[images and
captions added by this website] Friday, December 10, 2004
There are too
many immigrants, say 75 pc of Britons By Philip Johnston, Home
Affairs Editor NEARLY three quarters of British
people believe there are too many immigrants coming
into the country, according to an opinion poll
published today. David
Irving comments: THIS MEANS that in fact
virtually the entire native British
population wants immigration stopped
(and perhaps always did: such is the fate
of a Parliamentary democracy). This is because
the 75 percent presumably does not include
the immigrants themselves, since they
would would hardly vote to saw off the
branch along which they have slithered
into England. Remember the plaintive
cry of the Asian immigrants in the1980s,
that they had arrived but were now cut off
from their (large) extended families in
India and Pakistan? And that Britain
therefore had a humanitarian duty to
"reunite" them with their families by
allowing them in too. The alternative manner
of "reuniting" these wretched families
appears not to have occurred to the
pernicious dunderheads in Whitehall at the
time. | A YouGov survey for The Economist suggests
that record levels of immigration are now the
principal concern of voters, ahead of public
services, crime and terrorism.The findings also indicate that groups normally
regarded as holding more liberal views, including
Londoners and the young, are as ill-disposed to
immigrants as the majority. The poll confirms what politicians have been
noticing for months -- that immigration has
returned with a vengeance as a political issue
after years of quiescence following the fierce
controversies of the late 1960s and 1970s. Labour has pursued an increasingly "open door"
policy, with David Blunkett, above,
the Home Secretary, saying he saw
[Website sarcastic
comment: he is of course blind] "no
obvious limit" to the numbers Britain can take. Ministers believe the economy needs overseas
workers [Website
sarcastic comment: as did the American colonies in
the eighteenth century: it was called slavetrading
at that time] and they contribute to
the overall well-being of the nation. The poll
suggests people are happy if the newcomers arrive
to work but they draw the line when immigrants get
preferential access to public services or
benefits. The Economist says: "The newcomers that grate are those who
strain the delicate British sense of fair play:
85 per cent cite either asylum seekers or
illegal immigrants as the main reason the
country is being overrun." The nationalities most disapproved of, the
survey says, are Iraqis, Pakistanis and Romanians.
"They are thought to be bad news not because they
take jobs or commit crimes, but because they
compete unfairly for public services. Jumping the
queue is always intolerable." Antipathy to immigration is not on racial
grounds, with most people accepting that Britain is
a multicultural country. "Britons are more
blasé than other Europeans about the effect
of immigration on national harmony," The
Economist adds. "Of those who reckon there are
too many, only a quarter worry about racial
balance." [Website
sarcastic comment: Could this apparent consensus
have anything to do with the fact that it is a
criminal offence -- a "hate crime" -- in Britain to
criticise the Government's immigration policy and
its results?] Professor John Solomos, of City
University, London, said: "Britain has become a
multicultural society; it just doesn't want any
more people to come in." One problem, the survey suggests, is that
immigration has become associated with refugees and
illegal entrants rather than with migrant workers
after the huge rise in asylum claimants in the late
1990s, though experts say many of these were
workers using the asylum system as a way in. The latest findings suggest there may be a
political dividend for any party taking a robust
line on immigration, something the parties are also
picking up from their polling and focus groups. At the Tory conference in October, Michael
Howard set out plans for the most radical
overhaul of immigration policy for a generation. He
said a Conservative government would place an
annual limit on immigrant numbers and withdraw from
the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of
Refugees. Net immigration to the UK is about 250,000 a
year and, for the first time, Britain is adding to
its population by immigration. Government figures
predict that the population will increase by 5.6
million over the next 30 years and 85 per cent of
this rise will be due to immigration
[Website sarcastic
comment: This is the same government that earlier
in 2004 predicted that net Eastern European
immigration to the UK would be around ten thousand;
the six months since then have seen 100,000
immigrants flood in from that
quarter.]
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