It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. We saw immigrants – from anywhere – as allies against the staid, settled, conservative society that our country still was at the end of the Sixties.
Also, we liked to feel oh, so superior to the bewildered people – usually in the poorest parts of Britain – who found their neighbourhoods suddenly transformed into supposedly ‘vibrant communities’.
If they dared to express the mildest objections, we called them bigots.
The greatest mass migration in our history has taken place.
The newcomers are lawfully here.
They have the jobs, live in the houses, use the NHS.
Their children are in the schools.
Come to that, they are paying tax.
Our leaders only had to go to Boston, any time in the past five years, and they would have known.
But all our leading politicians were afraid of knowing the truth.
If they knew, they would at least have to pretend to act.
And the truth was, they liked things as they were.
And it was at least partly my own fault.
When I was a Revolutionary Marxist, we were all in favour of as much immigration as possible.
It wasn’t because we liked immigrants, but because we didn’t like Britain. We saw immigrants – from anywhere – as allies against the staid, settled, conservative society that our country still was at the end of the Sixties.
Also, we liked to feel oh, so superior to the bewildered people – usually in the poorest parts of Britain – who found their neighbourhoods suddenly transformed into supposedly ‘vibrant communities’.
If they dared to express the mildest objections, we called them bigots.
Revolutionary students didn’t come from such ‘vibrant’ areas (we came, as far as I could tell, mostly from Surrey and the nicer parts of London).
We might live in ‘vibrant’ places for a few (usually squalid) years, amid unmown lawns and overflowing dustbins.
But we did so as irresponsible, childless transients – not as homeowners, or as parents of school-age children, or as old people hoping for a bit of serenity at the ends of their lives.
When we graduated and began to earn serious money, we generally headed for expensive London enclaves and became extremely choosy about where our children went to school, a choice we happily denied the urban poor, the ones we sneered at as ‘racists’.
What did we know, or care, of the great silent revolution which even then was beginning to transform the lives of the British poor?
To us, it meant patriotism and tradition could always be derided as ‘racist’.
And it also meant cheap servants for the rich new middle-class, for the first time since 1939, as well as cheap restaurants and – later on – cheap builders and plumbers working off the books.
It wasn’t our wages that were depressed, or our work that was priced out of the market. Immigrants didn’t do the sort of jobs we did.
They were no threat to us.
The only threat might have come from the aggrieved British people, but we could always stifle their protests by suggesting that they were modern-day fascists.
I have learned since what a spiteful, self-righteous, snobbish and arrogant person I was (and most of my revolutionary comrades were, too).
I have seen places that I knew and felt at home in, changed completely in a few short years.
I have imagined what it might be like to have grown old while stranded in shabby, narrow streets where my neighbours spoke a different language and I gradually found myself becoming a lonely, shaky voiced stranger in a world I once knew, but which no longer knew me.
I have felt deeply, hopelessly sorry that I did and said nothing in defence of those whose lives were turned upside down, without their ever being asked, and who were warned very clearly that, if they complained, they would be despised outcasts.
And I have spent a great deal of time in the parts of Britain where the revolutionary unintelligentsia don’t go.
Such people seldom, if ever, visit their own country.
Their orbits are in fashionable London zones, and holiday destinations.
They are better acquainted with the Apennines of Italy than with the Pennines of their own country.
But, unlike me, most of the Sixties generation still hold the views I used to hold and – with the recent, honourable exception of David Goodhart, the Left-wing journalist turned Think Tank boss who recognises he was wrong – they will not change.
The worst part of this is the deep, deep hypocrisy of it.
Even back in my Trotskyist days I had begun to notice that many of the migrants from Asia were in fact not our allies.
They were deeply, unshakably religious.
They were socially conservative.
Their attitudes towards girls and women were, in many cases, close to medieval.
Many of them were horribly hostile to Jews, in a way which we would have condemned fiercely if anyone else had expressed it, but which we somehow managed to forgive and forget in their case.
We have recently seen this in the distressing and embarrassing episode of Lord Ahmed’s outburst against a phantom Jewish conspiracy.
But I recall ten years ago, in a Muslim bookshop in the backstreets of Burnley, seeing on open display a modern edition of Henry Ford’s revolting anti-Jewish diatribe The International Jew, long ago disowned by Ford himself.
It is unthinkable that any mainstream shop in any High Street could sell this toxic tripe.
Many of these new arrivals, though we revolutionaries welcomed them, knew and cared nothing of the great liberal causes we all supported. Or they were hostile to them.
Many on the Left still lie to themselves about this. George Galloway, the most Left-wing MP in Parliament, owes his seat to the support of conservative Muslims.
Yet he voted in favour of same-sex marriage.
It would be interesting to be at any meetings where Mr Galloway discusses this with his constituents.
Of course, all political parties are compromises, but there is a big difference between splitting the difference and flatly ignoring a profound clash of principles.
This sort of cynicism has been at the heart of the deal.
Immigrants have been used by those who wanted to transform the country.
They have taken the parts of them they liked, and made much of them.
They have ignored the parts they did not like.
Mr Galloway likes the Muslims’ opposition to the Iraq War and their scorn for New Labour (and good luck to him). But he does not like their views on sexual morality.
The same is true of many others.
One of the most striking characteristics of the majority of migrants from the Caribbean is their strong, unashamed Christian faith, and their love of disciplined education.
Yet the arrival of many such people in London was never used as a reason to say our society should become more Christian, or our schools should be better-ordered.
At that time, the revolutionary liberals were hoping to wave goodbye to the Church, and were busy driving discipline out of the state schools. So nobody ever said ‘Let us adapt our society to the demands of these newcomers’.
They had the wrong sort of demands.
Instead, the authorities made much of the behaviour of a minority of such migrants, often much disliked by their fellow Afro-Caribbeans – men who took and sold illegal drugs and who were not prepared to respect British law.
If proper policing of such people could be classified as ‘racist’, then the drug laws as a whole could be weakened, and the police placed under liberal control.
This is why the so-called ‘Brixton Riots’ of April 1981 were used as a lever to weaken the police and undermine the drug laws, rather than as a reason to restore proper law and peace to that part of London.
Something very similar happened with the Macpherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Few noticed that the report openly urged that people from different ethnic groups should be policed in different ways – and actually condemned ‘colour-blind’ policing.
In whose interests was this?
And wasn’t this attitude, that different types of behaviour could be expected from different ethnic groups, racially prejudiced?
But what did that matter, if it suited the revolutionary liberal agenda of purging the police of old-fashioned conservative types?
The same forces destroyed Ray Honeyford, a Bradford headmaster who – long before it was fashionable – tried to stand up against political correctness in schools. He was driven from his job and of course condemned as a ‘racist’.
Yet it would have been very much in the interests of integration and real equality in Bradford if his warnings had been heeded and acted upon.
As it is, as any observant visitor finds, Bradford’s Muslim citizens and its non-Muslim citizens live in two separate solitudes, barely in contact with each other. Much of the Islamic community is profoundly out of step with modern Britain.
Once again, revolutionary liberals had formed a cynical alliance to destroy conservative opposition.
Their greatest ally has always been the British Tory politician Enoch Powell who, in a stupid and cynical speech in 1968, packed with alarmist language and sprinkled with derogatory expressions and inflammatory rumour, defined debate on the subject of immigration for 40 years.
Thanks to him, and his undoubted attempt to mobilise racial hostility, the revolutionary liberals have ever afterwards found it easy to accuse any opponent of being a Powellite.
Absurdly, even when Britain’s frontiers were demolished by the Blair Government and hundreds of thousands of white-skinned Europeans came here to work, it was still possible to smear any doubters as ‘racists’.
It couldn’t have been more obvious that ‘race’ wasn’t the problem.
The thing that made these new residents different was culture – language, customs, attitudes, sense of humour.
Rather than them adapting to our way of life, we were adapting to theirs.
This wasn’t integration.
It was a revolution.
Yet nobody – especially their elected representatives – would listen to them, because they were assumed to be Powellite bigots, motivated by some sort of unreasoning hatred.
I now believe that the unreasoning hatred comes almost entirely from the liberal Left.
Of course, there are still people who harbour stupid racial prejudices.
But most of those concerned about immigration are completely innocent of such feelings.
The screaming, spitting intolerance comes from a pampered elite who are ashamed of their own country, despise patriotism in others and feel none themselves.
They long for a horrible borderless Utopia in which love of country has vanished, nannies are cheap and other people’s wages are low.
What a pity it is that there seems to be no way of turning these people out of their positions of power and influence.
For if there is to be any hope of harmony in these islands, then it can only come through a great effort to bring us all together, once again, in a shared love for this, the most beautiful and blessed plot of earth on the planet.
I followed the usual path of being very leftist at 20 and moving steadily right ever since.i am now definitely well to the right of what is now regarded as being the centre in British politics, but in reality the centre is well to the left of where it would have been 30 years ago.
What factors made me move to the right , particularly on issues such as immigration, multiculturalism . Well , Allan’s title puts it very well, I have seen my country invaded , my values and my culture trashed. I have seen growing parts of my country made unrecognisable by immigrants. I have watched in horror as voting fraud en masse is tolerated , as serious crime by migrants is allowed to go unchecked, as freedom of speech is curtailed, as white people are made to feel guilty about anything and everything that happened centuries ago, as history is rewritten, as a barbaric religion is allowed to assert its self over common British values and laws, as our politicians bow and scrape to get its adherents’ fraudulent votes. I could go on and on.
Am I supposed to think that this is progress? Well I don’t and if that makes me a bigot or a racist so be it.
I can’t add anything more Doublethinker, you’ve covered what is most relevant to us all, that is us the white northern brit, the ones who try and follow some of the christian values and ethics taught us not so long ago. Through utter eveilness, stealth and lies our world is changing faster and more dangerously than at any time since WW2. The enslaving state of the European Union may well tumble, but what then? Will something as nasty rise from the ashes?
When a lefty / Gramscian snob holds an opinion that is not shared by the vast majority , the Gramscian says to himself / herself it it because he/she is more intelligent , better informed ( via the Guardian ) and more virtuous than the average Joe — IE ;he/she is an intellectual .
When the Gramscian holds an opinion that the majority hold , it is because the minority hold views based on ignorance , or for even baser reasons .
Sometimes the lefty/ Gramscian will hold a view that is diametrically different to what is his/ her instincts but years of self training will help eradicate the first thoughts and doubleplus goodthink will be at the fore .
Whenever there is a moral or political problem the Gramscian puts aside all thoughts such as What is good for me , what is good for my family , what is good for my neighbours, locality or country .
The Gramscian thinks ; what should I ,as an intellectual be thinking about this ? .
I always remind lefties that they, or at the least, their ideological brothers and sisters, were responsible for the greatest modern genocide in history. Moreover Hitler was a lefty too. Of course I do this with a gentle smile and voice, as it pains me to say it.
This so riles them, they are unable to think clearly anymore.
The follow it up with the hope that the “modern” left has learned its lesson, though I have yet to see an apology.
From a British perspective: This was a reader’s ‘letter to the editor ‘ published in daily ” SUN” on Sunday.
Tolerance .. I am truly perplexed that so many of my friends are against another mosque being built in London on the Thames ? I think it should be the goal of every Englishman to be tolerant. Thus the Mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance.
That is why I also propose that two nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque, thereby promoting tolerance from within the mosque. We could call one of the clubs, which would be gay, “The Turban Cowboy”, and the other a topless bar called “You Mecca Me Hot.”
Next door should be a butcher shop that specializes in pork, and adjacent to that an open-pit barbeque pork restaurant, called “Iraq o’ Ribs.”
Across the street there could be a lingerie store called “Victoria Keeps Nothing Secret “, with sexy mannequins in the window modeling the goods.
Next door to the lingerie shop there would be room for an adult sex toy shop, “Koranal Knowledge “, its name in flashing neon lights, and on the other side a liquor store called “Morehammered.”
All of this would encourage the Muslims to demonstrate the tolerance they demand of us, so the mosque problem would be solved. If you agree with promoting tolerance, and you think this is a good plan, please publish my letter.
This had me in fits. ?
Outstanding.
The only thing missing is the resurrection of Bloom’s restaurant, next door.
Was it published?
Link please of you can. Would be delighted.
Simply bloody marvellous. GWF I’ll try the Sun first !
NCBBC, tarien
It was sent to me via email. I copied it exactly as it was. So I cannot verify if it was published. Either way it is a work of art.
I checked and found this link
http://www.downrange.tv/forum/index.php?topic=1199.4365;wap2
Thanks
“Their greatest ally has always been the British Tory politician Enoch Powell who, in a stupid and cynical speech in 1968, packed with alarmist language and sprinkled with derogatory expressions and inflammatory rumour, defined debate on the subject of immigration for 40 years.”
Although I agree with much of what Hitchens says, I think his comments on Powell are complete bollocks. Powell’s speech is not particularly inflammatory but, more to the point, he was expressing concerns that his constituents had expressed to him. This is the leftist practice of blaming the messenger. I know from personal experience that people in places like Bradford had no voice until Powell spoke up. Opposition to the rapid changes being imposed was establishing itself quite securely but, similarly, so were the forces that were determined to silence this opposition – even in the late 1960s. At let’s remember, “Powellite” was not the only weapon at their disposal, Godwin’s law applied back than as well.
Does anyone seriously believe that if Powell had remained silent, opposition to immigration would have been well received? Would Ray Honeyford have kept his career? Would Eric Pickles have supported him? Don’t think so. Even in the 1960s, people had plans for this country; I don’t believe for one minute that immigration was solely intended to solve manpower shortages. In Bradford, for instance, the wool industry was already in decline.
Iain,
Peter Hitchens suffers from being totally inferior to his late brother,the great Christopher. It is a personal matter for him . He is not the sharpest tool in the box and certainly in no position to criticise an intellect like Enoch.
“Powell’s speech was not particularly inflammatory”
“And let’s remember”
Sloppy!
Oh no, not another pedantic english teacher who is completely unable to resist the temptation to correct every slight spelling mistake or grammatical error.
I was correcting my own posting – can’t even do that now?
And, IMO, using the wrong tense is not insignificant.
I can look at a copy of Powell’s speech. When I am reading it, I am in the present tense and decide the speech is brilliant. I could, however, look at the speech and then change my mind – so the speech was brilliant (to me) but is now no longer so. And I can use a word such as ‘and’ at the start of a sentence, providing it is, in fact, a sentence. I could have used ‘moreover’, ‘furthermore’ in a more formal manner; however, those words are longer: I am lazy.
“When I am reading it, I am in the present tense and decide the speech is brilliant.”
Except that I went on to say “he was expressing concerns that …”.
Enoch was well liked and backed by the (then largely white) Labour unions and dockers who held an immediate walk into London to back him when he was sacked by Lying Ted. The Left tend not to state this spontaneous outpouring for him, wonder if there`s even any clips of it.
Enoch was no tactician though-Peter is right that he could have saved this country from itself had he been more astute in how he raised the issue. Indeed-the liberal playbook would cite this as a success for them.
They prevented any talk of migration for forty years-certainly until Nigel came along, this was verboten.
I like Peter-he`s getting a bit soft nowadays, but he`s long been in the trenches for us. I rate him more than his brother who was good on Islam, but a hopeless controversist who rather liked the sound of his own voice.
Clever guy though-and Galloway has never recovered really having been clobbered by him.Less decent was his gutless takes on Mother Theresa.So say I.
I`m a Christian-so you`ll understand why little Anglican Peter gets my vote!
When the London dockers marched for Enoch in 1968, it was the only genuinely working class movement in that “Year of Revolutions”. The Left never forgave them for it of course. Now, there are no London dockers, and the East London boroughs they lived in have been almost completely cleared of the white working class, ethnically cleansed by their own government, and replaced by Bengali muslims.
This ethnic cleansing is surely with any precedent in history in any country which has not been invaded and conquered. Then again, perhaps I have answered my own question. We have been.
Expressing even mild approval of Powell, Thatcher, Tebbit, Farage, T Robinson etc – pure kryptonite to members of the middle class who consider themselves politically sophisticated (whatever that is). Let’s face it, they’re a bit on the common side, and that Robinson person probably thinks a main course comes in a cardboard bucket. Disgusting.
Nasty, lefty loons, communist dictators, the odd Labour war monger – they’re fine. (OK, Blair not quite so fine these days, but it took a while for the penny to drop.)
Unfortunately on the whole we are ruled by a generation of “babies” who have never had to have put anything on the line for their freedom and who generally are insulated by the direct effects of the policies they espouse.
In the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many people who had been through the war, on the whole wanted to forget it and I think this was all made easier with all the promise of, high living standards and consumerism giving the illusion that everything in the “age of aquarius” would be easy with plenty of bread and love to go around for everyone.
Marriage was uncool and success was judged by how selfish and decadent your lifestyle was rather than on personal Christian based morality and marriage (which helped to bind communities and families together rather than working as separate entities). Hence BBC sponsored perverts such as Saville were for years allowed to get away with murder.
Those who said that perhaps human nature was not really like this were vilified as selfish cynical, old reactionaries and they were standing in the way of everyone becoming “stardust and golden”. And yes (to my own shame) I also had similar thoughts about my own Dad in my late teens, (who had served in aircrew in Bomber Command in the war).
As for Enoch Powell – his mistake was to pick on skin colour and not a certain religion as the main threat to our society. But I am afraid he was turned by the left and the liberal MSM into the great bogyman to shutdown any debate on immigration. The left Like to seize on any small mistake and dissect it to prove that the whole argument is wrong. (its a bit like saying that because a car has a broken mirror it should be scrapped) Unfortunately for us now history is now proving that Powell was right. And the longer we do not have a grown up debate about what is happening the worse things will get.
It was the liberal “intelligentsia” classes that were pushing all this nonsense and were also simultaneously, cynically penetrating our institutions and in particular our media because they realised the power this institution has over hearts and minds.
I think the liberals also played into the hands of the globalists and big corporations who do not recognise individual nations and in addition offered opportunities for more messianic types such as Blair, and Junker who seem to have a slightly unhinged sense of self importance and their role in the world.
These bastards then started inviting in, huge numbers of people from an alien societies and religions who have no need or wish to integrate. And worse their religion tells them that those who do not share their religion should be attacked and their women treated as mere chattels.
However rather than being treated as the naziesque invaders many of them act like. We are told by the “liberal” media that this is all ok as it is just “cultural relativism” and once our new visitors have integrated they will be just like us – Dream on!
New vague PC laws dealing with “hate crime” have now been put in place and are just waiting for the PM to give the word that they should be used en masse to suppress open debate.
And so we are where we are. As people are now starting to wake up and the forces opposing us will increase. Having taken over the MSM, they are attempting to control the non mainstream media. Who will win this race I dont know – However if people truly value the freedoms that our society is meant to stand for, the time for standing up and being counted is getting very close. At the end of the day we will get the society we deserve.
Freedom at the end of the day is a bit like fitness. USE IT OR LOSE IT!
I believe that a war is required, and long overdue. It will be a sobering prospect for the babies, particularly as they will, no doubt, be ‘invited’ to participate…
Required, OG?
Absolutely.
Regrettable.
Inevitable now.
This is the first time that I am aware of in recorded history that nations have willingly allowed – and indeed invited – millions of people who seek to undermine those nations, to move to their territories.
Sooner or later, the babies, as you so aptly describe them, will be forced to make a choice.
Although somewhat older, my choice is already made.
Expat:
I can see no good outcomes. Either there will be a Yugoslav type civil war, or there will be submission to islam. I cannot see any third way. So long as our gutless politicians close their eyes to the problem they created, the resulting disaster will only get worse.
It might not be too late for a real political leader to sort this out, but we all know this will not happen. We are like Britain in 1940 under Lord Halifax, not Winston Churchill. Therefore, the future is bleak.
“I cannot see any third way.”
Partition? Then we can be treated like Israel.
Yes, I suppose that could be an outcome. What a mess!
Very good analysis Oaknash.
The Book Of Isaiah( 3.12) describes it well-ruled over by kids and women in effect.
And as I listen to a surprisingly-good “Beyond Belief” at the moment-I see the Christian Church as represented to be clueless and craven in the face of Islam and Hindus…the latter two faiths have a strength and independence, a faith with roots and the intellect to stand firm in the face of psychobabbling and rushing off for the Largactil.
One big messy church where strong and clever men once led-it`s all youth and women who can`t confront Islam on their own surely?
Watch.
Mice Height,
Brigitte Gabriel has a similar story about Lebanon.
Canada’s being governed by an effeminate retard, second-generation trust-fund brat, who loves grovelling to Islam.
Yes, and the question is that with a mother like his can he be certain who is daddy is without resorting to DNA tests?
“The continued huge inflow of immigrants was meat and drink to the subversives, who saw in them the raw material of future conflict and division.” J. Enoch Powell.
I think maybe I’m a little younger than many of the regular posters here, the ’60’s generation’ were my parents’, uncles, aunts, and therefore never really ‘cool’. However, I see now how influenced my generation (born in the 70s) were, and still are in many cases, by their world view.
Maturity is coming late to many of my generation, but along with middle age is a rapidly growing awareness of how we were deceived and how much we’ve lost. On the plus side our kids (younger than the 20-35 year old ‘snowflakes’ of the useless gimme generation) are definitely growing up with a harder, more realistic view of the world, despite what they get told at school by feckless, leftist, generation snowflake teachers.
If you look at the demographics of the referendum it’s very telling that there is a real swing to Brexit from around the age of 35 upwards… age and wisdom and all that I’d say. Unlike the BBC, I’m seriously dubious things would have gone the Remainer way if the vote had been open to cohorts under 18 though. Last summer I overheard my son’s friends (12/13) talking about what they would have voted, and was quietly pleased that only one said ‘Brexit was wrong’, the rest (probably influenced by their parents) were all definitely in favor of Brexit.
BBC Reject, I think, or at least hope, things are changing with those in their late teens/early twenties, hence the popularity of speakers like Mr Milo Yianopolous. Even the Guardian admitted that during his visit to Colarado university his supporters outnumbered protestors 2:1.
I am hoping that BREXIT and the control of EU immigrants will be only the start, Labour and the Liberals have got no chance of getting in power for a long time, if we get a hardline Tory government they might start sorting immigration from other countries out, and deport those with criminal records.
I quite like the “staid settled conservative society we once were.” Now its a heaving mess of people and areas like mine a third world country .Whats great about that ?
America didn’t have the Enoch Powell speech, Sweden didn’t have it, neither did Canada or France or Australia. But in all those countries just like Britain it is not permitted to talk rationally about race.
Stop blaming Powell. He was a principled man that made a brave, heart-felt speech to warn the country he loved. That speech didn’t put back race relations or close down the debate. Debate was closed down by the left abusing people’s natural fear and shame at the charge of ‘racist!’
“America didn’t have the Enoch Powell speech, Sweden didn’t have it, neither did Canada or France or Australia. But in all those countries just like Britain it is not permitted to talk rationally about race.”
That is a very good point.
“The greatest mass migration in our history has taken place”.
And notice how its mainly Polish people coming to the UK!
And notice that those Polish citizens are mainly Roman Catholic!
Now put these points together and we have a gradual increase of Roman Catholic’s speedily overttaking the numbers of Protestant worshippers leading to the obvious conclusion that the Pope (s) of Rome will eventually gain control of our great nation for which the reformers were burned alive during the Reformation!
It’s getting to the stage, vesnadog, when the damn Spanish Inquisition would be an improvement.
“Spanish Inquisition”
No thanks!