[Messianic Trees]

Lies, damned lies... and immigration

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The British Government — our government — always lies about immigration. This, and its reasons, should be compulsory study for all students of politics, especially those who think that agreement between the two front benches is a good sign (Iraq? Algeria?).

Labour has lied for years and years because it views each new immigrant as a potential, or even a guaranteed, Labour voter. Ah, the secret of eternal political power!

The Tories have a long and notorious history of lying reaching as far back as the 1950s and 1960s.

Yet nothing would have been easier, going all the way back to the Fifties, than changing our admission rules to match those of the rest of the world and not treating all Commonwealth citizens as British subjects.

And just to cap it all, there's some prize cunts in the comments:

The establishment media is as bad as the government when it comes to lying about immigration. It's always about Britain for instance but it's as then 2011 census revealed it's England where >98% of immigrants settle. It's England with the housing crisis. It's England the UK government is planning to concrete over. It's England with the minority white English cities. If you want honesty on the subject start talking about England. If you want something done about it - fight for an English parliament that will work in the English interest.
- Wyrdtimes, Just England, Greenland, 23/1/2013 1:49

The problem with estimates is that they are estimates. The whole population of Romania and Bulgaria could legaly come here. And that, in a nutshell, is why the EU immagration policy is wrong and why we should leave the EU now as we will never get the Left wing bearocrats that run it to see this simple truth! or ,scarier still,, as they envisage and want one huge superstate is this what they want...........they are not "STUPID" people...what do you think?
- theresaidit, yorkshire, United Kingdom, 22/1/2013 23:48

Why would anyone want to stay in Rumania? come to the UK, free housing, benefits here exceed wages there. Health service for all the extended family is free, they send you to university, all fees paid if you can't get a job. Have enough kids and you can invest in property and become a landlord. Does'nt socialism give you warm feeling?
- Watcher, Burton on Trent, 23/1/2013 13:29

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yet nothing would have been easier, going all the way back to the Fifties, than changing our admission rules to match those of the rest of the world and not treating all Commonwealth citizens as British subjects.

So in other words all the nice stuff we said about them was bullshit? They should have cut our heads off.

[National Anglia]

Heh, I like that he doesn't stop at moaning about immigration now, Romania and Bulgaria and what have you, but has to have a forlorn little cry-wank about how it should have been all so different back in the fifties, like the last of the fucking Jacobites or something.

And as Tubby points out, that would have been a great look in the twilight of Empire, Britain denying right of residence to what were then still colonial subjects.

[The Red Arrow]

...remember all that hand-wringing about those poor people behind the iron curtain who couldn't live and work where they chose?

[National Anglia]

Oh Nikita, is it cold?
In your little corner of the world
You could roll around the globe
And never find a warmer soul to know



Oh Nikita You will never know anything about my home
I'll never know how good it feels to hold you
Nikita I need you so



And if there comes a time
Guns and gates no longer hold you in
And if you're free to make a choice
Just look towards the west and find a friend

[The Red Arrow]

Word.

[Fozzy]

Labour has lied for years and years because it views each new immigrant as a potential, or even a guaranteed, Labour voter.

Why the hell would Labour be daft enough to think that? Why does being forrin inevitably make you left wing? Yes, I know the Mail perception is that they're all voting for continued plasma TVs and benefit handouts, but that does sort of ignore the thousands of immigrants who are in work and/or run their own businesses, many of whom may well subscribe enthusiastically to all the values of capitalism.

I take it Alexander thinks we shouldn't have taken in all the Ugandans that Idi Amin chucked out. Let alone those pesky Jews in the 1930s.

[mojojojo]

Labour has lied for years and years because it views each new immigrant as a potential, or even a guaranteed, Labour voter.

Why the hell would Labour be daft enough to think that? Why does being forrin inevitably make you left wing? Yes, I know the Mail perception is that they're all voting for continued plasma TVs and benefit handouts, but that does sort of ignore the thousands of immigrants who are in work and/or run their own businesses, many of whom may well subscribe enthusiastically to all the values of capitalism.

I take it Alexander thinks we shouldn't have taken in all the Ugandans that Idi Amin chucked out. Let alone those pesky Jews in the 1930s.

It's obvious nonsense. A transparent lie that a child could see through. Racist shit-stirring. Vile propagana. This really is the sort of thing I wanted Leveson to look at.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Why the hell would Labour be daft enough to think that? Why does being forrin inevitably make you left wing?

I'm just thinking of all the Ugandan Asians, who opened small businesses, grew them into large businesses and went on to join the Masons, sent their kids to university and supported Thatcher...

[Messianic Trees]

This time, it's us holding the aces on Europe

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Now we have a new prospect. The UK can set about undoing the damage of the past half-century, not just in farming and fishing, but in all those crazy regulations from Brussels.

They affect every sphere of our lives, from selling bananas to hours of work, and apart from often being very, very silly, impose severe costs on the business world.

This time it is we who hold all the aces. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's reaction to David Cameron’s speech was condescending: 'We are prepared to talk about British wishes.' This was seen by some British commentators as genuinely helpful.

How can they be so naive? What choice does she or any other EU leader have?

While we are about it, observe this simple statistic: last year for the first time, the UK became Germany's biggest trading partner for goods and services, edging ahead of France and the U.S.

Yes, our trade matters to the whole EU, and is in any case covered by the European Economic Area agreement (separate from the Treaty of Rome and its bastard descendants).

Apart from which, difficult as our economic position may be these days, it is even worse for most EU countries where the euro constantly threatens to unravel dramatically.

And politically? Ah, that's where our exit threat provides true leverage. If we were to leave the Union, the grandest scheme of them all, the project for a United States of Europe collapses. It would go down in history as a spectacular flop, a grand alliance shorn of democratic endorsement or political foresight.

The threat to leave is a veritable sword of Damocles that will hang over the EU until the referendum itself. It will make the Brussels powers anxious to placate us.

If the Government insists the Coalition severely limits what it can do in the short run — why do I sound so suspicious of Downing Street, I wonder? — Tory backbenchers are blessedly free to be as critical of the EU as they like.

Every mad ruling from the European Court such as the prisoners' right to vote can be jeered at.

Euroscepticism can be stirred again and again. If that leads to a massive repatriation of powers during the negotiations (which might even be under Labour, who are bound to turn pro-referendum), so much the better. If it fails to achieve that, we can vote to leave.

Those wanting an actual exit are more likely to rise than fall.

Democracy can actually work sometimes.

[The Red Arrow]

Democracy can actually work sometimes.

It didn't in the last U.K general election.

[youngian]

Why the hell would Labour be daft enough to think that? Why does being forrin inevitably make you left wing?

I'm just thinking of all the Ugandan Asians, who opened small businesses, grew them into large businesses and went on to join the Masons, sent their kids to university and supported Thatcher...

You'd expect many immigrants to have a middle class individualist aspirant ethos which would gravitate them towards the Tories. There was some more far sighted Tories in the Major era who began to try and turn this around. Sadly as Alexander shows the ghost of Powell still stalks the party.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Feb 1974 Election coverage is on BBC Parliament.

Andrew Alexander is in it. Apart from being introduced as "close to Enoch Powell", he's good.

[youngian]

The Feb 1974 Election coverage is on BBC Parliament.

Andrew Alexander is in it. Apart from being introduced as "close to Enoch Powell", he's good.

Lots of double barrelled shire knights back then before their seats were inherited by oily chancers and free market headbangers.

You can't make judgements solely from a columnist's photo but in Alexander's case he looks a sinister Nazi henchman.