Whose Britain is it?

How Gordon Brown's podcast turned an immigration rise into a fall

By James Slack

Labour last night faced damaging claims it had 'misled' the public by claiming immigration is falling sharply - when it is likely be on the rise again.

In a rare intervention, Gordon Brown yesterday released figures which he claimed showed a steep 16,000 reduction in the net level of immigration into Britain last year.

It was the centrepiece of an internet broadcast by the Prime Minister designed to reassure voters that the Government is listening to public concerns about the population soaring towards 70million.

But it has now emerged Mr Brown's claims were produced by using two completely different sets of statistics which should not be compared. In fact, analysis suggests he is likely to have underestimated the net level of immigration to the UK last year by more than 35,000.

That would make the total figure for 2009 more than 20,000 higher than in the previous 12 months. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said Mr Brown's podcast had used 'misleading figures'. He added: 'The net immigration figure for the calendar year 2009 could well show an increase, not a fall. So the PM has got his immigration numbers seriously wrong.'

The controversy stems from a detailed passage in yesterday's podcast - which was itself a response to canvassers reporting deep public unhappiness with Government immigration policies.

Mr Brown said: 'Doing the right thing for jobs and for a strong economy - and ensuring fairness for hard working families - is the central theme of this week's Budget.

'But I recognise that among the concerns you must address when you talk of fairness is immigration.

'Some people talk as if net inward migration is rising. In fact, it is falling - down from 237,000 in 2007, to 163,000 in 2008, to provisional figures of 147,000 last year.'

The first two statistics - for 2007 and 2008 - are complete totals from the Long Term International Migration study, approved by the Office for National Statistics. But the 2009 figure - used to give the impression of a steep fall in arrivals - is only a partial figure, compiled from the different International Passenger Survey.

Not only is it provisional, it does not include asylum seekers, long-term arrivals from Ireland and people who travel to Britain as visitors then decide to stay.

On average, based on previous years, the ONS estimates 38,000 will be added to the figure quoted for 2009 by Mr Brown - which would give a final total of 185,000 - up by more than 10 per cent.

That would mean that - even in recession - migration to the UK once again began to rise.

Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: 'After 13 years of an open door immigration policy Gordon Brown now admits we need controls.

'His Government has not offered any serious controls, so Britain will have to wait for a Conservative government to introduce an annual limit on work permits, effective controls on student visa abuse, restrictions on those coming here to get married, and a Border Police Force.'

Article

*****

This is not misleading the public, this is blatantly lying to them over one of their main concerns. In days gone by he would have had to resign for deceit such as this.

He won't of course, as that would take moral courage, but it does show you how low we have sunk as a country that this despicable man and his even more despicable government are not only tolerated, but are apparently endorsed by so many of the drones that dwell amongst us.

That this ruinous government is still in the running in regards the General Election boggles the mind, and makes one ask oneself have we become a nation of unthinking unprincipled fools?

I Truly Despair

TENS of thousands of immigrants are claiming the DOLE - just months after arriving in Britain supposedly to WORK.

In the last six years a staggering 169,000 immigrant workers claimed unemployment benefit within six months of getting a National Insurance number.

Last year alone, 21,160 lodged claims within six months - costing taxpayers £1.4MILLION a week.

The shock new figures from the Department of Work & Pensions will fuel fears that thousands of immigrants come here to take advantage of our generous welfare state.

And they shatter claims that immigrants only move to the UK to do the jobs nobody else wants to carry out.

Sir Andrew Green, of campaign group Migration Watch, blasted: "This is appalling.

"The government should explain who these people are and why they're able to claim benefits without having paid a penny into the system."

Drain

The ministry's figures reveal that last year 15,280 foreign nationals claimed jobseekers' allowance within six months, a weekly drain of £982,504 on taxpayers.

A further 2,570 claimed incapacity or disablement allowances - despite applying less than six months earlier for an NI number to work. These payments would cost £205,986 a week.

And 3,310 claimed income support, giving a weekly bill of £212,833.

Last year 590,000 new arrivals came to the UK.

And ministers admit they've no idea how many illegal immigrants are already here but estimates place the number at a million.

Britain's total benefits bill is £187billion a year but, incredibly, the government does NOT record the number of immigrants currently being paid.

A Department of Work and Pensions spokeswoman said: "Less than three per cent get benefits within six months. And the vast majority are claiming jobseekers' allowance while they look to get back to work."

Article

Madness! Absolute and total madness!

How can any politician or civil servant make excuses for this?

Treaties must be ripped apart, conventions must be reappraised and rewritten or withdrawn from, new N I Numbers to school-leavers only, borders must be nailed shut until we get a grip of this spiralling and destructive problem...this cannot be allowed to continue.

Britain is broke, we make nothing of importance any more in substantial numbers to be exported, we are in debt up to our eyeballs, I just can't see how we can afford the luxury of supporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants, and no doubt their soon to arrive extended families.

We have millions of our own on benefits, why do we feel the need to import more?

It is not soft-touch Britain, it is soft-touch politicians; the ordinary people have had enough.

I just can't get my head around it; am I stupid or am I just going mad?

A question of loyalty

By George Jonas

Until recent times, the West has been spoiled by the loyalty of immigrants, even from hostile regions or cultures. During the First World War, with negligible exceptions, immigrants from enemy countries as well as their children remained loyal to Canada and the U.S. throughout the hostilities. During the Second World War, although we treated German, Italian or Japanese immigrants and their descendants shabbily, as a rule they responded with unfailing patriotism. For every Tokyo Rose (the American GI's nickname for Ikuko Toguri, a Japanese-American woman, born in Los Angeles, who broadcast Japanese propaganda during the war) there were thousands of Japanese-American soldiers who gave their lives to fight fascism.

The pattern continued during the Cold War, when former nationals of hostile communist countries often found refuge in North America. These newcomers of various ethnicity and religion, from Eastern Europe to Vietnam, were as supportive of the values and interests of their adopted countries as native-born citizens of Western descent. Few Americans opposed the anti-American antics of Fidel Castro more resolutely than Florida's ex-Cuban community.

This started changing. In the last 30 years, a new type of immigrant emerged: the immigrant of dubious loyalty. Then, even more alarmingly, came a third phenomenon: the disloyal native-born, sometimes of immigrant ancestry, sometimes of Islamic conversion.

The new immigrant seemed ready to share the West's wealth but not its values. In many ways, he resembled an invader more than a settler or a refugee. Instead of making efforts to assimilate, the invader demanded changes in the host country's culture. He called on society to accommodate his linguistic or religious requirements. Some were innocuous: In 1985, a Sikh CNR railway worker refused to exchange his turban for a regulation hard hat. In 1991, less innocuously, a newly appointed Toronto police board commissioner of Asian extraction declined to take the traditional oath to the Queen.

The host societies' usual response was accommodation. Turbans were substituted for hard hats; the language of the police oath was changed. Recently, ceremonial daggers were allowed in schools. But accommodation only escalated demands. Requests for cultural exemption were soon followed by openly voiced sentiments of disloyalty. By the late 1990s, a Muslim group in Britain saw fit to express the view that no British Muslim has any obligation to British law when it conflicts with the law of Allah.

Disturbing as such talk was, it wasn't unlawful. Dissent was within our democratic tradition. Unfortunately, the new dissenters weren't democrats. Their "dissent" culminated in threats, fatwas, assassinations and finally massacres in American and European cities. How did this come about? Three reasons seem to stand out.

One, we retreated from the principle that immigration should serve the interests of the host country first. We forgot that when groups of distant cultural and political traditions arrive in significant numbers, they may establish their own communities not merely as colourful expressions of ethnic diversity -- festivals or restaurants -- but as separate cultural-political entities.

Next, we tried to turn this liability into an asset by promoting multiculturalism. We stopped ascribing any value to integration, and began flirting with the notion that host countries aren't legitimate entities with their own cultures, only political frameworks for various co-existing cultures.

Finally, in fundamentalist Islam, we've come up against a culture for which the very concept of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's is alien. Puritanical Islam considers that everything belongs to God (or rather, some mullah's idea of God). This concept doesn't envisage one's citizenship commanding a higher loyalty than one's faith.

It's not a matter of where immigrants come from, but where they're going. Refugees from the East are no threat; colonizers are. That's where current immigration trends and multiculturalism become a volatile mix. Extending our values to others is one thing, but modifying our values to suit the values of others is a vastly different proposition.

By now, multiculturalism has made it difficult to safeguard our ideals against a new type of immigrant whose goal is not to fit in, but to carve out a niche for his own tribe, language, customs or religion in what we're no longer supposed to view as a country but something between Grand Central Station and an empty space. When Canada is no longer regarded as a culture, with its own traditions and narratives, but a clean slate for anyone to write on what he will, immigrants of the new school will be ready with their own texts, including some that aren't very pleasant. The sound you hear is the sharpening of their chisels.

Enoch Powell: Was He Right?

Points and Prophesy from Powell's 1968 Birmingham speech. Was he right?