October 07
2004
Davis' vile populism

A pretty vile set of remarks on immigration by David Davis yesterday.

According to the Shadow Home Secretary, tougher curbs and a ceiling on immigration (including asylum) are needed "before it is too late". Immigration, he argued, was "endangering the values that we in Britain rightly treasure...The Government says that it doesn't know if this level of immigration is too much or too little. Well let me tell them. It is too much. Far too much. And we must do something about it."

Let's be charitable. His claim that immigration endangers British values is a complete misunderstanding of the problem. Damn it, let's not be charitable. Let's say what's really going on: Davis is resorting to cheap, incendiary and ignorant near-demagoguery in a desperate attempt to shore up votes.

It's not immigration which endangers British values but the failure of immigrants to assimilate. This has almost nothing to do with numbers but is a
product of our failure to insist on certain preconditions. (And for those of you who have difficulty reading, let me say that again: almost nothing. Almost nothing does not mean nothing. It means almost nothing. I have to spell that out as I can already predict the comments appearing...)

The US isn't endangered by immigration. It is made by it. Illegal immigration is a problem not because of the numbers per se but because illegal immigrants are not absorbed into the prevailing culture properly. Immigrants buy into the American dream. We, however, stand back and make no real demands.

Immigrants are blamed for many of our ills because they are seen to be alien and to free ride. You know the usual thing: they come here to scrounge off the benfits system. But if we insisted on a genuine measure of assimilation and debarred immigrants from receiving benefits, we would all benefit from the industry and drive of those who can contribute much to society. Asylum seekers should, far from being banned from working, be forced to support themselves. No true asylum seeker would be other than grateful for such an opportunity. And by paying taxes and contributing, so they would earn their right to a place in our country.


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Comments

What do you mean, numbers have nothing to do with it?! Only kidding.

The problem is that the message you've spelt out, while correct, is unelectable. The Tories have to resort to cheap populism to get elected, because that's what wins elections. And lest we forget, it isn't just the right that are guilt of cheap populism on typically 'right-wing' issues. Big Blunkett has made a habit, one might even say career, out of it.

Regards

Stated by: Andrew on October 7, 2004 4:54 PM

I am sure you are right - at least in your analysis of the problem ie. failure to assimilate.

However be realistic - for many political commentators introducing a policy banning asylum seekers from receiving benefits, would probably be categorised as just as 'vile' and 'right wing' as Davis'.
And I'm sure it would be ruled illegal in the courts.

One of the problems at the moment is not necessarily that asylum seekers can claim benefits - but rather that they are FORCED to claim benefits. They are not allowed to work. But then whichever way you work it they will get accused of either "scrounging off the welfare state" or "stealing our jobs".

Stated by: alex on October 7, 2004 7:55 PM

Assimilation is closely linked to numbers - and even more to the expectations that society places on those that come. If the numbers are great (as they are) then immigrants can form their own culturally independent communities. If society (as ours through this vicious government does) grovels to immigrant cultures and condemns, decries and threatens its own, then there is every encouragement not only for immigrants to decline integration but to seek to supplant the native culture.

It is anxiety about these issues that will cause people outside the self-preening liberal hoi-polloi to welcome the belated acknowledgement of these fundamental concerns by David Davis. Would we could believe that his weasly, weak-kneed party will actually follow them up and act upon them.

Stated by: Bernard on October 7, 2004 8:04 PM

"It's not immigration which endangers British values but the failure of immigrants to assimilate...."

True so far.

"....This has almost nothing to do with numbers but is a product of our failure to insist on certain preconditions."

This is of course complete nonsense. The idea that assimilation is simply a question of 'insisting' on certain conditions appears to presuppose that immigrants bring no cultural baggage with them.

If it were simply a question of immigrants responding to the policies and attitudes of 'society' then you would not expect the assimilation of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Jamaican immigrants to be so much poorer than that of Chinese, Hindu, Sikh and West African immigrants.

The most important aspect of assimilation is what the various groups were like when they arrived here. Since there is no way of applying that sort of selectiveness in government policy, the best alternative is a restrictionist approach to immigration.

Stated by: Ross on October 8, 2004 12:20 AM

I think Ross nearly gets it, but just misses the obvious solution!

Due to the demand to enter the UK and the fact that people will pay thousands to snake head gangs to smuggle them into the UK. The treasury is unusually missing a money making trick, one that will even help with the balance of payments! Namely auction off places to immigrants, those most wanting to work and earn in the UK economy would pay the most! The market would pretty much ensure that benefit seekers would have to pay a very high %age of the actual benefits they would receive to get in, so they would be discouraged! A charity could be set up to buy in Asylum seekers.

Also immigrants would have an incentive to inform on illegal immigrant workers who are now competing unfairly.

It's win-win, so coerced collectivists will hate it!

Stated by: Rob Read on October 8, 2004 11:01 AM

I look forward to the Times piece in which Pollard recommends that Israel should stop calling itself a Jewish state, welcome talented incomers of all colours with open arms and drop all this nonsense about marrying in synagogues and not selling land to the wrong people.

On the other hand, for four consecutive years Haifa University pollsters have found that a majority of Israeli Jews believe Arab citizens of Israel should be "encouraged" to leave. In the latest survey, 45% thought they should be thus encouraged by losing the right to vote:

http://www.shimshon9.com/content3.html

It's always a pleasure and a privilege to be lectured on tolerance by Zionists.

Stated by: Gorblimey on October 8, 2004 12:18 PM

Stephen, numbers DO matter. Surely it is easier to assimilate ten thousand people into this country than 10 million. The US example is not a valid comparison for one very simple reason: the United States is a huge place. It is simply not physically possible for a small island like Britain to absorb millions of people from around the glob ad infinitum. This country is a crowded place already -- which in part explains why it costs a fortune to buy a house in many parts of this country.

David Davis was explaining the obvious. Racism has nothing to do with it.

Stated by: Johnathan on October 8, 2004 1:09 PM

The last resort of the weak-kneed capitulatist is "America was made by immigrants and look what a success America is!" (The people who adduce this argument are usually of the left, able to swallow the rising gorge of their hatred of the United States just long enough to cough up this sentence.)

America was indeed made by immigrants to that unimaginably vast, all-but-empty continent. (No, it wasn't teeming with native Americans. They were few and far between.) It was virgin territory, unsettled and those who came were daring, optimistic and self-reliant. There were no 'benefits'; no town councils and free hospitals with armies of interpreters paid for by a non-existent government. No free housing. You wanted a roof over your head, you built it. No free education for newcomers. No free clean water supply. No free electricity. No free sewage disposal. No infrastructure.

The self-reliant prevailed and throve. The others packed up and went home.

Slow dissolve to Britain - and Europe. Our turf has been settled for thousands of years. Our cultures have been developing for thousands of years, as has our social system. There is a coherence about British society (and French society and Dutch society, etc) that is threatened with the importation of vast numbers of people adhering to an alien religion that is antithetical to everything that built the West - free thought, free exchange of ideas, tolerance of the beliefs of others, free artistic expression.

The argument, in the current context, that the US is a nation of immigrants doesn't wash.

Stated by: Verity on October 8, 2004 2:35 PM

Johnathan - Stephen goes out of his way to write that he isn't saying that numbers have nothing to do with it, and you then lambast him for writing that numbers have nothing to do with it.
Can you read?
And then you defend David Davis against a charge of racism. At what point in Stephen's piece does he mention race?
Amazing. I thought Stephen was over-egging the pudding when he said some of his readers have difficulty...reading.

Stated by: Man who CAN read on October 8, 2004 11:12 PM

Its like the situation in France, some areas have so many Brits now that new Brit migrants don't have to integrate into the wider community. Stephen Pollard says the problem isn't numbers its integration, but it is the extreme numbers that are slowing the integration! You got it backwards mate.

As someone else already said, lets see Israel open its borders to Arabs/Muslims then we'll see how numbers aren't a problem...

Stated by: Dave on October 10, 2004 9:25 PM

I've always wondered why it is that the US is held up as an excreable, fascist Nazi nation in all things by the EUroLeft, except when it comes to our immigration policy. Then, suddenly, we become beacons of tolerance for the whole world (especially Europe) to emulate.

I guess consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Thank God the EUroLeft is so large-minded.

Stated by: Susan on October 12, 2004 3:40 PM
Stated by: gwheg on March 16, 2006 1:41 PM
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