Poles are the fall guys of the immigration debate

Austin Barry

Immigration is, and always was, the point at which the disconnect between the ruling elite and the electorate becomes glaringly obvious. The public resentment at those members of 'communities' who want to kill us or make us subscribe to their neolithic belief system, or who turn our inner cities into dangerous Dystopias, is quite palpable and increasingly so. The solution? I haven't a clue and neither have our masters. It's too late.

Roy

What a pity the country is overflowing with far eastern types, who have no tangible thing in common with English people, when we could have made these European’s more welcome had it been otherwise. It seems the Eastern Europeans will be the scapegoats, since one can be disingenuous to these near neighbours but not to the more coloured and more distant cultured people, for which the British people have to beg forbearance. We have to listen patiently to the grandstanding righteousness, along with the now fully instituted political correctness gone mad, of the spokespeople for the country. The utter brainwashing being done by these spokespeople with the persistent media and uncouth, unknowing, unknowledgeable government actions keep Britain forever on the back foot.

steve Jones

The BBC doesn't like Polish immigrants because how could they write them into an "Eastenders" story line? All they do is fix plumbing, serve coffee and go to Mass on Sunday. The thought of writing about hard-working, young people who attend Church on Sunday is too much for "Auntie".

appleman

I wondered how long it would take for it to be realised the immigrants (like Communism in the past and many other groups) are not a monolithic group. We have rarely had any problem over the centuries with immigrants who want to become part of the British nation, contribute economically and socially to our development and would only want to defend the nation that has given them succour.

Those who come, but remain separate, live off the state, impose their values and even want to destroy the same nation that has given them succour would never have been tolerated in the past. Now for some crazy reason they are.

I have long thought that the attack on E European immigrants (mostly in the former category) is just a disguise to attack immigrants from Asia and Africa, some of whom are in the latter category. If Islamophobia is to become the new "racism" - actually it would be "religiousism", then the sooner we face up to this, the sooner we will remove one the major potential disasters that face the West, but I hasten to add not Russia, Japan, India or China - they will survive intact, whatever we may think of their cultures or politics. I have doubts that the West will.

T. Gonzalez

The universal challenge posed by non-assimilating immigrants (admittedly not all of them) is one which all democracies are failing to address. That failure may, in the long run, doom our democracies. Our forbearance and attempt at tolerance, as well as our excess political correctness are all seen as weakness by many of these new arrivals and the extremists among them will use our "hands off" aproach against us.

The U.S. has just as serious a problem, as evidenced by the political satire titled "Up Dog Street" and concerning an exile enclave in Miami, Florida which took over the southern half of the peninsuala. It was written by an immigrant to America--he should know.

carol42

The decent working class area I grew up in is now a foreign country. The first Pakistanis were quite welcome, mainly because they kept the shops open late! a real novelty in the 60s and the men worked and did integrate quite well, my brother's best friend all through school and still now was Pakistani and from a lovely family although his mum spoke little English. It seemed no different than if he was Catholic except he was always complaining about his Saturday school to study the Koran. Then there were only a few families and they were easily assimiliated. Now whole streets are like little Pakistan and a recent influx of Roma Gypsies who seem to have no idea of civilized behaviour, ie rubblish out the windows etc. none work, illiterate and unemployable, their children need a lot of help at school to the detriment of local children and of course they need housing and benefits. Do you wonder local people are resentful? immigrants are fine as long as the numbers are manageable and they at least try to integrate. Politicians don't live in these areas, their children don't goes to these schools so what do they know. I feel so sad when I go back to visit, especially for the old people who have lived there all their lives and are scared stiff to go out, wondering what happened to their neighbourhood. I am no racist, I couldn't care less what colour people are as long as they are prepared to adapt to the host country as we had to do when we lived in Iran.

Dan Perez

Indeed, people enter our democracies and right off, they are allowed to isolate themselves in enclaves and to reject assimilation. Their heritage, it seems, serves as a ball and chain around their necks or else, it acts as a source of entitlement; one that makes them feel superior to common blokes, suspicious of our freedoms and determined not to integrate.

As another reader asserts, the Italian in the novel UP DOG STREET is indeed comparable. Though raised in Sussex since the age of seven and a speaker of Queen's English, this man ignores his downlands' roots and his nurture on English soil. Instead, he criticizes our freedoms and pines ad nauseum for his childhood birthplace; a land he hardly knew. In the end, face to face with an intolerant immigrant enclave in America, he finally discovers his English soul. That lesson needs to be learned here by citizens, as well as immigrants.

William

In the BBC's Fawlty Towers poor Manuel is called a "Dego twit" by the man who delivered the garden gnome. In another episode there was also presumed homosexual activity on the floor, between Basil and Manuel, frowned upon by each bemused guest; one said, “disgusting!”. Of course times have changed, days have gone by, and many of "our" streets, as in Blackburn, are now entirely "Asian" owned. I suppose many readers feel like Austin Barry that it's too late to complain. News by its nature is a series of "faits accomplis" and most of us haven't a clue what's going on even if we read the papers. There was Elton John at a party in a New York church – drinking wine out of a chalice. I bet not one person worldwide dared to complain, if they knew at all.

200,000 British are leaving the country per annum, or is that figure declining now with rising prices? The People's Voice, a radical alternative news source says, I understand, that mass migration is part and parcel of the new global order. It's deliberate; there will be no borders. Change will oil the economies of the future and survivors will have chips and biometric surveillance whether they end up in New Zealand, Taiwan, Canada or retromigrate to Germany, Ireland or Russia. If that future is a bit paranoid perhaps there is hope of a benign fundamentalism arising from China, Russia, Old Europe, and the Islamic World, that will revive culture, civilization, and patriotisms – and keep nations in touch with their roots. The decline of the USA is not just a result of ruinous economics and loss of power and its permanently changing schemes but perhaps its very function. After all there is no longer an inquisition, famine, pogrom, or German reich to run away from (though there are modern equivalents in other unfortunate countries).

I think the majority of "our" young Europeans will willingly return home with sweet memories of British hospitality. And, if the global “order” becomes less about “orders”, screwed economic theory and geopolitics, and more about compassion and common sense, perhaps currently poor migrants will return to their by then richer continents and this damaging Soviet-scale of migrations will end. …Perhaps Dennis, you could give us a few tables next time to illustrate the statistics…and be more hard-hitting! P.S. I notice only two of the troika of Spectator bloggers are present in the organ loft (right of this column) today. They already live in "Londonistan" so I doubt they'll have much to add to the debate.

Piotr

Do not worry, Britons (BTW I am Polish)
More and more Poles are now leaving your country and going back to Poland. If this does not change, in a few years there will be no Poles anymore, and you will get stuck with the Kurds, Algerians, Jamaicans and Somalis. Good luck and have fun with them, as these peoples are very creative and certainly help British GNP grow.

Austin Barry

Piotr, goodbye, good luck and pozegnanie! Who really wants the boring, hard-working, Mass-going Poles when there are livlier and more challenging "communities" available to us? ? After all, that's what diversity is all about, isn't it?

TLP

This unparalleled immigration occurred through the economic good times. As recession looms so does danger.

Young, fit, single, English-speaking Eastern Europeans ,with CV’s that now include a spell in the UK have the flexibility , skills and rights to move on if the rewards are better elsewhere. It seems some have already chosen to do so..

Others do not have those skills or rights, or are net takers from the state. They will not be so ready or able to move on. The present value of the NHS to a couple planning to have a handful of children is very different to a that of a single person.

As the economy turns down, the French merchant banker leaves for Hong Kong and the Polish plumber goes home to fit the Euro 2012 stadia, so those immigrants remaining have less cover.

The debate about immigration may have been purposefully limited to economics but when the claims for its value become plainly fictitious the “problems of cultural difference, integration and social cohesion” will out.

With more of the indigenous people struggling, anger will build. Many British presently sit at stage two of the anger ladder, frustration, precisely because their concerns have not been listened to and discussion suppressed. But those down on their luck; the newly unemployed, overly-indebted, negative-equity ridden or bankrupt have little to lose and can race through stages three, four and five; anger, rage and aggression.

Whether they do or not depends significantly on the depth and length of the recession and accompanying house price crash. Optimistic forecasters hope for a couple of quarters of no growth, the pessimists see a meltdown in the financial system - neither seem likely. But a problematic 2009 looks assured; therefore for the rest of this year and next we will see the flight of the net contributing immigrant. By 2010, the takers will be dominant.

And the longer the twin trends for costlier immigrants and poorer nationals goes on the more fragile society becomes.

The government should now be doing all they can to hold the mood at frustration. That means delivering on promises already made and the introduction of new schemes like the Spanish one encouraging the departure of immigrant benefit-recipients.

Anger within the indigenous population will build as recession deepens. Now is the time to remove some of the existing frustration, to allow the effects of the crunch some headroom..

If they continue with the tough talk, weak action practices of the past few years knowing the economy will deteriorate they put all of us, immigrants and home-grown alike, in a tinderbox .

Verity

T Gonzalez - "The universal challenge posed by non-assimilating immigrants (admittedly not all of them) is one which all democracies are failing to address."

I have a perfectly normal response to this: Let them be forced to go and be non-assimilated somewhere else.

Carol writes re Romanies, "their children need a lot of help at school to the detriment of local children and of course they need housing and benefits."

Fine. Let them get a lot of help somewhere else. This is known as the "bugger off" approach. Our own come first.

TLP - "if they continue with the tough talk, weak action practices of the past few years knowing the economy will deteriorate." Why do you allow it?

You people are totally bullied by the manipulations of your servants, the MPs who are engaged in seeking preferment within their parties, which are utterly wedded to "political correctness" , aka national suicide.

How is it the Indians do not try to set themselves apart from the mainstream? And the Jews never did, when they were new.

Tony Rogers

"Everyone" is thinking what Michael Howard was thinking? No, everyone is thinking what the BNP are thinking. That's a truth that the media class will never print. On immigration, the "evil" BNP are representative. The media is right that this country is full of "racists". They forgot to mention the "of all races" bit. The English have had enough.