Here’s another “Viewpoint” from the Left. And it’s a real insight into the beliefs of the Left and the BBC on this particular issue. When I directly associate this viewpoint with the BBC, I do it because this essay didn’t happen randomly or spontaneously: it was predetermined by a BBC editor, as are all these “Viewpoint” pieces. They want something on a given topic, and they go out and find someone to do it. So I believe it’s quite fair to tie the BBC to Goodwin’s mast (or is the other way around?) In any case, here it is:
What are BNP supporters really like?
The opening section is a classic example of using an outlier to make a point about the main group. You’ll never guess who academic Matthew Goodwin chose to use as his example of a BNP member. But first, as this is a classically structured piece from an academic-type, Goodwin has to do the exposition, in which he sets the scene for his protagonist.
Sharon was born and raised in the local village. She knew everyone, and devoted much of her spare time to helping the Residents Association. She was never really that interested in politics. Her husband was a Conservative, but she only went along to the meetings because she liked the sandwiches.
So we the “A” theme: an ordinary citizen, a good neighbor, etc., someone who was never politically active before. Now for the “B” theme.
But then, over the years, things began to change. For Sharon, it seemed as though the way of life she had become accustomed to was under threat.
She talked about feeling a sense of injustice about what had been perpetrated on her fellow citizens – our increasing involvement with Europe, the loss of our manufacturing base, a dwindling sense of respect among young people and the creeping advance of political correctness.
You can all guess what’s coming next, right?
But more than anything, she was concerned about a new phase of immigration into the country. She was profoundly anxious, especially about the impact of this rapid and unsettling change on her friends and loved ones.
Her concern wasn’t simply about the economy. It stemmed from her feeling that British culture, values and the national community were under threat.
This is not meant to be a strawman (woman), because Goodwin’s agenda is not merely to strike it down. He’s got a much bigger point to make. So on to the development section. So far, this is someone whom we could easily dismiss as being the usual xenophobic Little Englander, who hangs the St. George Cross out her window even when there’s no sports tournament going on. But then we get the shocking revelation about our Sharon, meant to focus your concern:
Sharon was Jewish, and the party that she decided to join was the British National Party.
This is very clever. By using this outlier, whom Goodwin believes should cause some cognitive dissonance in his readers, he can instantly claim that the awful beliefs of the BNP are spreading far beyond the usual white suspects.
Though aware of its history of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, for her the far right was the only movement that was serious about tackling the threat from Islam.
As if it’s only the far right who are concerned about it. Right there we have the Narrative. Any concern about the specific type of Islamic immigration is “far right”. The development of her tale continues, in which Goodwin tells us of the approbation Sharon faced from her friends, neighbors, and even her boss, as well as abuse from the local anti-fascist kiddies.
Sharon told me she could handle all of that, but what really hurt, she explained, was that she was reviled by the very people that she was fighting to protect.
Now the big picture, Goodwin’s main goal here, is starting to come together.
When I asked Sharon why, despite all of these consequences, she carries on there was little hesitation: “Because doing nothing is not an option. I am fighting for the survival of my people.”
“My people”, as in the British people. I must say it’s very refreshing to see something allowed through the BBC in which a Jew is presented identifying herself as British without hints of dual loyalty. Better still, Goodwin doesn’t present this is as Jew vs. Muslim, either. He uses her as an example of how the “far right” concern about how extreme immigration policies are harming British culture is spreading. That, to Goodwin and the BBC, is a very, very serious problem.
So he starts with the scaremongering.
I spent the next four years travelling up and down the country to interview some of the most committed followers of the far right. Conventional wisdom tells us there is something “wrong” with people like Sharon. Implicit in the stereotypes is that they are driven by crude racism, irrational impulses, and psychological problems.
The inadequacy of these stereotypes became quickly apparent during the interviews. On the whole, most of the activists appeared as relatively normal people.
What a shock, eh? Who could have imagined? Although notice how anyone concerned is still labeled “activist”. Goodwin realizes that it’s ordinary, apolitical, non-activist people feeling this way (hence his use of our Sharon to set the scene), but can’t process it. They’re still all activists to him. In other words, this is not an ordinary concern, held by ordinary people who don’t have a specific agenda of any kind. The next bit is very revealing of his and the BBC’s mindset, though. Check out the attitudes laid out, as if this is what everyone ought to think about the BNP or anyone concerned about extreme immigration:
Rather than isolated, they seemed well connected to their local communities. Rather than irrational, they had a clearly defined and coherent set of goals. Rather than psychologically damaged, they seemed balanced, reasonable and articulate.
How many people outside the far Left and the BBC and Leftoid media believe that anyone concerned about extreme immigration must be psychologically damaged? As I said, very revealing of the mindset. Goodwin spends another paragraph on his realization that not everyone he spoke to was a Nazi. Then he again uses Sharon as a launching point to show how these concerns are spreading. And he continues to use the “extremist” label.
Driving back from that first interview with Sharon, my mind wandered to my own grandparents who had expressed similar though not as extreme views about the scale and pace of immigration. I used to ask them why they never supported parties like the BNP, or the old National Front and they would look at me as though I were mad: “The Blackshirts?’, they would say, “oh no, we’d never vote for that lot.”
Implicit in their reaction is a sentiment firmly entrenched in the collective British mindset – that no matter how bad things get, Britain is immune to the appeals of extremists. It is difficult to quantify, but centres on the notion there is just something fundamentally “unBritish” about supporting extremists.
The thought occurs at this point that at no time does Goodwin discuss any of the other platforms of the BNP, e.g. Socialism, anit-war isolationism, or deporting Jamaicans as well as all Muslims. If one supports even a single one of their notions, one is then labeled an extremist. It’s the intellectual fascism of the Left which causes this kind of thinking. One must not hold a single unapproved thought, and any thought which isn’t approved by the bien pensants is “extreme”. There is no reasoned argument, no middle ground permitted.
And so the point of this Viewpoint is that this “extremism” is spreading much farther than we might think.
But is Britain really immune to a successful far right party? I think it would be mistaken to assume that this tradition has deprived extremists of fertile soil.
When we look at the evidence there is a large reservoir of potential support for a far right party. Large numbers of us have become concerned about the issue of immigration – at one point, it was more important to us than education, crime and the NHS.
In fact, one out of every five of us thought it was the most important issue facing the country. And the concern was not simply about competition over jobs or council housing. Surveys told us that two-thirds of the population thought Britain was “losing its culture” because of immigration.
Note the clever academic use of the first-person plural. In this way, Goodwin cements the notion that more and more ordinary people – possibly some of your neighbors, friends, or even relations – might be susceptible to this extremist thought. Fortunately, he’s much sharper and more honest than your average BBC journo regarding the actual concern about extreme immigration:
Also, those who are concerned about immigration are not concerned simply about traditional immigration. Significant numbers of us are also anxious over the presence and perceived compatibility of settled Muslim communities.
“Settled”. I like that. Presumably that includes “no-go areas”. Are those merely “perceived”? The mindset is revealed again.
At the time that two BNP members were elected to the European Parliament in 2009, over two-fifths of the population expressed agreement with the suggestion that even in its milder forms Islam poses a danger to Western civilisation.
Now we get the conflation of concern over extreme immigration and the refusal of some to join society with religious bigotry. It’s a slippery slope from here, really. Goodwin begins to attack the credibility of those who express concern about extreme immigration.
Muslims now find themselves at the core of a new and potent far right narrative, which vilifies Muslim communities while claiming to defend traditions of tolerance, gender equality and the rights of homosexuals. It downplays socially unacceptable arguments about race in favour of more acceptable arguments about the compatibility of values and cultures.
In other words, any of you here who complain that the BBC tends to play down or ignore how the more conservative, fundamentalist Muslims treat women and homosexuals are really just bigots using a smokescreen. You don’t really care about women getting acid thrown on their faces or young girls sent off to Pakistan to be forced into copulation with a middle-aged man, or killed by their fathers and brothers for being seen with a non-Muslim, or about regular executions of homosexuals. That’s all a facade used to slip your bigoted beliefs in under the door.
It is quite easy to see how this argument could be implanted in Britain. Imagine a far right populist who was free of extremist baggage and who talked about the need to oppose Islam in order to protect British traditions of parliamentary democracy, or who rallied against Muslims while proclaiming to defend the rights of women, homosexuals or civil liberties.
“Far right”. If you have any concern about extreme immigration, or that honor killings, abuse of women, no-go areas, the transformation of your neighborhood into something in which you are made to feel alien, or even just your local shop no longer carrying your favorites in favor of comestibles from another country, you are “far right”, and extremist. Again, no reasoned argument is allowed, no middle ground permitted. You’re either with Goodwin, or against common decency.
The rest of the piece is more of the same, but the last line is very amusingly blinkered, in which Goodwin drives home his theme about the BNP message spreading far and wide:
My view is that if they were free of baggage and political amateurism they would be met with significant support.
He’s taking the position that this is only about how the modern BNP is attempting to re-create its image, and distance itself from the fascists of distant memory. But it’s clearly much, much more than that. The concern about extreme immigration goes far beyond people how identify as “far right”, and that scares him. Goodwin seems not to understand that people can draw the conclusion that unfettered swarms of fundamentalists from medieval or even more primitive societies will have difficulty integrating and will do what most every other immigrant group has done historically: live amongst their own kind and attempt to recreate a bit of the old country in their new home. This is normal behavior for all immigrant groups, but becomes a real problem when the incentive to join the society of their new home – even only peripherally, in the manner of many ultra-orthodox Jews, for example – is not only removed but anyone who asks about it is scolded and ostracized. Yet Goodwin and the BBC believe that this is only a “far right” viewpoint, and one that can really only be spread by “far right” extremist activists.
The other problem is that he insists on associating concern about a single issue with all the rest of the “baggage”. Goodwin will not address the issue of extreme immigration except to tar anyone concerned about it as being “far right”. Debate is stifled yet again. And this, sadly, is exactly the BBC Narrative on the issue.
PS: Goodwin is described as an academic who is “an expert in electoral behaviour and extremism at the University of Nottingham”. Curious how his books only on the BNP are enough to secure his bona fides as an expert on extremism. Is there no extremism from the other side? Or his he an expert only on one side of the spectrum? I think we know the answer to that, and I won’t hold my breath waiting for a “Viewpoint” piece coming from the other side.
That is not just incredible, it is obscene.
I know what a leftist, fascist, communist, marxist trotskyist etc is. What I can’t define is a right-winger. For me, there are only two types of people : socialists and normal.
“Populist extremist parties (PEPs) present one of the most pressing challenges to European democracies, but their appeal and the profile of their supporters remain poorly understood”
http://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/papers/view/178301
Does he mean Norway ,Switzerland and Iceland . These are the only European democracies I know of.
Notice how they throw in the indirect link to the Conservatives. If they were to find a more representative convert to the BNP, they would be talking to a working class, former Labour supporter in a die-hard Labour constituency. That’s just not part of the script, though : to re-inforce the false idea that the so-called ‘far right’ is the natural extension of the Conservative party alone and nothing to do with the dissaffected traditional left of old Labour. This is both simplistic and dishonest, and a further attempt to demonise and marginalise anyone who harbours deep concerns about the effects of mass immigration on the culture and wellbeing of the nation.
Good point, I missed that.
Still a very good de-construction of the article, though.
Wicked! <img src=”http://www.myemoticons.com/images/emotions/shocked/shock.gif” title=”Shock” border=”0″ alt=”Shock”/>
Trying to get that emoticon to work: <img src=”http://www.myemoticons.com/images/emotions/shocked/shock.gif” title=”Shock” border=”0″ alt=”Shock”/>
Sorry, but the comments field can’t handle it. You probably have to download the gif yourself, then upload it here with the “Add images” function.
Okay, thanks.
Talk about having your cake and eating it: the BBC has spent decades smearing anyone to the right of the Guardian as some kind of Nazi, but now it turns out that even some normal people have stopped drinking the open borders kool aid… why, that just proves how dangerous these people are.
Not only is the absence of evidence is taken as proof of Goodwin’s assertion, even outright contradictions are proof of the BBC’s Grand Unified Theory of right-wing extremism. The ‘far-right’ opposes forced marriage of young Muslim girls, while the left tacitly supports it. In other words, the far right position is to defend the human rights of Muslim girls while the left’s position is to turn a blind eye to slavery, but the right only want to save young girls for evil rightey reasons while the left has only the purest of motives for ignoring sex slavery.
But even that’s nothing to the enormous slice of gataux at the centre of the argument. Consider the underlying assumption of this argument: opposing the BBC’s agenda is not a consititional right in a free society, it is actually proof of deviancy. These supposed ‘far-right’ supporters are not fellow citizens with a right to believe what they want, they are an evil alien conspiracy, like a cancer in our nation life, who must be swept aside as though by a purifying wind.
Nothing these supposed extremists have come out with is as frankly fascistic as Goddwin’s implication that those citizens who oppose the left’s agenda are a problem to be solved.
I think Goodwin as actually saying that the “far right” don’t really oppose forced marriage or the human rights of Muslims girls. He’s saying that’s just a facade. In other words, he’s telling everyone here that you’re liars when you protest against honor killings and the execution of homosexuals.
In its daily political propaganda, BBC-NUJ-Labour is opposed to the English Defence League by NUJ policy; at the same time, Beeboids have supported Labour’s extreme mass immigration policy over 13 years, and they facilitate the continuing Islamisation of Britain through their Islamophilic broadcasting.
I had a quick squint at the comments left on the BBC web page and the various lefties that ridiculed the “Nazi” Jewish lady. Most had little concern about mass immigration and the unknown millions who have settled here since that dreadful day in May 1997. But then I noticed most of these high minded liberals lived in places well away from the enrichment programme so enjoyed by white working class riff raff like myself. I wonder why Ralph from Taunton doesn’t sell his detatched house and buy a nice little flat in Peckham. I’m sure he’d love it!
Is Sharon a statistically typical BNP supporter? She certainly isn’t a statistically typical British Jew.
‘She certainly isn’t a statistically typical British Jew.’
Before the edit suite kicks in, the BBC pre-production policy of set-up bears serious scrutiny.
I listened to this tonight on iPlayer and, oddly enough: was relatively sanguine about it all.
1. The glancing references to the lady being Jewish and her husband being a Conservative were not pushed…the speaker seemed only to imply that the contradiction between her being BNP and historical anti-Semitism of the far-right was noteworthy.
2. He was aware that a cogent right wing movement could and would be a real threat to the current mush on offer between the three major parties…and he is correct in that.
3. Of course, he glossed over “anti-Fascists” doing their Kristallnacht-lite impressions-he meant Left wing Nazis if truth be told. He saw no problem in an emplyer threatening to sack the woman for being a BNP candidate( as if she was a Ba`ath Party leader under Saddam , as opposed to a BNP Councillor candidate in Devon or wherever. That reveals the BBCs inherent bias and his academic blind spots…but the fact he knows that the “right” is personable, electable and just like the rest of us was a giant step forward in LaborLalaLand.
On the same day that P.M leads with the threatened execution of a Christian pastor in Iran…at least I see some grounds for hope re the BBC…but then I`ve not seen Q.T yet!
If the poor mans life is spared, I have covenanted to let the BBC be as biased as it likes in return…may God bless and save him!
For a twenty four hour period of my choosing ,let me add!
I take all your points on board, cj. My main criticism is more in regard to what the article didn’t say rather than what it did. There are mentions of the growing concerns of many about immigration, the (perceived)lack of integration of muslim immigrants, the loss of British culture and the spread of political correctness. There is, however, not one single mention of how all of this came about and who is responsible. It’s as if this was all just a general trend that just happened and was beyond control and unpredictable, rather than a deliberate open door policy to force ‘diversity’ upon us, with an aggressive use of political correctness to subdue opposition so that nothing would be allowed to halt the ‘cultural enrichment’. This didn’t just occur, it was done to us by a Labour government, without our permission. This is the very reason for the increase in support for the BNP : if you ignore or dismiss people’s concerns for long enough by labelling them racist, eventually some of those people will just vote for the racists in the hope that they will no longer be able to be ignored. Nowhere in the article is any mention given to those guilty of driving decent but desparate people, like the individual featured, away from the mainstream of politics.
I agree entirely.
Still he did “flag up” the one issue of Islam as his worry. He certainly did NOT look into the whole LeftLib BBC responsibility for how on earth we`ve ended where we are…and with no mention of the EU: you`re correct.
Leads me to believe that they must be getting pretty desperate up at the BBC if they would prefer to anger Muslims rather than attack the EU and those from there who pay for our national treasures like the BBC.
Not that any Muslim would listen to Radio4…I heard Sandeep Kolis hopelessly unfunny “comedy” on Tuesday night and it`s a new low…yes I know he`ll be a Sikh, but as long as it`s not white, that gets the BBCs commisssion these days!
I’m sure that Goodwin is right when he warns that the BNP could be a lot more big and powerful if only it would cast off its political amateurism and neo-nazi baggage. Plain-vanilla professional ethnic cleansing without any theoretical justification was, after all, a very successful policy in the Balkans, and of course it still is in Kosovo.
Never happen the BNP will stay as it is the pet hate group only brought up by the left to beat down opponents any publicity they get mainly comes from the constant BBC ‘fear them ‘ campaigns !
He’s using the BNP as a tool to stifle debate about an issue which, among reasonable people, should be open to discussion, and is in truth far removed from the fringe of actual Nazi territory he’s threatening.
Goodwin sounds as if he would prefer the BNP to remain the main focus of political dissent by those who have had enough of what the liberal left has done to this country. Easily managed I assume is his thinking.
After all the BNP is never going to gain real power and is actually a left leaning party.
His real fear, and this is the liberal left nightmare, is that the unpredictable will occur. A charismatic politician who can articulate the real desires of the English, a sudden real crisis that propels new men into power and influence. Who knows?
The game is up for the liberal left. I suspect the more intelligent ones know it and in their addiction to the unreal are desperately trying to keep to the old paradigm. Liberals and BNPers. Social engineers and reactionaries.
Ancient peoples and their lands do not just vanish at the whim of academic theorists. That they even thought they would is evidence of their stupidity.
Indeed Dave S that is the stuff of nightmares for the political elite.
The article feels like something written in the 1970’s and just updated slightly. Note the lack of mention of online new sources. Sharon doesn’t start reading BNP blogs. Do the elite not realise their precious MSM is being sidelined or do they just not what to think about it ?
Fully agree on the BNP being yesterdays party. Its Griffin’s personal party and appears given how it leaks information to be stuffed full of informers. The EDF setup always seems more effective to me with no formal legal party as such to be dragged through the courts and a decentralised leadership.
If the BBC wanted to save money and yet keep the Asian Radio service (as not listened to by Asians) David might have inadvertently given them material to end the costly production known as THE ARCHERS.
Shula (Sharon) noticing that all the Tractors are made in Germany and all the local kids were getting pissed out of their heads in the Bull, she decides to becomes a Nazi.
Rev. Alan sees sense, bulldozes St. Stephen’s and builds a mosque.
Shula and Alan behead Ian and Adam as appropriate punishment for two men living together.
Shula sells the riding stables to the NHS for them to carry on with unremitting incompetence in tribute to her late husband.
Shula dies through a lack of oxygen and culture.
THE END.
I suspect that , if the bNP did not exist, the Left would have to invent them.
I am pretty sure that anyone who claims that the BNP are far right either have never read the BNP manifesto or have no clue about what socialism is.
The BNP manifesto calls for the renationalisation of British industry and a much stronger rolw for unions. It calls for a bigger, more intrusive government. It is authoritarian socialism aka far left national socialism.
The BNP may be many things, but far right is NOT one of them. Their roots may have been far right when they were known as the National Front, but today’s BNP’s policies clearly are far left!
This is why more labour voters switched to the BNP than tory voters.
Tory voters find a very welcoming home in UKIP, where they find real conservative and realistic policies on immigration, the EU, Climate Change, education, taxation, defence, law and order etc…
As a right winger myself, I could never vote BNP as I can never support any brand of socialism.
What is it with men like Goodwin that make them so suceptable to being sucked into the lefts mindset ?surley just because you are living off the unproductive tax payer funded world of academia shouldn’t mean you turn into a utter fool I mean i have had to live on benifits from time to time and have never once voted left batty extremist party or like many working class –> LABOUR<– voters turned to extreme ‘right wing ‘?/?groups ! oh hang on he seem to have missed out that bit !
so many points here are spot on,
immediately “doctor” any opinion, that might even begin to question
the airy fairy, rainbow society of multiculturalism/immigration, which by almost all the countries in europe (from the very top, ala Cameron, Merkel, Sarcozy & co).. has been stated DISMAL FAILURE
Insidious “fear factor” propaganda, singing from the same old “hymnsheet”….. bnp – far right – nazis & which all equates to, by the wonders of lefty (brain cell singular) projectionism = Jews ???
As Bibi, stated clearly at the UN last week……it is unbelievable, you couldn t make this stuff up.
that is of course…unless youre a bbc editor 😀
The following comment of mine was soon left behind in the welter of BBC bias comment here recently (surely the Tories will pluck up the courage to lay a hand on the BBC soon and before it is too late?).
And one more thing….Blair/Brown/BBC sold me the idea that 5 million new immigrants was a fine thing because, they assured me, they would pay tax and fund my pension. Now Labour/BBC tells me I must pay more tax to house, to school and to fund a health service for these new arrivals. Did I miss something? Or was it just about getting 5 million extra Labour voters?
I note Labour conference were nervous about some new voter registration changes that are now in the pipeline.
Seems responsibilty for registration will be down to the individual rather than the head of the household. Odd, I hear you say, isn’t the head of the household concept a patriachal anachronism for lefties?
No, a Labourite immediately explained this would hit the ethnic minorities. You see they want to be sure the head of the household and both his wives aren’t lost to Labour.
And because Labour are worried about this I look forward to the BBC starting a campaign on the theme in the not too distant future.
http://mikemiller.net/quotes/liberty973.html
Now Labour/BBC tells me I must pay more tax to house, to school and to fund a health service for these new arrivals.
And that you must love the EU for providing the new arrivals. Without your consent, of course.
Excellent thread.
But the purpose of “viewpoints” like this is not, as one would assume, to stop people voting BMP. The real object is to make ANY RIGHT LEANING opinion illegitimate. Anyone venturing right of centre is labelled as a closet member of the BMP and the fear of being lumped in with “right-wing loonies” or (another favorite word used to shut down discussion) “fascists” keeps more timid people away from exploring right leaning views especially in colleges and universities where it is not cool to be anything other than left.
As a result of the shutting down of real discussion about important issues, (immigration, Islamic terrorism, racism) the country is seething with unheard views. The difference between what is said in pubs and private parties and what is allowed on the media is staggering.
BBC, someone isn’t doing its job.
I agree with the comments that if the BNP did not exist the left would have to invent it.
Also true is the point that the motivation of the leftists’ odd obsession with exploring the ‘far right’ is to shut down debate by damning by association anyone who dares question their multicultural dreamworld.
That’s why we won’t see the BBC commission a ‘viewpoint’ attacking the far left.
The key words for me in this is that anyone right of left centric is “psychologically impaired”. This is straight out of Stalin’s or Mao’s manual on managing the population. i.e. these people need to be sent to institutions for treatment.
Exactly. And Goodwin writes as if it’s a given that his readers think the same thing, hence the surprise that many of them appear “normal”.
I was surprised just now to see a non-attack piece on Michael Gove’s new schools rating scheme. Reeta C explained that, whereas schools used to be judged on 26 different criteria (FFS, with “healthy lifestyle” and “Community” shown as examples of the criteria), the new scheme will see schools judged on just four core areas all of which had to do with teaching and the results of teaching. It was impossible for the Beeboids to spin this negatively, as 26 different criteria is clearly madness.
Even the educators they spoke to were completely positive. I wonder how this happened? No opponents called them up hoping for air time? Maybe they’re saving that for later.
£3bn per year propaganda, and after all that, it failed.
On cost effective grounds alone, the BBC should be declared bankrupt. Ethically, it has been bankrupt for a long while.
Here’s the thing. If the BNP/”far-right” message can be spread so easily in Britain because the indigenous (and Jewish, apparently) population is inherently ethnocentric, parochial, territorial, and xenophobic, how come Goodness Gracious Me exists? Not that the non-Muslim influx from the SubContinent had an easy time of it, or there was no racism coming their way. But clearly there is something which created the environment for such a comedy styling to exist. And it is definitely British. Wake me up when there’s a Muslim version.
There’s a galaxy-wide distance between the immigration wave(s) which led to the existence of the awesome Cheese Shop parody and the immigration wave(s) which have led to Tower Hamlets and the non-comedy stylings of Anjem Choudary. Who is more representative of their respective immigrant culture? That’s a trick question.
Yet the BBC and Leftoid academics like Goodwin refuse to acknowledge any of this, instead proclaiming that objection to the current deal is only the fault of the natives.
“instead proclaiming that objection to the current deal is only the fault of the natives”
This is how it works, David. In the Multi-cultural utopia of modern Britain, immigrants need not make any adjustments to their way of life in order to settle. Quite the opposite – it is our duty to accomodate all of their ways and customs in order to foster that all important concept of diversity, which of course is the defining character of our nation. Any failure in this regard must, therefore, be a result of the native population not being compliant enough.
It took Goodwin FOUR YEARS of interviews to make a small dent in his preconceptions about the attitudes of those opposed to massive immigration?
This reinforces my long-held belief that there are few people on the planet as stupid as ‘academic’ left wingers.
“Though aware of its history of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, for her the far right was the only movement that was serious about tackling the threat from Islam.”
Could it be fairly construed that the message Goodwin is trying to convey is that these Jews are so depraved they’ll make common cause with Nazis against the poor, put upon Muslims who of course we all know the Jews who invaded Palestine give a hard time there?
We all know of course is the actual dichotomy here is of the alliance between the Marxist Left and Islam against democracy and the Jews.