Immigration.........who wants it?

An opinion poll asking ‘Is immigration a good or  bad thing’ would almost certainly get a massive ‘bad’ vote, especially if conducted for the Daily Mail. This is simple knee-jerk stuff. Reality, as ever, is rather more complicated. Some immigration is important – indeed, vital – to the future progress of Britain, Some is not only harmful but can be positively dangerous.

 

It is a topic that successfully eludes intelligent debate. Since Enoch’s chillingly prophetic speech all these years ago ‘immigration’ has been taboo, at least amongst the chattering classes. Brown and Blair were able to open the floodgates with scarcely a peep from the Tories. But popular opinion is over-riding the hang-ups of the metropolitan elites, and it is now one of the three top political issues. UKIP in particular makes sure that it is high on the agenda for future elections.

 

Instead of faffing-about, like the Tory female last week who accused Nigel Farage of spreading alarm and despondency just by mentioning the ’I’ word, a smattering of cogent policy might concentrate minds rather more than has been so in the past.

 

The core fact is that those who are here are (mostly) going to stay. There is nothing to do about it, so take it out of the equation.

 

The next important realisation is that some immigration is good and some is bad.

 

The ‘good’ include hard-working Eastern Europeans  who, contrary to tabloid opinion, do not depress wages and steal jobs rightly belonging to the British. The evidence to support such a view simply does not exist. The reason that these people fill British jobs is not because employers recruit them in preference to natives, but because they can’t find enough educated and skilled workers at home

 

They are also very fecund. Those who feel that we need more white Christians and fewer brown Moslems need look no further than the Poles, who are enthusiastic breeders.

 

The ‘good’ include university students and pupils at our public schools, a major financial resource for our struggling  education system. Current immigration policy is to make things tough for them.

 

And the ‘good’ definitely include the uber-rich who are pouring vast amounts of investment into UK, especially London. They are the people who will buy a penthouse at the top of one of the skyscrapers being built (with foreign money) all over central London, and think little of paying £50 million for a pied-a-terre for their shopping trips from Mumbai, Shanghai, Dubai and Moscow. The tax-take alone is impressive. It is estimated that Chelsea and Kensington collected more than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland put together.

 

Finally, we should not overlook the myriads of scientists, academics, professionals of every stripe, and entrepreneurs who have enriched Britain over many years. The UK also seems to have a particular attraction for film stars, actors, directors and others who find a certain satisfaction in our eccentric life-style, like Sam and Zoe Wanamaker who gave us The Globe Theatre, and Sir John Getty, the only American ever to have understood cricket, and who gave £140 million to artistic causes!

 

The undesirables?

 

Top of the list must be Eastern European gypsies, or ‘Roma, as PC now dictates that we call them. Political figures as diverse as Farage and Blunkett have warned that the extremely anti-social conduct by Roma could easily lead to unrest and violence. This deserves attention; Roma crime is typically street crime, pick-pocketing, begging, ATM fraud, all of which are liable to bring the victim into confrontation with the assailant, sometimes with inevitable results.

 

This may be where Enoch’s warning will come back to haunt us – ‘I dreamt I saw the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.

 

Then there’s the great unwashed and uneducated from Africa and Asia – and elsewhere. There are the phony asylum-seekers and benefits-bludgers, Somalis, Yemenis and other security risks who have no Commonwealth or any other connection with Britain.

 

And perhaps most of all, we don’t want any more Kashmiri peasants who have created a massive ghetto in Bradford. More than 40% were born in Pakistan, so integration never gets traction. These are Mirpuris who continue with their own customs and social structure no matter how long they live in England. The main force is the biraderis, their  clan-system. They cling to the old ways. They persist with first-cousin marriage, leading to a high incidence of birth defects. They arrange marriage partners, run the mosques, and control local politics.

 

A sensible immigration policy requires us to be choosy!