IMMIGRATION

IMMIGRATION

Britain is the home of the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish races, who are
now happily blended with many others. Britain is the home of millions of
recent immigrants and their descendants, who are an irreplaceable part
of our nation, and who's cultures are a welcome part of our national life.
Britain has a long history of political freedom and tolerance, second to no
other nation, and has throughout the centuries been one of the foremost
models for freedom loving philosophers and thinkers. Our Parliament is
the first and still one of the foremost in the world ; our system of
democracy and our laws, rooted in English Common Law, is unique and
is a prime example of a system of checks and balances which is the root
of all democracies. We have a tradition of decency and fairness which
has been our inspiration in our finest moments, and which we now
struggle to reassert as our driving force. We believe in equality before
the law for all men and women, no matter what their race colour , creed
or origin. We are proud of our history and of the greatness of this nation.
We regret all our wrong doing, especially the Slave Trade. We are proud
of the heights of civilisation we have achieved, in the arts and science,
and thought and politics, but perhaps most for the reputation for decency
and self restraint in our society, for its peacefulness and quiet
orderliness, which we once enjoyed, and hope to enjoy again.

It is time the working classes had a say in how many immigrants are let
in to the country, without fear of being called racists. This is for the
simple reason that it is the working classes who share their lives with
immigrants. Immigrants themselves have a far better understanding of
this than the middle class political establishment; they know themselves
what it is to have very little and to be worried about having to give any of
it up. The poor in this country have increasingly more in common with
immigrants than with their political masters. That includes understanding
that sometimes it may be desirable to reduce the influx of new
immigrants, and at least that this is a fair and perfectly respectable
opinion to hold.

Note, capitalists, that is businessmen, like immigrants because they like
cheap labour. In other words they like to pay the working classes as little
as possible, and they know new immigrants are easier to exploit than the
rest of us. For this reason they like to encourage attacks on working
class people who complain their jobs are being taken. They call this
ill-informed racism. They say "immigrants do the jobs you dont want to
do", by which they mean, they do the jobs you don't want to do at the
rate of pay being offered to immigrants. The black market in cheap
illegal labour is a massive boon to bosses who want to exploit vulnerable
workers to increase their profits. It is a well kept secret, it is much
bigger than the official figures. No wonder they call you a racist for
objecting, its an effective way to silence opposition. It is important that
the working classes show solidarity with the illegal immigrants who are
exploited in this way, through no fault of their own.

We see what happens when it is made impossible for the working
classes to voice their opinion , for so many years - they end up forced to
vote for far right parties, simply in order to be heard on this issue. This is
a tragedy because it gives a false impression to immigrants that they
may not be welcome.

We need to ensure that the debate about immigration is a free one.

Immigration is a working class issue. To start with, most immigrants are
working class. Secondly it is the working classes who are most affected
by immigration, working class areas that are altered by large influxes of
foreigners, working class schools where English can end up as a
minority language, working class housing which is occupied by
immigrants. It is the working classes who welcome immigrants in their
areas and who live and work alongside them
Given this, it is hardly appropriate that, once again,the middle classes
dominate the argument and the policy.
Immigration is not a race issue. The British working classes, many of
whom are immigrants themselves or of immigrant descent, are not
generally racists, and compared to other people, are proud to be some
of the least afflicted with that particular human failing. The British working
classes have been living and working alongside immigrants for hundreds
of years. A multi racial Britain is nothing new and is not a problem.
Multiculturalism, on the other hand, is a problematic idea, and requires
some scrutiny. The immigration argument is closely related to it; the
immigration argument is not just about numbers.

The powerful and influential middle classes, who dominate the political
life of the nation, are so eager to prove ( to themselves?) that they are
not racists ( whilst keeping at a safe distance from any actual
immigrants) that they have developed a whole culture of anti-Britishness
which has held sway for decades, and from which the country is only
partially recovering. Even the Labour government finally realised that
you cannot actually even preserve a country if you deprecate your own
sense of nationhood.
But that is exactly what they have been doing for a whole generation, so
that now it is still very unfashionable (except for the government
desperate to mend the holes) to talk of Britishness, unless of course it
comes linked to praise of multiculturalism. What other nation is called
upon to deny its own existence and nature by its own political elite? And
as for the poor English! Well to the middle class left, Englishness is
nothing, its worse than nothing; furthermore it doesn't exist. The English
must be the only race on earth denied the right to talk of its existence in
its own homeland. (all on the grounds that it is made up of other races
and influxes! Of course it is, and proud to be so, like many other races)
All of this is just plain silly, as well as being smug and hypocritical
posturing on the part of the middle classes - they find sufficient identity in
their pursuit of individuality and wealth, to have no need of any sense of
nationhood perhaps?

It is hard to describe the many and subtle ways this attitude has crept
into our cultural life. It is one which has taken hold of the media (except
the tabloid press) and in local government and schools and other
institutions. It has harmed our sense of identity and weakened our
society's cohesion. It has increased the class divide. It has weakened
our ability to be positive and constructive; it has ultimately led to us being
open to actual attack, from within and without; which is why we have the
spectacle of a Labour government talking of Britishness which would
have landed even Thatcher in trouble!

We welcome the first beginnings of change in this area, albeit one which
has been forced upon our masters by the threat from terrorism, and
from massive crime wave which the collapse of a sense of community
has brought with it; but we insist that the political correctness and the
ideas behind it, which drove this trend be rejected at their root, and
driven out of our educational system.

London, an example

To read the papers anyone would think that London was a giant
restaurant whose chief advantage was the variety of ethnic menus. The
middle class "perception" of London, the string of cliches they use to
describe it, "vibrant" "diverse" etc, may suffice to describe the
experience for those whose children go to all the best schools, who drive
to Sainsbury's and back in the 4x4, and eat in restaurants, but the truth
is that many Londoners, including many immigrants themselves, think
there are too many immigrants in London. This is a view that is never
heard, it is almost illegal to say it, but ask any immigrant and he will
know what you mean. London is a violent and alienating place; too many
people care little about it, don't think of it as theirs, and treat it like a
convenience. The atmosphere, in many ways , is far from vibrant, can be
very negative and it is a frightening place to have to bring up children in.
This effects ALL the working classes, including of course immigrants. It
can indeed affect them worse than anyone. The case of Damiola
showed all too tragically how the innocence of one unaccustomed to the
vile cruelty of London life, was singled out and destroyed in a brutal
murder of a new immigrant child, by children. The middle class solution
is to try to drown it all in a sea of horrible and crippling political
correctness,which seeks to strangle British culture, as if they believe that
by neutralising the British way of life, some benefit is brought to
immigrants. This is a mistake. It is a mistake based on a set of lies
which proceed from middle class guilt, but which have little to do with
reality. One such lie, one of the most sinister, is the notion that Muslims
are offended by and object to, Christian religious festivals. This notion is
put about by the left wing middle classes, who themselves strongly
dislike Christianity and wish to make the Muslim community scapegoats
for their own anti-Christian measures. Recently the Muslim Council tried
to dispel this lie by issuing a joint statement with the Anglican Church, to
the effect that they were not at all offended by Christianity. Indeed
anyone who knows Muslims will know that they are generally very
respectful of other religions, as this is in the Koran. If anything, Muslims
are sometimes disappointed by the lack of proper respect we ourselves
show for the religious aspect of our holidays, and how we tend to treat
them as little more than excuses for drunkenness , gluttony and material
greed - and they are quite right to be disappointed. The same middle
classes who pretend Muslims dislike Christmas, are the ones who seek
to secularise Christmas still further. Maybe they should ask Muslims
what they think of that idea.

The notion that we ought somehow to be ashamed of our own culture
and reduce it in some way as a gesture of welcome to immigrants is
deeply mistaken. Most immigrants come to Britain because there are
things they like and respect about it. Often now though, when they come
here they are disappointed to find much of it gone. Many immigrants in
London are shocked at the violence and the mess (moral and social)
and the chaos. They wonder where the Britain they heard of has gone.
So do we. Perhaps the middle classes can tell us?
It is in no-one's interests to dismantle British society and British values
and the British way of life and pretend that it is to please immigrants.
Advocates of this kind of policy should ask the immigrant man on the
street; he is likely to tell them that he wants to enjoy the peaceful and
civilised values of decency and toleration which once made Britain such a
pleasant place to live in.

It is right to expect immigrants to learn our language and share our
culture, as well as to maintain their own in their own. It is right for ALL
school children to be taught about British culture and society. We all
need to understand and take pride in our political system and our laws,
and our culture and values. It is normal and natural, and what any
country needs in order to survive and thrive. We must not allow political
correctness or any other doctrine to obscure this fact.

It is not perhaps surprising that immigrants sometimes seem to lack
respect for our values, if we don't show proper respect for them
ourselves. What kind of welcome is it to break up the furniture so that it
is no longer worth sitting on? We need to take pride in what is good
about British society and values. The best welcome we can give
immigrants is to build and maintain a safe and decent society for us all to
live in, in peace, free from violence and crime and threats of all kinds.

The British way has always been tolerance of difference. This has been
a place where people have fled to from persecution for hundreds of
years. We want it to continue to be. We have to protect those very
ideals of freedom and decency which have attracted immigrants before.
We need to look at our own way of life and see if we are not in danger
of throwing away those very values, and ourselves providing a very
poor example to immigrants who want to learn the British way of life.
Are we not, at this point in our history, in danger of losing the moral
values which once made this country a pleasant place to live in? We
cannot be surprised if some immigrants are disillusioned when they
come here, if they see violence and greed destroying the fabric of our
society;If they see young people who are rude and disrespectful to
everyone, including their parents and teachers, and strangers; if they
see a press and media consumed by a desire for cheap obscenity and
sensation, and a population with a craven, grovelling obsession with so
called celebrities? There are certainly some immigrants who take this
country to be something to be used and abused at will; we must ask
ourselves why our society commands so little respect. There are many
who come here with high hopes and honourable intentions; we must
ask ourselves if we are not ashamed to so badly disappoint such
people?

To some extent a host gets the guests he deserves.

Britain is proud to welcome
immigrants here. Immigrants
have long been a valued part of
our society. We need to uphold
the values fo the society they
came be a part of.

The Working Class Party