Sunday 25 September 2011

Labour and Immigration

Past Labour Governments acted to arrest the importation of a new working class whose members understood no English except commands, knew nothing about workers’ rights in this country, could be deported if they stepped out of line, and, since they had no affinity with any particular locality here, could be moved around at will. They acted against the enforced bilingualism or multilingualism that transfers economic, social, cultural and political power to a bilingual or multilingual élite, to the exclusion of the English-speaking working class, black and white.

The Co-Chairman of Balanced Migration is a Labour MP, Frank Field. Participants in it include Ian Davidson, a leading Co-operative MP; Baroness Boothroyd; Lord Jordan, a veteran trade union leader; Lord Ahmed, a prominent Muslim peer; Ann Cryer, a former Socialist Campaign Group MP, the widow of another and the mother of a third; Hazhir Teimourian, a London-based Kurdish journalist; Peter Kilfoyle, who resigned from the Blair Government in order to act as its critical friend before opposing the invasion of Iraq; and Lord Skidelsky, a founding and finishing member of the SDP who went on to resign from the Conservative front bench in order to oppose the bombing of Kosovo, and whose latest book is entitled Keynes: The Return of the Master.

The No2EU – Yes To Democracy list was headed both in the East Midlands and in Yorkshire and the Humber by leaders of the Lindsey oil refinery workers. The trade union closed shop prevented such abuses, as surely as it guaranteed to the Tory 40 to 45 per cent of the industrial working class a moderating influence on the selection of the Labour parliamentary candidates for the safe Labour constituencies in which they lived.

2 comments:

  1. "The Co-Chairman of Balanced Migration is a Labour MP, Frank Field. Participants in it include Ian Davidson, a leading Co-operative MP; Baroness Boothroyd; Lord Jordan, a veteran trade union leader; Lord Ahmed, a prominent Muslim peer; Ann Cryer, a former Socialist Campaign Group MP, the widow of another and the mother of a third; Hazhir Teimourian, a London-based Kurdish journalist; Peter Kilfoyle, who resigned from the Blair Government in order to act as its critical friend before opposing the invasion of Iraq; and Lord Skidelsky, a founding and finishing member of the SDP who went on to resign from the Conservative front bench in order to oppose the bombing of Kosovo, and whose latest book is entitled Keynes: The Return of the Master."

    Essentially, a bunch of losers.

    And incidentally, I tend to agree with them on this issue and others. But the way politics is heading, you know the response will essentially be "we've won. And if we want to import slaves from abroad, we'll take them, and you will wish you still had the figleaf."

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  2. It's not over yet. People used to say that about Eurosceptics and about opponents of liberal intervention.

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