I’m thoroughly disgusted that the BBC’s idea of education and entertainment almost always includes an underlying political element.
The latest attempt is Invasion! with Sam Willis which combats “the idea that we Britons are somehow unique”; they barely try to hide the support for mass immigration here. The argument is basically: “Britain historically had a lot of immigration, so you shouldn’t oppose further immigration” which is about as valid an argument as, “you used to wear a nappy, so you shouldn’t oppose wearing one now”.
According to Willis, claiming that we are “somehow unique” is a “myth” spread by people like Churchill, who claimed that we are an “island race”. Perhaps he should read Churchill’s ‘Birth of Britain’, because Churchill never supported such a silly myth, and I seriously doubt that anyone ever did. It’s obvious to anyone that we have a lot in common with people in many other places, in many important ways. That isn’t incompatible with a national identity. Willis’ myth itself is a myth, invented to mock people who oppose mass immigration. All the old history books speak at length about Roman, Norman, Celtic, Neolithic, Anglo-Saxon, and Viking invasions. In some cases they even over-emphasise the impact of these events, the exact opposite of the “myth” the stupid British racist public are supposed to believe.
Churchill on the Bronze Age
Britain…as a whole was a backward country by comparison with the
Continent; primitive in its civilisation, stagnant and passive in its life, and
receiving most of what progress it enjoyed through invasion and importation
from overseas.