If there's one thing we can be glad about when we talk about immigration and its effects, it's that we that none of our politicians are as rabid as some of those currently in office in Italy. Unlike here, Italy imposed no restrictions on Romanian or Bulgarian free movement when they joined the European Union at the beginning of the year, and like with the result when we were only one of three countries to not impose similar restrictions on the A8 countries in 2004, Romanians especially have moved to Italy in search of work. Armed with dubious figures which suggest that although they only make up 1% of the population, Romanians make up 5.6% of those charged with murder, it took the violent death of Giovanni Reggiani for the centre-left government of Romano Prodi to pass what can only be described as panic legislation which allows for the deportation of any other EU national judged to pose a "threat to public security." Vigilantes have since attacked Romanians and the post-fascists have called for mass repatriation.
From Italy we move to Halesowen and Rowley Regis, the constituency for which the Conservative Nigel Hastilow was until Sunday the prospective candidate for. His decision to resign over his article in Friday's Wolverhampton Express and Star which commented that "Many insist: “Enoch Powell was right”, is hardly a one-off event. Every couple of years an MP, a councillor or a candidate gets exposed for holding less than salubrious views, and they either sit it out, resign, or are summarily sacked. Earlier this year we had Patrick Mercer, who shouldn't have had to resign or be sacked for his explanation of the reality of army life, but went anyway. Late last year there was the Conservative councillor who sent on a highly offensive and racist email about Pakistani immigrants. Prior to that there was Ann Winterton and her joke about the Chinese cockle pickers, and two years previously a joke about Pakistanis "being ten a penny." You could write a whole post purely on Tories and their "jokes."
Even the most naive person must realise however that mentioning Enoch Powell and his infamous speech is career suicide, yet Hastilow did it anyway while noting that he was marginalised afterwards. Rightly or wrongly, and you can argue that Powell was, as the apologists for Hastilow would also say, simply speaking for what many others are thinking and telling them, his whole political life has been reduced to just one simple phrase: rivers of blood. Hastilow himself in his actual article only mentions the rivers of blood in inverted commas, and the mention of Powell being right is not his own, but that of "most people" in the Black Country.
More than anything, his article in indicative for what it isn't: it isn't racist, nor is it even slightly original. It's the atypical rant which will appear every so often in any of the right-wing tabloids. He uses an example of a family that may or may not exist that in their own view have been forgotten about and ignored by the local authorities because the "immigrants" have taken all the accommodation. Powell himself used a couple of such examples in his speech, one of a man who said he wanted his family to move abroad because "in 15 or 20 years time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man" and appropriately enough, of a white elderly woman in Wolverhampton supposedly the only white person remaining on her street, who had "excreta pushed through her letterbox." These are the stock, possibly apocryphal tales which make up these "I'm not a racist but.." stories which enable the politician or writer to push an agenda which they're too frightened to come out with and say openly. Later he makes use of Asian Britons who've told him exactly the same, which is the latest example of the above. To be fair, there was an Asian man on Question Time last week who was of the same opinion, and it does for a second make you wonder whether they've forgotten the racism they must have undoubtedly suffered at some point in their lives, or their own struggle for acceptance which their parents underwent, but to pretend that anyone who has a skin colour other than white can't be racist is a self-deluding fantasy. Just because they've said it doesn't make it any less racist or wrong.
Hastilow continues: the nub of his argument is that there are far too many people, that our services can't cope, that we only need these migrants because our own indigenous potential workforce is all on benefits, all so predictable and also easy to disagree with. If anything, the current balance of people is about right, our services are coping admirably well, as the reports recently have shown, and the numbers of those on incapacity benefit are overwhelmingly those who lost their jobs in the 80s and haven't worked since, and aren't going to again. Society may be getting healthier, as he writes, when he perhaps ought to say we're living longer, but if the government's predictions are anything to go by, half of us might well be obese shortly. He claims the population is growing by almost half a million every year but he seems to have forgotten to deduct those emigrating from those migrating, which leaves a net increase of about 200,000. He asks whether we want 3 million more houses, which we'll need regardless of immigration or not, even though he's a member of the party that created the problem through the selling off of council stock that hasn't been replaced. He implies we'll need higher taxes to cope, when we what really need is better targeted funding to the places that need it.
Trevor Phillips last week praised David Cameron for helping to "deracialise" the whole issue of immigration, and Hastilow is equally vehement that it's not about race but numbers. Cameron does deserve a certain amount of credit for a calm, measured speech on immigration, but his policy of not actually coming up with a number for his magical cap is politically bankrupt. The only real reason why the debate has become "deracialised" is that the migration itself is now overwhelmingly deracialised. Those who have come here since the ascension of the eastern European countries to the EU in 2004 might speak a different language, but they sure look like "us" and have the same colour of skin as us. True, the tabloids have tried to whip up the occasional furore about the Polish, notably the Daily Mail (see FCC ad nauseam and here for the most recent most egregious attempt), but most of it has been half-hearted. There's a reason why the British National Party hasn't turned its fire entirely on the new wave of immigration from Europe and has instead concentrated on Muslims, and that's because they're overwhelmingly as Aryan as "we" are. If the migration was coming from either northern Africa or the Middle East, you can bet, "political correctness" or otherwise that the debate would most certainly not be as "deracialised" as it currently is.
Along comes then Hastilow's solution. Police our borders. Deport without debate "bogus asylum seekers". There's no such thing as a bogus asylum seeker, as the Press Complaints Commission set out 4 years ago in a recommendation to editors. There are only failed asylum seekers. Illegal immigrants get the same treatment. Abandon the "human rights" merry-go-round. Get rid of the 11,000 foreign criminals. Note how many of Hastilow's recommendations are the government's own, yet you can't suggest such things. It's all right though, as Hastilow is humane enough to care about "genuine" refugees who we should always allow in. We, not the immigrants themselves are being exploited, and we're a soft touch seen around the world. As a graduate of the university of reading Sun editorials, I can testify I've read the term "soft touch" dozens of times.
If anything, the whole article shows Hastilow's cowardice. He hides behind the granny of the family for saying that Enoch was right. He quotes the Asian Britons who tell him that too many immigrants now come to benefit purely from the welfare state. He instead mainly lambasts the Brits who can't be bothered to work or who can't work. No sir, he hasn't said anything offensive. The others can do that for him. It serves however to perpetuate the myths of political correctness and that you can't talk about immigration without being called a racist and lambasted. Never mind that almost the exact same article could be read in the pages of many papers in this country without anyone batting an eyelid, Hastilow has been silenced and freedom of speech is threatened. Those who fought the Nazis have been betrayed.
There is a debate to be had about immigration, and it does need to be decided on whether there is an optimum rate. The numbers currently coming though are not set in stone. The restrictions that have resulted in those from the A8 coming to either here, Ireland or Sweden might be lifted; circumstances back home will change, with the figures suggesting that the numbers might have already peaked. There's the small matter that shortly the boomers will be moving in retirement, putting pressure on the pensions schemes; unless we all intend to work far longer than our parents, it might well be immigrants that come to the rescue. While no one is suggesting completely cutting off the flow, the farming industry would undoubtedly collapse without migrant labour, as might the care industry that looks after the elderly we so casually toss aside. We might storing up problems for later, but for the moment the economy and the country are benefiting with only minor instances of pressure on services.
Powell in one sense was definitely right - immigration has irrevocably changed this country, but it's changed it for the better. Britain as a result is both more tolerant and pleasant because of it. It's not because of "political correctness" that we've reacted differently to say Italy; it's because of our personal experience of immigration and the challenges that it brings. I saw the comedian Stewart Lee recently, and in a part of his routine about political correctness and why he thought it was a good thing, he mentioned that when he was at school there was one Asian child in his class, and the teacher always referred to him, every single time, as the "black spot". It's unimaginable and shocking today because of how we've been changed. Powell was completely and utterly wrong because the change has come about, not with the black man gaining the upper hand, far from it, but without the rivers of blood he predicted. There have been riots, but mercifully few, and with little loss of actual life. People do regularly say "Enoch Powell was right", I've even heard my father saying it and later rebuked him for it. Like Powell, they were wrong then and they're still wrong now. Hastilow shouldn't have been made to resign or to apologise - he should still stand and see where his article gets him. I have more faith that the people Halesowen and Rowley Regis would make the right decision than I do in those that have supposedly been contacting him from around the world to back him up.Labels: Enoch Powell, immigration, immigration figures, Nigel Hastilow, political correctness gone mad bullshit, racism, rivers of blood
