Sunday, March 16, 2014

British Immigration

The British Dream by David Goodhart and The Diversity Illusion by Ed West: review

Two provocative new books on immigration, by David Goodhart and Ed West, raise questions our political masters would prefer to avoid, says Peter Oborne.

A traditional Indian wedding in Britain
A traditional Indian wedding in Britain Photo: Mark Chilvers


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9986465/The-British-Dream-by-David-Goodhart-and-The-Diversity-Illusion-by-Ed-West-review.html
Until recently, it has been impossible to have a balanced public discussion about immigration. Anyone who challenged the liberal view that mass immigration was a good thing risked being denounced as racist. Politicians who talked about the subject, such as William Hague in the 2001 general election, or Michael Howard in 2005, were portrayed by the BBC as extremists.
Discussion was closed down, which meant that the field was left open to the genuine bigots from the British National Party. This was unfortunate because this period of official silence coincided with the most significant period of demographic change Britain has ever known.
Only in the last two or three years has it become possible to discuss immigration in a sensible way. Part of the reason for this change is the courageous stand taken by David Goodhart. In 2004, Goodhart wrote an article in Prospect, the Blairite magazine he founded, that challenged the assumption that immigration is always a good thing.
Goodhart posed a troubling question: does immigration threaten the social solidarity that Left-wingers claim to cherish? In a relatively homogenous society, as Britain was during and after the Second World War, people will help each other out because they share values. In a highly diverse society this sense of community – so necessary for the consent the welfare state requires – is undermined. There is therefore (so Goodhart argued) a contradiction between the progressive support for both “diversity” and “community”.
When the article appeared Goodhart was, needless to say, accused of being a racist. But his argument (inspired by the Conservative MP David Willetts) has been impossible to ignore. It has forced the Labour Party to think again about immigration.
Goodhart has now turned his article into a book. Well-written, thoughtful and exhaustively researched, his volume will come to be regarded as one of the most important contributions to political debate in the early 21st century. He demolishes the myths created by the liberal elite about immigration, exposes the lies and contradictions, and suggests a way forward. Though he tells us many shocking things, he expresses himself in a measured and sober way.
First, Goodhart demolishes what he calls the “immigrationist myth”.
This is the proposition, spun by the political elite for the last quarter century, that Britain is a mongrel nation that has always been open to outside arrivals. As he painstakingly demonstrates, this is almost completely untrue: “From 1066 until 1950 immigration was almost non-existent – about 50,000 Huguenots in the 16th and 17th century, about 150,000 Jews in two waves, and perhaps one million or more Irish over 200 years, during which time they were internal migrants within one state.” More immigrants now arrive on British shores in a single year than they did in the entire period from 1066 to 1950, excluding wartime flows and the Irish.
Second, Goodhart challenges the proposition that immigration is by definition good for the economy. The evidence is mixed: “Immigration has made Britain livelier and more dynamic than it would otherwise have been, but it has not clearly made it richer or more content. Indeed, large-scale immigration has exacerbated many of the undesirable aspects of British economic life: poverty, inequality, low productivity, lack of training and employer short-termism. The country would still have functioned perfectly well with half the levels of poor-country immigration we have experienced – it would have been more monochrome, a bit more equal and a lot more Irish”.
Third, Goodhart shows how British voters have never been asked about immigration. Indeed they have frequently been misled or lied to by the authorities on a subject that has completely changed the nature of their communities. This helps to explain why so many people regard political parties as useless.
Finally, Goodhart is utterly devastating on the enormity of the demographic transformation of Britain achieved by Tony Blair and New Labour after 1997. The total number of non-European immigrants during the half century after 1948 was approximately two million. From 1997 to 2012 net immigration has been approximately four million. To put this another way: twice the number of immigrants have come to Britain in the 15 years since 1997 than in the previous 50.
Net immigration to Britain, just 48,000 in 1997, rose to 148,000 in 1998, and advanced even more sharply thereafter. As Goodhart shows this was no accident. It was down to deliberate government policy. The primary purpose rule, introduced by Margaret Thatcher to slow down immigration in the Eighties, was abolished in a payback to Labour’s South Asian voters.
Most important of all was the decision to open the labour market to Eastern European and Baltic states seven years before we were legally required to. Labour ministers made a series of profoundly misleading statements about the consequences of this decision, saying that no more than 13,000 new workers would arrive. The true figure was 1.5million.
Goodhart argues that “in 30 years’ time New Labour’s immigration policy will almost certainly be seen as its primary legacy”. And yet there was no serious discussion in cabinet, and scarcely any mention of immigration in Labour’s 1997 or 2001 election manifestos. In a cruel paradox, the losers from this policy were Labour voters who suddenly found themselves priced out of jobs and confronted with competition for housing and key public services such as education and health.
For the economic elite (a category that includes Guardian columnists and BBC grandees) immigration brought many advantages. Their lavish salaries allow them to buy their way out of public education and the NHS while immigration means an abundance of labour, higher corporate profits and cheaper domestic help.
Goodhart is one of a small number of British writers who have stuck their neck out over immigration. Another is Ed West, one of the most interesting of the rising generation of political writers, who delights in destroying liberal pieties. West has produced an audacious and well-written book which covers some of the same ground as Goodhart. At its best it is enticingly provocative, and he shows a clear understanding of the disastrous contradiction between diversity and community. At its worst, though, West’s book can come over as an anti-Islamic rant.
The special merit of Goodhart’s book is its relentless focus on Britain. The solutions he offers – controlled immigration, and a stronger focus on integration – are realistic and hopeful. There is an element of the Damascene conversion about Goodhart’s story. He was one of many progressive intellectuals who swung their weight behind New Labour in 1997, and to his credit he is now facing up to the consequences: “Unlike most members of my political tribe of north London liberals I have come to believe that public opinion is broadly right about the immigration story.”
By writing his exceptionally important book he has played a major role in helping Britain end our long, unhealthy period of silence about a great issue which is certain to fundamentally shape our national future.
The Diversity Illusion
by Ed West
256pp, Gibson Square, t £12.99
(PLUS £1.35 p&p) (RRP £14.99, ebook £9.47)
The British Dream
by David Goodhart
416pp, Atlantic, t £18 (PLUS £1.35 p&p) (RRP £20, ebook £7.79)
Buy these books from Telegraph Books

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Day-Trojan-Horse-Immigration/product-reviews/0979492955/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addFiveStar&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Sam Solomon

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