant. Once, external enemies endeavoured to inflict woes upon us. Now, the Government itself takes on that role...and, shockingly, relishes it.

KHS

Austin Barry - "The sinister shuffle of the burka along our streets .."

Will never be addressed because Nu Labour, just like the Bush family, and after an election, the Tories, is in hock to Saudi.

We will witness ever more hate-preachers, multiple wives and the consequent out-breeding of the indigenous population.

Prepare to leave when the foundations of the Monster Mosque are dug.

Last week, shopping in London, I was physically 'bustled' aside by three burkas
(no apologies). My three year old grandson looked, and screamed with fear.

The women, in black, wore what can only be described as long flaps of black material, over the face and reaching to the waist. Scary enough for an unsuspecting adult but the stuff of nightmares for our children!

Carol-Ann

Fraser you only allude to Eastern European immigration which only represents 8% of all immigration since 1997. It is immigrants from outside the EU that people want drastically reducing and Cameron should be able to do that.

John

No accident. A deliberate screwing of this country for the sake of personal political gain. This is the greatest act of treason in British history.

Cheryl Hounslow

Cameron talks about improving quality of life so even if immigration is good for the economy which I don't think it is the fact that it has changed many communities beyond recognition often for the worse should mean the Tories limit it.Also I'm sure many of the people leaving Britain are doing so because the place is becomming unrecognizable in many parts.

Kiffa

I agree: you don't address the pipeline from Pakistan. This issue was the biggest sign for me how dysfunctional New Labour is: to quell increased murmurings from Britain by refusing a debate and accusing anyone who brought it up of 'racism'. 'I don't drink and beat your mother, boy! Do not notice!'
No difference. Useless, incompetent clowns.

sally

Accident? The 70s saw the Franco/German allience which brought about due to the oil embargo the Eu/Arab axis.
The UK signed up under the Traitor Heath to this Fabian nightmare.
Will 2010 be another accident when 11 more muslim countries get their free trade agreement and with it free movement?
Why don't you people tell the truth for a change regading the real evil in Westminster?
The 300 fabian Marxist starting with Brownski!!
I call what has happened Genocide1
Replacing one race by importing another that will eventually dilute Britain completely.
77 million plus todays population that is if farming today radio 4 tell the truth and the Independent on sunday....
Fabians deconstucting the UK To reconstuct in their image a fascist one.
Third country immigrants pop into Europe then over to the UK..Great points system.
The AUSSIE system no longer works their Fabian PM Rudd loves mass immigration also...

Bill Corr

There's no doubt about it; the recent influx of industrious Poles and Lithuanians has had the effect of "stopping wage inflation", to quote a Channel port Chamber of Commerce spokesperson a few years ago and of making British builders and plumbers "improve their game," to quote an approving liberal journalist. Which sane British employer would employ a barely-literate member of the British underclass when a sharp, adaptable, high-IQ Pole is eager and willing to work a 60-hour week and take pains to do a good job? So Polish migrant labour is good, right? True enough, unless one is retarded enough - or old-fashioned enough - to believe that the political class owes some responsibility towards our least-gifted felllow-citizens.

There's another plus, too. No Poles, bless them, are likely to embark on what the erudite Yvonne Ridley calls 'a martyrdom operation' to maim and kill London commuters or Glasgow air travellers.

Austin Barry refers to the "sinister shuffle of the burka." Yes, Austin Barry, but these beshrouded and sinister women are citizens and dependable voters! Almost every Fatimah and Huda can be counted on to vote for NuLab candidates at least once on polling day, if only by postal vote.

Back in the 1950s only the Mosleyite cranks were yelling about the long-term consequences of what was evasively called "Commonweath" immigration in those days. No rational person foresaw 'no-go' areas in Northern towns controlled by gangs of young men of Pakistani and Bengali descent or rival gangs of Afro-Caribbean descent engaged in armed turf wars to control illegal drug retailing in Brixton. Or that the British prison system would be clogged to bursting point with Muslims - who are three times over-represented behind bars in relation to their percentage in the U.K. population - and, of course, those of Afro-Caribbean descent.

The Lib-Lab-Con parties despise the British people, as do two important classes of British society; the employing classes adore tractable workers like the legendary Polish plumbers and Bulgarian flower-pickers. At the same time, the love-the-world gang of Guardianista social workers and their political allies are overjoyed to have welfare dependents, like the qat-chewing Somalis, to fuss over.

Of all developed economies, only Japan has escaped a tsunami of third-world immigration. Which is why Dr. Doudou Diene, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance* - to give that Senegalise luminary his full title - tells us that Japan is a "racist" society.
* How the late Peter Simple would have loved Dr Doudou Diene's job description!

adam

You are whitewashing the past decade Frazer. They knew exactly what was going on and took deliberate steps to encourage.

Why so defensive

Ann

"Which is why Dr. Doudou Diene, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Forms of Intolerance* - to give that Senegalise luminary his full title - tells us that Japan is a "racist" society.
* How the late Peter Simple would have loved Dr Doudou Diene's job description!"

Not sure about Peter Simple, but this is Orwellian, pure and simple.

H Osbourne

"He may find himself having that much-delayed conversation with the nation about — to be blunt — how many to let in".
This represents only half of the required debate. We cannot ignore considering how many should be permitted to remain.

Simon Fay

So now with the end in sight for NuLab the Tory-backing side of the media class has decided this matter can be discussed in detail, the better to help usher in another group of political managers who do not appear any more committed to limiting the damage being done to the country. You insult us, Mr Nelson, to portray us as ready for the debate only now that your champion senses he is close to power.

Labour greatly accelerated a process that was already underway, a process of turning a homeland into a zone of transience, competition between groups of aliens (often total strangers to each other) and with natives, and the exulation of ideologues, be they free-marketeers or officers of GLC.

Mike Newland

The story about 'those wonderful hard-working Poles etc', which we hear constantly, always omits the reason.

Immigrants are encouraged by far higher wages than they could get at home. Otherwise they would not he here. If British workers were offered such a boost to their incomes they too would be enthusiastic.

Yet matters are presented as though foreigners are naturally industrious and the British naturally idle.

JohnAnt

Brown knew precisely how many public service non-jobs and how many immigrants would be needed to conceal real unemployment and long-term benefit dependency in the council estates. He also knew that all these classes would vote Labour to preserve their status quo. And he threw precisely the amount of public borrowing at it that was needed to achieve that electoral goal.
He also knew that the immigrants who came here to work would be low (and sometimes non-)tax payers, and high users of the NHS.

Denny Eagan

I am a certificated maths teacher who has 40+ years of experience in advanced maths, astrodynamics, and system engineering. Oh, yes, I am also 62 years old. Fat chance on my being allowed to emigrate to the UK.

Augustus

If, at long last, an all-party group of MPs and peers have plucked the immigration devil out of the box, they might like to reflect on the fact that in Islamic countries the guest does not have the right to determine how the host treats them.

sebastian

Picking up on Austin's point (Sep 11th 07.50) which reminds us that immigration is more than just about employment figures. I would add that "immigration" is too general a word for this debate anyway: there are those we'd wish and those we wouldn't.
We seem to have far too many of the latter. The burkah, or niquab, or the male shalwar khameez; the masjid, the madrassa, the incoherent qur'an, henna dyed beards, now sharia in embryonic form, hate literature, hate speeches, women urging death to apostates (ie those who exercise their human right to choose their religion and perhaps leave islam accordingly), honour killings, terrorist plots............and so on. All these outward signs are not of a joyfully and productively employed, culturally exciting and diverse society existing in prosperous, tolerant multicultural amity. Quite the contrary. And this is where the economic "advantage" argument breaks down since the social disadvantages of this sort of arrival, outweigh surely any economic benefits (if any at all) of this community's increasingly self-segrated and, literally, threatening presence here.
NuLab - the architect of much of this - now in a panic and facing years out of office will probably never have to face the consequences of the multicultural, immigration Frankenstein they've parented. And in a sustained act of near treachery, they've consistently shirked their moral duty to consult the people and either to persuade them or ditch the policy. Instead, they've ridden rough-shod over us as NuLab's become increasingly and arrogantly remote from citizens' reasonable anxieties, particularly about "immigration" and its dire connotations and consequences.
But it's the citizens that will pay NuLabs price in the end. They really are............scum?

Ben Philips

It's one reason why I'm still unsure about Cameron. he'll say anything to anyone to get their vote. But I don't think he has the courage to stand up and fight for what's right. A flea-brained retard could figure out this immigration policy was heading for disaster. Only in Britain do we counsel such a pathetic, cowardly and ill-thought out policy. Utterly cringe-making. This country is crawling along its belly at the behest of our ruling and media class.

Madame X

Only allow in people who ALREADY speak English. They are more likely to assimilate, more likely to be self-supporting, and less likely to produce children who will be school failures.

Ken Johns

I have read much comment regarding immigration over the last few years, but most - like this article - neatly side-step the real issue - East Europe! East Europeans ARE the problem and the naive Blair's open invitation for 16,000 of them to invade our shores was the primary cause. Perhaps the most idiotic decision ever, of the EU, was to allow uncontrolled open-door expansion which any fool with the slightest comprehension of East European living standards, could safely forecast a tsunami of economic emmigration from those lands as soon as borders opened.

Before we tackle immigration from other countries, perhaps we should be tacking the main problem first by ending "EU Free Travel" and the right to live and work where we like, unless we are invited, or have the wherewithal to support our families.

Colin

The unskilled jobs, the immigrants were supposed to fill them ,that was the reason simply because the
British underclass won't work , are in effect unemployable, and would just cause trouble in the workplace.
The solution ...well to change all of that would be a massive task well beyond the capabilities of the Labour lot.
However they lost control over the levels of immigration clearly illustrating their ineptitude when it comes to correct administration.
Or in a Nutshell they could not organise a P**s up in a Brewery!
Thats what really scares me ,
These Politicians running this Country just have not got a clue.
Perhaps a real solution would have been a really bold Social Experiment.
Try this ... Zero tax for the low paid.
Give them back an incentive to work.
Surely its better to not get the tax rather than pay the benefits?

John Hawkes

Brown has lied, cheated and stolen for ten years so yet another deceit is not surprising.
In his insulated world he is not party to the massive influx of Muslims who immigrate here for benefits as part of ever expanding Pakistani and Arab families.
As the Island gets more crowded and money tighter it is very possible that racial tensions will overflow.
To say they have been "taken by surprise" is an disgusting and untrue statement.
It will be on Brown's head if the passive British react at last to a most unfair situation. He will have knowingly and directly caused it.

L Stewart

If immigration and its disastrous consequences for the racial & cultural identity of this nation came about 'by accident' then the Conservative (NB) and Labour politicians who brought it about must be even more stupid than their worst critics give them 'credit' for. And deaf & blind too, if they missed what Enoch Powell and other vocal opponents both inside and outside the Tory Party were warning thirty and forty years ago.

Indeed, didn't Margaret Thatcher undercut the National Front in 1978 with a cynical TV call for a "clear end to immigration" because "people are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people of a different race " ? And after winning the election, didn't she & Home Secretary Michael Howard then INCREASE the flow ? I suppose that was "by accident"?

And don't both parties resort to the same mixture of abuse & misinformation when trying to fend off the BNP ?

New Labour's hatred & contempt for their own kind explains why their stance ranges from sneering disinterest to outright glee as the British really are being "swamped", and steadily bred out of existance; while the New 'Conservatives' (what a sick joke of a name !)are so spineless that it's hard to judge whether they are fully supportive of the idea of their people becoming a featureless melting-pot, or just too weak to dare to criticize a policy their idol Tony Blair developed.

John Mash

Talk is easy, on whichever side you are. May I suggest a number of common-sense measures - not overtly political, which of themselves will help to stem an apparently unstoppable rise in immigration. First, adopt the sort of health checks that most other countries insist on at the point of entry. This will reduce free NHS tourists. Secondly, cap the number of years during which immigrants can receive state benefits before they qualify for them through work. Thirdly, deport all immigrant prisoners once their term is up. Never mind EU human rights: they have forfeited these by their conduct in the country that has hosted them. Fourthly, strengthen our vigilance at all our borders, to minimise illegal immigration. That's just a start, and not party political, either.

bumchum

Do not forget though Chris Patten wanted to invite the whole of Hong Kong and the New Terrorists to Middlesex! From the outer reachers of Hong Kong you can see the new homes mushrooming up on the back of illegal immigration to Europe.