The Daily Mail and Andrew Green- a marriage made in Heaven

Sir Andrew Green, head of anti-immigration pressure group Migration Watch, has penned a poisonous little article in The Daily Mail (1) about - unsurprisingly - immigration and how it is a Bad Thing, because he says so. The piece is titled "We must halt this conspiracy of silence over our immigration crisis," which led me to wonder - how does one 'halt' an abstract noun like 'conspiracy' or ineed, 'halt' a silence? You can expose a conspiracy and break a silence, but neither is amenable to halting.

Green goes on, unsurprisingly, at length. His comments in bold, mine in plain.

In any case, why do we want immigration on anything like this scale? For years we have been bombarded with government propaganda about the economic value of immigration.

But the government case was blown apart last year when the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords found unanimously that there was no evidence that net migration generated significant economic benefits for the existing UK population"

A feeble attempt at misdirection.

Some hyperbolic spewing about 'government propaganda about the economic value of immigration,' without reference to a single example, which is rather odd since we've been 'bombarded' for 'years' with this 'propoganda.' If that was the case, surely Green would have been able to cite a speech to prove he wasn't just making stuff up? But not a sniffle of evidence, not even an statement of what he claims the government claims. Whoop-de-do. The government has claimed there is economic value in migration. How much value is claimed, is left unclear by Green.

The reason for this obscurantism becomes clear in the next paragraph, when our third rate Paul Daniels pulls his rabbit out of the hat, reminding us that "the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords found unanimously that there was no evidence that net migration generated significant economic benefits for the existing UK population." I see. The government has claimed there is economic value in immigration. The Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords found there is economic value in immigration. But because it isn't 'significant' we're treated to a full Andrew Green tirade. Bear in mind that Mr Green didn't quote anyone specifying that there was 'significant' economic benefit. So the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords agrees with the government - there is economic value in immigration.

Meanwhile, there are very definite costs to uncontrolled immigration.

Here Mr Green is bombarding us with propoganda of his own. The British immigration system is not 'uncontrolled.' There are plenty of limits and controls on it. You can not just amble into the country. My wife - before she was burdened with that title - had to leave Britain because - golly - her visa ran out and she was no longer permitted to remain.

Trevor Phillips, head of the Human Rights and Equality Commission, has been warning for years that we are 'sleepwalking into segregation'. He has said we are a society which is becoming more divided by race and religion, almost without noticing it.

For stating this truth, he has been vilified by the Left and ignored by the Government. But the facts are on his side. In central London primary schools, only 20 per cent of pupils are now classified as 'white British'.

More inventions on the part of Mr green. Analysing Trevor Phillips's 'Sleepwalking into segregation' address, the Guardian (2) quoted Peter Hain (he's gummint, right?):

The Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, who lived in South Africa before moving to the UK as a teenager in the late 60s, said Mr Phillips's warning had to be taken "very seriously" and was "very worrying".

And, from the same article, Lord Ousley, former head of the Commission for Racial Equality:

Today, Lord Ousley said Mr Phillips seemed to be saying the government had "failed".

"He's right in so far as he needs to highlight the fact we do have concentrations and clusters of ethnic groups in areas that are suffering poverty, racialism, exclusion and discrimination," he told the BBC's Today programme.

"It's not new - it's been around for a while. It may be getting worse."

So he wasn't ignored, far less excoriated, for expressing his views. But lets not worry about the truth, eh? After all, this is getting published in the Mail.

It is also worth noting that Green is presenting Phillips as a champion of the anti-immigration lobby, which is not the case. His concern in his 'sleepwalking' speech wasn't immigration, but the failure of immigrant and host communities to adapt and adjust, and the ghettoisation that resulted.

But while the politicians might ignore all this, the public are perfectly aware of the problem. The results of recent opinion polls are startling.

Eighty-four per cent are worried about our population hitting 70million in 20 years or so, including two thirds of our ethnic population. Seventy-one per cent are worried about the impact of immigration, including 45 per cent of the ethnic communities.

I'm not surprised they are worried, with this sort of crap being printed in the newspapers. Perhaps the Mail should devote more column inches to things that are more worth while worrying about - climate change and environmental degradation being the obvious ones - but it won't, because that would mean telling its readers that they might have to face up to some unpleasant realities about their way of life.

And that's the important bit, the point of Green's pointless little rant. Immigration, immigrants, the governement, politcal correctness, all become useful distractions, generating a pervasive false consciousness in the middle and working classes, where jobs aren't being lost due to economic ruthlessness or incompetence by the rich and powerful, but because of immigrants. We get told to worry lots about globalisation when it takes the form of movements of peoples, to distract us from it when it means the movements of jobs and capital.

Of course, the left subscribe to this silliness as well. The current spleening abotu Griffin on question time, and the BNP in general, is evidence of how they've bought into it. It helps define them and give them purpose, without actually having to do much about the large, pressing, unspeakable issues. By loathing the BNP and vilifying Nick Griffin, and Andrew Green, we can all go on living in pretty much the same way as the people who read the Mail with out feeling like they are licking a turd, or who vote for Griffin, or who will watch him flounder on Question Time and still - such is the power of false consciousness - see it as a triumphant challenge to authority.

Not that authority actually gives a toss about Griffin and his knuckledragging cohorts. The real authorities - not the people we vote in, or as likely, don't vote in, every few years - don't care particularly for Griffins repulsiveness. If some unlikely chain of events were to catapult him to Number 10, they would do business with him. They have the power and money to buy him, like they had the power and money to buy off the Labour Party.

Of course, it is rather unlikely they'll have to buy off Griffin, who's political half life is measured in months, rather than years.

1 - "We must halt this conspiracy of silence over our immigration crisis," published in the Daily Mail, 22nd of October, 2009. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1222078/SIR-ANDREW-GREEN-We-halt-conspiracy-silence-immigration-crisis.html)
2 - "Britain 'sleepwalking to segregation'," unattributed article, published in the Guardian, 19th of September, 2005. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/19/race.socialexclusion)