The Enoch myth

Powell did not cause 40 years of silence and lack of immigration controls. But Trevor Phillips is right to want to bury his legacy

It was characteristically bold of Trevor Phillips to head to the very same Burlington Hotel in Birmingham at which Enoch Powell spoke 40 years ago to mark the anniversary of the most notorious speech in post-war British politics.

Phillips came not to praise Powellism but to bury it, rightly arguing that Powell's legacy is an obstacle to the open, public debate about immigration that we need. The head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission offered an incisive critique of Powell's central points - that racial integration was impossible; that numbers were the crucial issue; that plural identities are impossible. Phillips's substantive argument - the need to recognise that there are winners and losers; and the necessity of managing migration and integration - is an important one.

Where Phillips' speech is less convincing is as political history. He said:

"For forty years we have, by mutual consent, sustained a political silence on the one issue where British people most needed articulate political leadership.

But the shockwave of fear hasn't just affected what politicians said. It also critically determined what they did. And that too has mostly been the opposite of what the Powellites hoped.

To start with by closing down debate about immigration, they allowed successive governments to avoid having much of a policy at all. In essence, Powellism so discredited any talk of planning that we've limped along with an ad-hoc approach to immigration whose only consistent aspect has been its racial bias; a non-policy that may have led to Britain admitting more immigrants rather than fewer over this period."

It has become commonplace to claim that Powell's speech had the opposite impact to that intended; making it impossible for mainstream politicians to discuss immigration openly. But we have not had 40 years of silence. Politicians have frequently put immigration at the top of the political agenda since 1968.

And Powellism did not lead to a more liberal immigration regime, but to the successive tightening of immigration controls over the following two decades.

Powell had been the fiercest critic of the 1948 Nationality Act, which gave all imperial subjects the right of entry into Britain. The opposition Conservative spokesman David Maxwell Fyfe had told the House of Commons that:

"We are proud that we impose no colour bar restrictions ... we must maintain our great metropolitan traditions of hospitality to everyone from every part of the empire."

The intention - and effect - of successive acts was to overturn this. This began before Birmingham 1968 and was accelerated afterwards. That Britain lacked "a law defining its own people" was, for Powell in his 1968 speeches, the root of the problem. Whitehall's recurring concern was how to restrict coloured immigration specifically while publicly denying any racial motivation. Rab Butler's cabinet memorandum on the 1962 act set out how this could be presented as colour-blind though it "was intended to and would in fact operate on coloured people almost exclusively".

Labour had opposed the 1962 act. In government, the home secretary, Jim Callaghan, won the argument for responding to "extremely agitated public opinion", rushing through his 1968 act to remove the right of entry from Kenyan Asians with British passports. Ted Heath, who had sacked Powell from his frontbench in 1968, insisted on Britain's moral responsibility to admit the Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin. But his 1971 Immigration Act ended almost all primary immigration from the "new" Commonwealth.

These advances emboldened the Powellites. The rightwing Monday Club was revived. Its "Stop immigration now" campaign of 1972, launched by several Conservative MPs, helped harden Conservative policy. William Whitelaw told the Conservative conference of 1976 that the party would "work towards a policy which is clearly designed to work towards the end of immigration as we have seen it in these post-war years". His more restrictive policy led to the 1981 British Nationality Act, which sought to restrict secondary immigration from the Commonwealth.

Margaret Thatcher's empathy with those who felt "rather swamped" by immigration in the run-up to the 1979 election is well-known: in the same interview she pledged that we "must hold out the clear prospect of an end to immigration".

So it is difficult to identify any point when the right shied away from immigration control into silence. Indeed Phillips recognises the absurdity of this deafening roar of complaint.

"The right's public justification for reticence is usually that political correctness has unfairly silenced them. Somewhat comically, this point of view has been widely and consistently peddled by writers and publications which hardly ever stop yelling about immigration, only pausing from time to time to complain that they are being gagged, before resuming a deafening roar of outrage."

But this has proved a successful strategy. Phillips's argument that the liberal left often "still fears that a free and open debate on these issues would lead to the release of a caged beast of an essentially reactionary public opinion" is a plausible one. It has not, though, been universally true. It is interesting that the Observer's editorial on the Sunday following Powell's speech has a broadly similar thrust to Phillips' argument this weekend.

Powellism won the battle to tighten immigration. However, two lost Powellite causes weighed against this. Britain's entry in the European Economic Community meant accepting free movement of labour within Europe. It took several decades for this to change the nature of immigration to Britain (and has now led to tighter controls on immigration from outside the EU).

But Powell had a much more immediate concern. Halting immigration was only the minor part of his policy by 1968. Even zero migration would not prevent national "suicide" unless there was mass repatriation too.

Simon Heffer, author of a magisterial biography of Powell, seemed irritated by my emphasis on the "send them back" aspect of Powell's policy when we discussed Powell's legacy on the radio last year. After all, Heffer stressed, Powell was quite clear that repatriation should be voluntary.

Well, yes, he was. But the promotion of this voluntary repatriation was to take place in a climate where the British government urged our society to embrace sending immigrants back as a national duty and mission. Powell's next foray into the immigration debate after Birmingham - seven months later in Eastbourne - offered much more detail on the scale and urgency of mass repatriation:

"The resettlement of a substantial proportion of the Commonwealth immigrants in Britain is not beyond the resources and abilities of this country, if it is undertaken as a national duty ... [and] ... organised now on the scale which the urgency of the situation demands, preferably under a special Ministry for Repatriation or other authority charged with concentrating on this task."

Powell was sure this could be done with all due care for immigrant welfare. A sort of Dunkirk spirit might be shared by senders and sent back alike. But that only speaks of the naivety of the high-minded classical scholar who was shocked by the appropriation of his Birmingham speech by the far right.

The real shadow cast by Powellism was not that it prevented an immigration debate, or led to looser immigration controls. The damage of Powellism was to create a debate always dominated by immigration, numbers and controlling the borders; which was never about integration, and which too often treated race relations and immigration as the same issue.

Powell's policy was already a deeply reactionary one by 1968. There were already 1.25 million Commonwealth immigrants in Britain. He argued that if his agenda were not adopted within 10 years, it would become impossible to pursue it at all. (How much more reactionary than Powell are those still insisting "Enoch was right" today.)

So Trevor Phillips is right that we must finally lay the ghost. Forty years on, we could have a sensible debate about how we should deal with, control and manage migration. But only if we can escape at last from Enoch's shadow.


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Comments in chronological order (Total 46 comments)

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  • easyandy

    23 April 2008 12:47PM

    In the lamentable tradition of this government, Phillips is calling for debate, as long as the conclusion has already been reached. Which clearly it has - import cheap labour to satisfy voracious exploitative business, sedate those natives who suffer with generous welfare, and tar all those who object as bigots.

    Phillips is either disingenuous or spectacularly ignorant in saying there needs to be a debate. Maybe this hasn't reached his gloriously indulged quango, but the debate has been going on for some time. But you see he wants the right kind of debate, the debate that isn't, the debate that comes to the conclusion he, the government and bien pensant bourgeois left wants.

    Phillips says those who oppose exploitative, corrosive, unchecked immigration have ample opportunity to state their case. That is partly true. But their arguments are falling on deaf ears. That is the point. Not that debate is being stifled, but that those who dare question the cosy big business-multiculti pact are being utterly ignored.

    Those with a scintilla of knowledge of history would well know the result of ignoring and resisting public will.

  • Deyna

    23 April 2008 12:51PM

    Double first in Latin and Greek ... Professor of Greek at 25 ...fluent in Urdu...remarkable man really. People of his stature aren't around any more. Instead of learned renaissance men, we have feeble minded dilettantes, contributing flatulence to 'think tanks' and focus groups, repeating the same platitudes and accepted truths about the state of the country. Still, I don't want to harp back to some mythical golden age. After all we are so much more diverse these days. There isn't a day goes by when I don't wake up and think to myself 'I fancy a bit of diversity today', and pop into the city for a bit of diversity. Don't know what we'd do without it.

  • BratislavaBilly

    23 April 2008 12:52PM

    Well, the idea that 'Enoch was right' is a glib catchphrase and to summarise Powell's arguments by refering them to what others decided to make of them ignores the fact that he was not entirely wrong. People are frightened that a conservative politician who warned of the consequences of unchecked immigration was no crude demagogue but a highly sophisticated intellectual. More than anything this has many on the left fulminating with visceral sentiments of hatred.

    Powell was wrong on the idea that 'coloured' people could not become Britons in the same way whites could but he did have a strong point about the clash between secular and Islamic value systems. His experience of the Raj made him fear communalist style violence might be imported into Britain and he was completely correct on that point. Unless, Sunder Katwala and others have missed it, this tends to be an issue in every newspaper these days.

    The 'Enoch was right' argument set up here by Mr Katwala is a straw man. It is not that successive governments did not restrict immigration but the way in which governments ought to take notice of that thing called public opinion. Rather than deciding that mass immigration is going to happen whether people want it or not and then telling people if they object they must be racist, the government ought to be aware that many are uncomfortable with the present levels irrespective of their skin colour.

    Katwala misses the point that under THIS New Labour government mass immigration has rocketed. Mentioning Tory policy in the post-war period is irrelevant because this new wave from the 1990s is both unprecedented and has far less too do with the Commonwealth. It is all about using mass immigration as a crude tool of social engineering to shore up a debt ridden and parasitical rentier and consumerist economy that is heading for a rather nasty economic recession in the near future.

    As Powell said the task of statesmen is to stave off recurrent and foreseable evils rather than blithely carry on and insist that people must see reality in the way Utopian liberal-leftists believe it must. That is a conservative view that has been lost by the Panglossian dogmatism of whole swathes of the race relations industry, New Labour politicians, ideologues such as Legrain and others who see nation states as obstacles to a globalist rainbow world akin to a Benetton advert.

    The reality might be far nastier because ultimately Britain is fragmenting already both into its national parts, London is dangerously deracinated and neoliberal dogma has eradicated anything other than a cut throat individualism that people will react against by taking succour in communalism. Not least, where 'our' prosperity is connected with 'their' suffeing in 'the Muslim world'. Clearly, whilst the British , especially English identity is derided and scorned by whole sections of leftist opinion, it has been encouraged with those claiming allegiance to faith and ethnic commmunities that are led by people with political agendas of resentment.

    That's what Katwala should be dealing with. But he won't because it would mean criticising nearly everything New Labour has done since coming to power, though the Tories should share a lot of the blame too.

  • Roncim

    23 April 2008 12:53PM

    One of the major topics on peoples' lips today is the problem of immigration with the problem seen as being one of numbers and not colour of skin.

    Enoch Powell was concerned about the growth of incomers who were not integrating and we see today just how much of a problem that is and the cost to the nation of people who think they should even have their own lawa.

    For Sunder Katwala to end his piece by trying to head off any points that run counter to his own by saying "(How much more reactionary than Powell are those still insisting "Enoch was right" today.)" is lazy and disingenuous thinking.

    Enoch may have used intemperate language but his message was correct - we have too many immigrants for the good of our country and the people in it, both those who originate from here and those who have come in over the years.

  • vladtheimpaler

    23 April 2008 1:05PM

    If I'm not mistaken Powell's emphasis was on keeping out people on grounds of skin pigmentation rather than culture.

  • Waltz

    23 April 2008 1:14PM

    I don't think you get to metaphorically "bury" Enoch Powell, particularly when recent polls show that a majority of Britons agree with him. He remains a fairly popular, if controversial, figure and the current trend seems to be towards his becoming more popular rather than less. So - to paraphrase Mark Twain - reports of his "burial" may be premature.

  • DaleyThompson

    23 April 2008 1:18PM

    #Powellism so discredited any talk of planning that we've limped along with an ad-hoc approach to immigration #

    That really is just shooting the messenger.

    Powell warned about the consequences of immigration, and you are saying that because he did the government decided we must not have an immigration policy.

    Thats not Powells fault, thats the governments for sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la , cant hear you".

    You are shooting the messenger. Dont shoot the messenger.

    Btw funny how Trevor Phillips called for an open debate but its taken the Guardian a week to get around to it.

  • mightymark

    23 April 2008 1:22PM

    "Don't know what we'd do without it."

    A very good question Deyna - what indeed would we do without it - in particular what would the NHS do without it, the resturant trade, anyone who wants a plumber - or (whisper it not in Gath) - soemone who actually values a friendship with seomone from a different ethnic background to their own.

    Quite right, spot on - and I don't know what we would do without it either.

  • freewoman

    23 April 2008 1:41PM

    The post war paradigm was expand the economy endlessly,first to feed us all and then for greater wealth. One thing Trevor P said was that we need train our own people adequately to nurse, care, and, plumb etc. Various govts have not provided really good vocational/tech training because of the dedication to the equality of comps which actually factory farm kids badly. Anyway the thinking has never been sort us out first, or living within our means. There is something in the papers today about apocalyptic food and energy shortages that will go on and on. We need to reduce our population, be more self sufficient,and look after who is here now, better. We are what ( I cant crunch the numbers) the size of New Hampshire with about a 5th of the population.

  • freewoman

    23 April 2008 1:56PM

    Oh and just in case anyone has forgotten the numbers. 76% of land in the UK is farmed and yet we only produce 43% of what we eat.

  • Waltz

    23 April 2008 2:49PM

    @ freewoman - "Oh and just in case anyone has forgotten the numbers. 76% of land in the UK is farmed and yet we only produce 43% of what we eat."

    Actually we produce over 60% of what we eat and are net exporters of some produce.

  • DaleyThompson

    23 April 2008 3:23PM

    Just been wading through Phillips speech. It so wrong in so many ways Ive got steam comming out of my ears.

    Some extracts from Phillips Speech He says #So why, given its impact, did Powellism fail so dismally?#

    It didnt. It was completely bypassed and now we have to live with the consequences, such as the 52 killed and 700 injured in the July 2005 bombings.

    #And just as Powellism had its three central principles - assimilation, separation and domination - I want to propose three new principles for an integrated society, based on our Commission's core values - equality, human rights and good relations.#

    Sounds great but will lead to disaster. What he is proposing is the unlimited expansion of all other cultural groupings until they come into conflict, and the native population has been completely marginalised or squeezed out alltogether. In short what is proposing is the policies that will lead to the ethnic cleansing of the native population in the name of Political Correctness.

    #And in the end Powellism failed in its most important aim - to demonstrate the prophetic vision that ethnic diversity would lead to chaos and hatred. It just hasn't happened.#

    It might not whilst times are good and everyone is well fed. But these times dont last forever. What Trevor has been looking at is the wrong country. In modern day Iraq there is a civil war going on because of diversity. Also there was the Bosnian civil war. And Rwanda to name but a few recent examples.

    If there was one dominant group these wast simply wouldnt have been able to happen. If they had assimilated this wouldnt have happened either.

    #Nor do I believe that good race relations has to be dependent on reducing migrant numbers. #

    So he is just hell bent on building up cultural bubbles, like Gordon has done with the Housing price bubble, and thinks things forever growing is necessarily a good thing, and will never lead to any problems in the future.

    #Its foreign stars can earn in excess of 100,000 pounds every week - but their good fortune does not depress the wages of the home-grown talent.#

    But it does depress home grown talent, which is why the England team is so shit.

    EndOfRant.

  • magicrabbit

    23 April 2008 3:47PM

    Metatarsal. I get the point entirely, and it's one that I already made, English identity has changed.

    If it's as simple as you suggest - i.e. a purposeful project of the left - then the public have always had a choice, by always voting Tory. If, as you suggest, mass immigration is entirely the 'fault' of the left, and the population as a whole desperately didn't want the social change it's undoubtedly brought about, then voting for the Tories would have provided a solution. Either people didn't think it was important enough to keep the Tories in forever, or your assertion that it is entirely the doing of the left is inaccurate.

    The point you miss however, is that immigration has been and continues to be an economic imperative. English national identity has changed, and will change even more. At some point the majority of people in this country will not be white. Tough, deal with it. That's the changing world we live in, and if you can't see that is the reality and THE issue we should deal with (and indeed embrace) then your naivety in telling others they miss the point is beyond belief.

  • Contributor

    SunderKatwala

    23 April 2008 4:14PM

    Many thanks for your comments. Some interesting points, and I will come back to some of them.

    Waazpi - thanks for your comment. Could I clarify: I didn't (intend to) argue that numbers don't affect integration. I would agree that both the level of immigration and types of immigration (long-term or short-term; where immigrants are from, eg we might expect there to be differences between Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth immigration, given that the former often involves more shared cultural reference points, etc) would have an impact.

    What I was trying to unpick was a staple of thinking from the 1950s to the 1980s was that the key to good race relations was immigration control. My argument is not that this is entirely wrong. However, one effect was to conflate the issues of immigration, integration and race relations. Perhaps that was understandable in the twenty years after 1948. By the 1970s, it should have been possible to see how these needed to be separated, but only perhaps by the early 1990s did this start to happen.

    So one criticism I would make of post-war Conservatives would be that the emphasis on immigration policy as the main tool of race relations led to a neglect of integration. Integration may in part be a question of numbers. But we had a debate about immigration and numbers and little if any debate about integration.

    A different criticism about the lack of attention to integration can be made of the liberal-left, and very often is. However one thing that is often forgotten: I think part of the initial motivation for multiculturalism on the liberal-left was a concern for integration. Integration (though not assimilation) was Roy Jenkins' explicit goal in his famous 1966 speech. But that got lost in the debates about multiculturalism and identity politics in the 1970s and 1980s. As I have often written before, I agree with the argument that the form which multiculturalism took did not value integration and commonality enough. (I was making that argument as a liberal-left critique of multiculturalism about nine years ago before it became rather more fashionable).

    Where I am sure Powell was wrong was in believing in the impossibility of integration. It seems to me that he was a cultural essentialist. He massively understated the many shared points of historic and cultural reference between the British and Afro-Caribbean and South Asian immigrants. This was not (or should not have been) an encounter of strangers. (Andrea Levy's Small Island captures some of that very well).

    I do not want to be complacent, but this country has shown that integration is possible, and we can continue to do so. I do think that DaleyThompson's references to Rwanda and Iraq are absurd. We have successful integration in London particularly; we have problems of some segregated towns. There are tensions and flashpoints, and then there is also the everyday reality where we do live and work together. I don't think I would swap where we are for many (any?) other countries on issues of race and integration, certainly not in Europe.

  • AndronicusComnenus

    23 April 2008 4:22PM

    Integration was certainly possible in the past, but is it really still possible in an age where photographs and emails can be sent instantly and weekend trips to Eastern Europe are entirely feasible?

  • Contributor

    SunderKatwala

    23 April 2008 4:37PM

    My references to Powell's agenda being reactionary in 1968 (and much more reactionary now) are being taken as an argument for closing down debate. But I want to challenge that.

    I think this response is made because in discussions like this it is often claimed that Powell was simply making commonplace observations like 'we should be able to talk about immigration', or that 'if we have immigration, we need integration too'. He was not. This is a failure to read Powell or to take his argument seriously. Let me offer three fairly central claims made by Powell, using his own words, to show what I mean.

    Powell readily admitted his was a reactionary agenda (if necessary, in his view). He was was quite clear which part of his "minimum inflow and maximum outflow" policy merited priority ("one is far more important, and far more difficult, than the other"). But at least he also admitted that, within a decade, it would be an agenda whose time had gone. If Powell was himself able to admit that in 1968, it seems a perfectly fair point 40 years on.

    "If all immigration ended tomorrow, the rate of growth of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population would be substantially reduced, but the prospective size of this element in the population would still leave the basic character of the national danger unaffected. This can only be tackled while a considerable proportion of the total still comprises persons who entered this country during the last ten years or so."

    Powell was quite clear about the impossibility of a black British identity for those born here.

    "Sometimes people point to the increasing proportion of immigrant offspring born in this country as if the fact contained within itself the ultimate solution. The truth is the opposite. The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact he is a West Indian or an Asian still. Unless he be one of the small minority - for number, I repeat again and again, is of the essence - he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one".

    Yes, he was concerned with communalism. (And that was an excellent radio programme at the weekend). But can anybody read the following (somewhat chilling) passages from his Eastbourne speech and argue that Powell's agenda could not be accurately summed up in the phrase 'Keep Britain White'?

    "We can perhaps not reduce the eventual total of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population, much, if at all, below its present size: with that, and with all that implies, we and our children and our children's children will have to cope until the slow mercy of the years absorbs even that unparalleled invasion of our body politic".

    Could any of these three Powell arguments be made seriously today?

    Surely it should be clear that: 1. We should be able to discuss immigration and integration openly. 2. It is not possible to have a debate about what happens now founded on these Powellite premises.

    Surely all of us can agree on at least that? At least, anybody who can not do so is bound to be on the extreme fringe of contemporary debates.

  • DaleyThompson

    23 April 2008 4:49PM

    Sunder #I do think that DaleyThompson's references to Rwanda and Iraq are absurd. We have successful integration in London particularly;#

    What you appear to ignore is that say in Iraq in Bahgdad it was all integrated too, lots of mixed neighborhoods . Hasnt stopped what is happening though, nor did it in Kosovo or Bosnia etc.

  • Metatarsal

    23 April 2008 5:06PM

    @TheMurf - Sorry, why do you need to define English identity? Do you need to define Somalian identity, Pakistani identity, Italian identity?"

    What's your point?

    "@Magic Rabbit - "The point you miss however, is that immigration has been and continues to be an economic imperative."

    Only if you are an unreconstructed Neo-liberal. What on earth is wrong with training up the existing workforce to work?

    Also, the argument for economic growth and contribution has also been well and truly nailed by a committee of ex Chancellor of the Exchequers, Governors of the Bank of England etc... I'll take their word for it over yours.

    "At some point the majority of people in this country will not be white."

    That's all very triumphalist, but do you not see that before that becomes a reality, England - already the most densely populated country in Europe, will have to grow from 50m to about 80m. Are people really going to accept that?

    Will our public services actually be able to cope? Is that what the left actually wants?

    "Economic Imperative", err what about the imperatives of society? It all sounds very Thatcherite to me, it's interesting where your dogmatism on the issue is leading you.

  • justlookaround

    23 April 2008 5:17PM

    Very thought-provoking article, Mr Katwala, and I found the comments from BratislavaBilly, Roncim, and Infidel particularly interesting, as well as your responses to these and other comments. I think you are exactly right in wanting to bury the Enoch myth: the Left made hay whilst the sun shone on its back, labelling anyone who raised the issue of immigration and integration as a 'racist' for 40 years. Their cover has now well and truly been blown. But Trevor Phillips was also disingenuous in seeking to lay the blame for the economic, social, and cultural problems that have arisen from uncontrolled immigration firmly upon the failure of public debate about immigration. That blame should lie fairly and squarely with Labour, its ideologues, supporters, and allies. The Tories, although somewhat cynical in their policies at times, essentially did the right thing in seeking to limit the influx of people from the former Commenwealth, knowing only too well the problems that would result if this tiny country were to be overhwelmed by uncontrolled immigrantion. As it is, your stress upon integration as the primary solution to the cultural and social stresses that our society now faces seems to me to be somewhat complacent. Powell was exactly right about one thing: uncontrolled immigration has the potential to destabilise and wreck this country - or any country for that matter. That was one of the reasons he was so vehemently anti-Common Market. And that is still the primary problem today. Whilst new measures have been taken to limit and control immigration from non-EU countries, our misguided and incompetent politicians have steered us into an EU time-bomb the explosion of which probably cannot now be avoided. The only possible solution is to get out of the European Union and stop this nonsense of allowing people from any EU country coming here to claim benefits and live off our over-generous welfare system. But since that's not going to happen, the only other ways of mitigating the coming disaster are to try to integrate those who are here, and reduce the attractiveness of our welfare system to people in other countries of the EU. I'm not overly hopeful that either will succeed, but I hope for all of our sakes that they are successful. Thus far, the record of our policitians in dealing with these issues does not give cause for much hope.

  • AlexisdeTocqueville

    23 April 2008 5:36PM

    Sunder

    thanks for your responses. This quote by Powell sums up what I was saying in my earlier post:

    "If all immigration ended tomorrow, the rate of growth of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population would be substantially reduced, but the prospective size of this element in the population would still leave the basic character of the national danger unaffected. This can only be tackled while a considerable proportion of the total still comprises persons who entered this country during the last ten years or so'.

    You [Sander] said: 'Powell was quite clear about the impossibility of a black British identity for those born here'.

    There are those that, for whatever reasons, will never accept that a British Identity can include someone who has Black or Brown skin, whether they were born in Britain or not. Writers such as Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, A. Sivanandan et al - far better qualified than me on this subject - have argued that any concept/notion of Britishness should be inclusive and embracing of Britain's Commonwealth heritage. Contemporarily, with migrants from non-Commonwealth countries taking out British Citizenship, then any definition should make space for these groups too.

    I've always felt that a hyphenated identity, as practiced in the USA (e.g. African-American, Irish-American, Italian-American, Polish-American, etc), should be adopted in the UK. So we could have, Indian-British, Italian-British, Pakistani-British, Jamaican-British, Irish-British, Somali-British, etc, merely to denote that we are all British first, but the other signifier merely highlights our cultural/ethnic origins.

  • AlexisdeTocqueville

    23 April 2008 6:07PM

    @Gigolo

    'Maybe, but British people have pretty much tended to be white, so mass immigration to the UK by brown-skinned people was always bound to cause problems, and as people tend to be more comfortable with the familiar, it was always a given they would be happier with immigrants from Australia and NZ rather than Jamaica or Pakistan'.

    I agree with the suggestion that mass immigration CAN cause problems and that people TEND to be comfortable with the familiar. I confess I'm no expert, but when this Isle of ours was invaded by (in no particular order) Romans, Angles, Saxons, Celts, Gauls, Normans, Hugenots, Norsemen, etc, they may well have been Caucasian in the appearance, but the languages, customs and traditions that they all practised would have been alien and foreign to the Ancient Britons and others at the time. However, as is normal over time, some customs and traditions become dominant as others become out-moded (like a kind of cultural 'Natural Selection') and they continue being absorbed into the national culture. This is a phenemenon that will continue, even if we have no more inward migration. Witness how much British Youth Culture is influenced by American music, clothing and language, etc, yet most British kids have never been to South Central LA or the Bronx.

    'British people were always Judeo-Christian in culture if not in practice, so having other religions here in very visible forms of mosques and temples was also a bit of a shock'. Organised religion in Britain is not my strength, but before the advent of Christianity to the UK (I'll hazard a guess: 5AD?) and Judeo-Christian values into our culture and legal system, Britain was - according to experts - pagan. Obviously, Christianity took hold and has been dominant for a number of centuries, but just like paganism, it may not be. In many years to come - probably when you and I are both worm food - who knows, based on the number of people that practice the religion, Islam could be the most popular religion in the UK. Who'd have thought that?

    'Put it another way: I think you are being dishonest by saying that because you cannot write a full description of Britishness, it does not exist in any meaningful form, or it is always changing, so what's a few million muslims?

    Again, I don't think I'm being dishonest at all. In fact, in my research, I don't think I ever saw a lengthy or succinct definition of what it meant to be British. Have you? I've seen people try to define what it is, usually: Caucacian, Anglo-Saxon and Christian. What if you don't fit that narrow definition? Are you not British? What about if you are Black and you, your parents, grand-parents and great-grand parents were born in Britain, are you British then? What if you're a Hindu, Sikh or an Atheist? As mentioned above, what it meant to be British in the 1700s is not the same as what it means to be British in 2008. Nor will it mean the same in 2008 as it does in 3008, that is, if the nation-state of Britain still exists then.

    'So what's a million muslims'? I never posted those words so I don't know what yu mean @Gigolo.

    'so try defining Frenchness in 50 words or less. It cannot be done'. I agree, it is difficult, but I'll leave that to the French. But I think 'Liberty, Egality, Fraternity' and the words to the Marseilles are a good start.

    'This should not stop people having quite justifiable grievances at the actions of succesive governments swamping parts of the UK with immigrants'. I never said that it should.

  • Fridah

    23 April 2008 6:34PM

    Excellent comment from BillBratislava, who always seems to nail it.

    Of course Enoch was right, at least in terms of his predictions about the nature of a multi-racial polity in that the primary allegiance of large numbers of those descended from the non-white immigrant population is not to the land of their birth. The Britain he was defending is finished. We can only hope that DaleyThompson's predictions are less prescient.

    The Wiki entry for Powell is a great read. We won't see another of his kind. Whatever your political persuasion he's an extraordinary and fascinating character.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoch_Powell

  • Euphranor

    23 April 2008 6:37PM

    @AlexisdeTocqueville

    "So we could have, Indian-British, Italian-British, Pakistani-British, Jamaican-British, Irish-British, Somali-British, etc, merely to denote that we are all British first, but the other signifier merely highlights our cultural/ethnic origins."

    But are we all British first? What about people who are something else first, and British second (and perhaps not at all, except purely for administrative purposes)? Don't tell me that they don't exist, or that their number is too small to matter.

    "Writers such as Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, A. Sivanandan et al - far better qualified than me on this subject - have argued that any concept/notion of Britishness should be inclusive and embracing of Britain's Commonwealth heritage."

    I will ignore the question of why anyone should take this gallery of illuminati very seriously, and merely point out that as the notion of Britishness becomes more 'inclusive', so it becomes more vacuous. Hence the rise of nationalism, not just in Ireland, where Britishness never really took root, but in England, Wales, and Scotland, where it did.

  • donho199

    23 April 2008 6:46PM

    To some of you Powell is extra-ordinary.

    To me he is nothing and somehow sub-human.

    I rather want a human being than some stupid beh_boh speaking several foreign languages and Oxford degree.

    TV can speak over 100 languages as far I know. Oxford and Camrbidge basically give all their students firsts anyways.

  • AlexisdeTocqueville

    23 April 2008 6:57PM

    @Euphranor

    'But are we all British first? What about people who are something else first, and British second (and perhaps not at all, except purely for administrative purposes)? Don't tell me that they don't exist, or that their number is too small to matter'.

    I never said that these people you allude to do not exist and that their numbers do not matter. I would ask the question: Why do they not feel British first and (perhaps) feel more allegiance to another country?

    'I will ignore the question of why anyone should take this gallery of illuminati [i.e. Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, A. Sivanandan] very seriously'

    Why ignore them and not take them seriously? I quote them only because I am familiar with them but they are by no means the only academics who write on these topics. Is it because you don't share their political perspective and world view? It's OK to say that their views/research are rubbish, but at least engage with what they have to say first, or is that too difficult.

    '.....and merely point out that as the notion of Britishness becomes more 'inclusive', so it becomes more vacuous. Hence the rise of nationalism, not just in Ireland, where Britishness never really took root, but in England, Wales, and Scotland, where it did'.

    I don't have the knowledge at hand to challenge or engage with the specifics but with regard to the notion of a British Identity becoming 'inclusive and vacuos', then do you prefer a definition of Britishness that is narrow, prescriptive and exclusive? What of those that don't meet that criteria, do they just become some 'non-person' of no particular nationality? And by the way, last time I looked being African- Irish- Italian- Polish- did not exclude you from being an American, so why not the same idea/process in the UK?

  • 56000xp

    23 April 2008 7:03PM

    @AlexisdeTocqueville"I agree with the suggestion that mass immigration CAN cause problems and that people TEND to be comfortable with the familiar. I confess I'm no expert, but when this Isle of ours was invaded by (in no particular order) Romans, Angles, Saxons, Celts, Gauls, Normans, Hugenots, Norsemen, etc, they may well have been Caucasian in the appearance, but the languages, customs and traditions that they all practised would have been alien and foreign to the Ancient Britons and others at the time. However, as is normal over time, some customs and traditions become dominant as others become out-moded (like a kind of cultural 'Natural Selection') and they continue being absorbed into the national culture. This is a phenemenon that will continue, even if we have no more inward migration. Witness how much British Youth Culture is influenced by American music, clothing and language, etc, yet most British kids have never been to South Central LA or the Bronx."

    The invasions you list were nearly always forceful in nature, they succeeded because the invaders had some superior technology or method of warfare or organisation of society that the natives could not compete against. The Celts brought Iron-working. The Romans brought highly sophisticated methods of warfare and administration. The Normans brought castles and other military technologies. In all cases it results in an upgrade of the technological level of the society that was invaded (though often with other greater destructive effects). Immigration today is not bringing with it fusion power or laser rifles or a revolutionary superior form of government, in fact it could be argued that the things (and i speak also of ideas) being brought in are less-developed compared to what was there before.

    @AlexisdeTocqueville"In many years to come - probably when you and I are both worm food - who knows, based on the number of people that practice the religion, Islam could be the most popular religion in the UK. Who'd have thought that?"

    In terms of competition in a 'Darwinian' sense, i think Islam has the capacity to outcompete all it's competitors - in the sense of how a religion spreads - Islam's potential growth rate is enormous, it actively seeks to expand itself very aggressively. In that sense you could be right, i think this is what many people are worried about. Ask most people on the street and they would say that the values of Islam are inferior (no offence intended) or not what they want, that the state of Islamic countries in terms of human rights and development is proof of this. If this is true then this is an example of the domination of a 'less-developed' idea over a 'more-developed' one.

    @AlexisdeTocqueville"What if you're a Hindu, Sikh or an Atheist? As mentioned above, what it meant to be British in the 1700s is not the same as what it means to be British in 2008. Nor will it mean the same in 2008 as it does in 3008, that is, if the nation-state of Britain still exists then."

    Perhaps that's part of the reason why the British 'ship' is sinking a little and ethnic members are looking for their lifeboats - what with English, Scottish, Welsh cries for independence abounding. They feel their identity is being erased and are responding with symbols and identities that link them to how they *were*, political correctness dictates that their points of view be airbrushed out or even denounced as racist but the underlying stresses and anxieties are not so easily erased by spin and language-control.

  • Fridah

    23 April 2008 8:06PM

    DaleyThompson: "The other thing to remember is that its not how many integrate that counts (though even that can cause overcrowding). Its how many dont integrate and how fast identifiable groups of seperate cultures expand."

    Yes, Powell's whole thrust was that visible differences in sufficient numbers would act as a kind of political "uniform" and that people would be prey to what he called "agent provocateurs", but whom we now refer to as "community leaders" or "race advisers".

    For a "one nation" Tory like Powell, who said "many Labour members are good Tories", a mono-racial nation was a difficult enough achievement. He believed that with the numbers of immigrants envisaged, separate allegiances were bound to develop and therefore threaten his one nation ideal. If it was restricted to West Indian immigration I think we could just about sustain a nation. But that time has now passed.

  • AlexisdeTocqueville

    23 April 2008 9:00PM

    @56000xp

    Thanks for your responses, they are well considered. Especially your response to the Celts, Gauls, Norman invasions, etc. As for the rest, history will be the best judge.

    AdeT

  • AlexisdeTocqueville

    23 April 2008 9:08PM

    @Fridah

    'For a "one nation" Tory like Powell'

    Are you sure? One Nation Tories like Edward Heath, Fancis Pym, Lord Carrington, Lord Hailsham and I'd possibly add to that list Douglas Hurd, Kenneth Clarke and maybe Michael Heseltine.

    It's been a long-time since I studied Conservative Party Politics, but Powell definitely can not be described as a 'One-Nation Tory' in the Disraelian sense of the word.

  • DaleyThompson

    23 April 2008 9:33PM

    DaleyThompson April 23, 2008 4:49 PM

    "What you appear to ignore is that say in Iraq in Bahgdad it was all integrated too, lots of mixed neighborhoods . Hasnt stopped what is happening though, nor did it in Kosovo or Bosnia etc."

    Doonoeen #I don't see the analogy myself. For example, Saddam Hussein's Iraq or Tito's Yugoslavia are slightly different from modern day Britain ,are they not? Surely there are better models as to the direction where Britain is going.#

    I think that its often that when tensions build up so much, its only a strong arm dictator, or military that can keep a lid on things. Which is what you had in Iraq until the lid was lifted. Its also think its they way it got in Pakistan under Musharaff and I think strong Military is the only thing keeping the Islamists in check in Turkey. And is what is keeping a lid on things in Kenya. But basically when your country reaches that stage its all bad. For example on tv the other day a guy from Kenya said that it was all about different groups (tribes ?) competing for power and basically those with the most numbers wins so they were all trying to outbreed each other. As far as I can see this is basically what Trevor Phillips is proposing for the UK. But maybe Im wrong because I havent worked out his difference between assimilation and integration. Basically he wants people to integrate. I think thats what the July 2005 bombers did. If thats so Im not sure it will do much good.

  • Metatarsal

    23 April 2008 10:44PM

    @themurf - Really cute little rant. However, you have ignored my question. Why does there need to be a definition of Englishness? You brought it up?

    Stop squirming and give us an answer.

    P.S Loved the fact that you allude to 'on your watch' - delusions of grandeur or what!

  • Fridah

    23 April 2008 10:53PM

    "It's been a long-time since I studied Conservative Party Politics, but Powell definitely can not be described as a 'One-Nation Tory' in the Disraelian sense of the word."

    Yes deTocqueville, he's very much a one nation Tory, though I take your point re the so-called wets of the Tory Reform Group with whom the term was associated in the eighties. He wasn't one of those but still in the Burkean one nation tradition.

    Interesting anecdote when Powell and Thatcher came head to head at a meeting of the Conservative Philosophy Group.Link to full article below:

    "Mrs Thatcher came only twice, once as prime minister. That was the occasion for a notable non-meeting of minds. Edward Norman (then Dean of Peterhouse) had attempted to mount a Christian argument for nuclear weapons. The discussion moved on to 'Western values'. Mrs Thatcher said (in effect) that Norman had shown that the Bomb was necessary for the defence of our values. Powell: 'No, we do not fight for values. I would fight for this country even if it had a communist government.' Thatcher (it was just before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands): 'Nonsense, Enoch. If I send British troops abroad, it will be to defend our values.' 'No, Prime Minister, values exist in a transcendental realm, beyond space and time. They can neither be fought for, nor destroyed.' Mrs Thatcher looked utterly baffled. She had just been presented with the difference between Toryism and American Republicanism."

    I'd love to have seen her face!

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/is_200703/ai_n18736897

  • crabapple

    24 April 2008 1:21AM

    This is not a comment either for mass immigration or against it. A question for those who have mentioned someone being born here to, say, Muslim parents from Parkistan. That person would be British, you say. I'm white English. If I had been born to white English parents who lived in Pakistan, would that make me Pakistani? Is Joanna Lumley Indian? Is Cliff Richard?

    Your answers will interest me because it seems to me that nationship really has nothing to do with place of birth or possession of citizenship and everything to do with race and culture. Also, it doesn't seem to work both ways.

  • Gigolo

    24 April 2008 8:18AM

    AlexisdeTocqueville: "'So what's a million muslims'? I never posted those words so I don't know what yu mean @Gigolo."

    You know perfectly well what I mean. It is the reductio ad absurdum of your argument that because Britain has never had a homogenous population before, it should not matter who comes here.

    Reading your replies, you seem to be doing some pretty heavy back-peddling.

  • DaleyThompson

    24 April 2008 8:38AM

    the murf #You also need to define what English identity is before you make daft accusations that anyone, left alone a leftist conspiracy, is "against" it.#

    I think I can define what is was in say 1940. It was the descendants of the peoples who had lived on these Isles for the last 800 or more years, who where born on these Isles, or who lived on these Isles, and who where part of the people known as the English. I would say it was then a white identity, though included different christian religious groups.

    I think what Enoch was concerned about was threats to this group, and to the stability of the nation. (Threats being to territorial control by this group of their homeland, and to the identity of this group).

    I would say the left was against the English having an identifiable identity and have been successfully attacking it for generations.

    Because of these attacks it is for harder to define an English identity now. I would guess that the broad concensus now would have English identity as including different races. But if that includes those who have no intention of assimilating might be a different matter.

    Having an identity which includes peoples of different races is not necessarily a bad thing, but everything has implications. In this case people might feel part of a multicultural world elite, but might feel less connected to that old forms of their identity which could give them sanctuary.

    The other point being that the attack on the English identity is also inherently an attack on the British identity. This broadly being the British identity of people who are descended from the peoples of these Isles, rather than the British identity of former subjects of the British Empire.

    What is currently happening is because people feel their English identity is under attack so much they are falling back on their descendants of these Isles identities and fleeing to places like Canada, Australia, New Zealand whilst they still can. They are doing it so that they can feel part of an Identifiable people that they have some connection to once more.

    http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html Heres article 8 of the UN decleration on the rights of the Indegenous peoples

    Article 8 1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture. 2. States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for: (a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values or ethnic identities; (b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources; (c) Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights; (d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration; (e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite racial or ethnic discrimination directed against them

    Roughly speaking I would say Enoch was worried about all of these rights being violated . Not that they were stuck in a document back then. And I would say they were.

    I would say that new labour was guilty of driving a horse and coaches through these rights. I cant see a single one of them that I couldnt say they hadnt violated against the native English.

  • Etheldolph

    24 April 2008 9:01AM

    Let's talk about skin colour. Is it relevant to immigration policy? I think all of us would answer that in an ideal world it should not be relevant, and that skin colour reflects nothing intrinsic of significance. And I hope that all of us work hard to try to be colourblind, which is very different from being culture-blind (a foolish thing to be).

    But since we don't live in an ideal world, should skin colour be relevant? Let's start by acknowledging something unproblematic: if a tiny number of black pupils are in a classroom otherwise full of whites they will often feel isolated and vulnerable, however benign the whites. The same goes for a small neighbourhood of blacks or Asians.

    So why would we be less sympathetic to whites put in a minority status? Why would we not in fact be *more* sympathetic, since England is their homeland, not a country of choice? And if current trends continue, the indigenous will indeed be a minority, as they are about to become in Leicester and Birmingham.

    Can native peoples rely on being treated well in their homeland when they are a minority? Who can say? There may be reasons to worry. It is easy to imagine that populations with a history of feeling oppressed may not be benign when they become a majority. I recall a black classmate who was bullied by whites and then went back to his parents' country for a visit and saw a white boy being bullied by blacks in a schoolyard. Was his reaction: "Hey, that happened to me and must be stopped." No, it was satisfaction that a white boy was getting it in the neck. Do Israelis treat Palestinians with special care now that Jews have escaped minority status in Europe and know what it is like to be a majority? Being a member of an oppressed minority does not make one immediately committed to fairness for all. It is as likely to make one committed to achieving a superior status and seeking a sort of social revenge. We see this in the rhetoric of rich Indian magnates who say they have no problem pushing around other people in other countries because they were pushed around and the time has come for India to have some glory. They're seeking glory and power, not fairness.

    And then there's Islam. If the UK in 2050 has an Asian, Islamic face, why would natives feel sure that they and their children will be treated well? Might Muslims tell themselves a story about how native whites were a bunch of drunken and/or lawless decadent heathen, much as the British and Americans justified their takeover of North America and Australasia? To some extent, they already say such things. People make up stories to justify their power, often out of guilt, and always have. History is full of examples of peoples rising to power with the rhetoric of fairness, and then abandoning the rhetoric of fairness for the rhetoric of power. Think of Robert Mugabe.

    If Trevor Phillips were in charge of the UK 50 years from now, this wouldn't happen. But why should we assume that people like him will be in charge? Why would we assume that there will be any progressive politics as we know it at all? Indeed, surveys show that Asians in Britain are more racist towards whites than vice versa.

    If Phillips and Katwala sympathize with the natives of North America and Australasia, then shouldn't they sympathize with the natives of Britain in their attempts to ensure that the same fate does not befall them? Shouldn't they understand why we want to curb immigration, why we want immigrants who fit in and like us (and are like us)? Shouldn't they understand why we want integration and loyalty to England, not multiculturalism and overriding loyalty to an alien religion? And why many hope that birthrates will change?

    Phillips he said he found it "interesting" that whites were about to become a minority in Birmingham. Does he understand why some whites may be somewhat less detached? I suspect he is not concerned about the future of Britain's indigenous. "Oh, they'll always be around and they're generally the problem that it's my job to correct," he may think.

    Phillips defends immigration because he says we have to compete for the best and brightest from around the world so we don't in the future lose our own citizens as they emigrate to new economic powers. That sounds like economic blackmail. And why then do we take so many low-skilled workers from the subcontinent? Why doesn't he worry that we are already are losing many of our best and brightest, first from London, and then from the country altogether, in part because of problems created by mass immigration and an unwanted transformation of English communities.

    None of the above is any reason for anybody not to treat English people of all races who are already here with utmost respect and concern for equality. The worst thing natives could do, morally and practically, is be more oppressive. But that does not mean we should not demand radical changes to immigration policy immediately. Why gamble with our future?

  • Sluijser

    24 April 2008 9:21AM

    SunderKatwala,

    An interesting and stimulating blog. I am grateful for the opportunity you offer to have a closer look at Powell's views, with which I wasn't really that familiar.

    *** Powell was quite clear about the impossibility of a black British identity for those born here.

    "Sometimes people point to the increasing proportion of immigrant offspring born in this country as if the fact contained within itself the ultimate solution. The truth is the opposite. The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact he is a West Indian or an Asian still. Unless he be one of the small minority - for number, I repeat again and again, is of the essence - he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one". ***

    I think you are completely on the wrong track here. Note the mention of "the small number". He contends that unless you integrate in and embrace the native culture, you may be a UK citizen, but not an Englishman. He obviously thinks that a black/asian person who does so integrate, can become an Englishman. However, he also thinks that large numbers will prevent such integration to happen.

    Purely on the basis of this quote, you cannot call Powell a racist, and you cannot contend his views should have no place in the debate.

    AlexisDeTocqeville *** Writers such as Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, A. Sivanandan et al - far better qualified than me on this subject - have argued that any concept/notion of Britishness should be inclusive and embracing of Britain's Commonwealth heritage. ***

    Your modesty is commendable but misplaced. Identity is not something that is determined by experts, but how people see themselves and others. Anyway, their opinion makes no sense. Great Britain never was the same as The Empire. And since there is no empire anymore, any reason to see a one-to-one relationship between Commonwealth and UK is gone. Like every country in the Commonwealth, the UK has its own identity.

    And I would say that language, extensive intermarriage, love of/embracing of the UK's cultural heritage and identification with / love of this country are part of that. Any group which tries by hook, crook and continuous import from their country of origin to keep itself pure and apart cannot be called British in any sense of the word - that is, will not be recognized as such by most Brits.

  • justlookaround

    24 April 2008 12:27PM

    Etheldolph (comment #1296516) has made a very interesting point that strikes at the incipient hypocrisy of the liberal-left-wing attitudes in the immigration debate. Ultimately, it's about whether the indigenous natives (the secular, liberal, white Anglo-Saxon English, primarily)believe they have a culture worth protecting, and thus making it worthwhile to assimilate immigrants and different cultural groups into. All the pseudo-liberal propaganda about multiculturalism and diversity has completely failed to sustain the very liberal values it claims to be promoting, based on the idea of a secular, liberal state in which individual freedom of belief, expression and association were protected. And so we get a country riven by competing cultural values, in which any group that deliberately breeds faster than others is likely to increase its democratic influence within a few generations, and get more of its own way. We also tolerate the most astonishing verbal attacks against the ideal of secular liberal democracy from extremists of all kinds who, if there were any serious commitment to these values, would be told there was no place for them here. In other words, the values and ideals we should hold most dear and strive hardest to protect are the ones we should actively prevent others from undermining and destroying. Freedom of speech, etc, should not extend to advocating the destruction of freedom of speech. That's not fascism (as the loony pseudo-liberal left like to claim), it's just ordinary common sense. But this defense of liberal values doesn't happen because it suits the pseudo-liberals of all political and religious persuasions to have us believe the people who preach against our secular liberal democracy are the only enemies of the secular liberal democratic state, when in fact it is the pseudo-liberals themselves (i.e., most of our political, intellectual, and media elite) who are actually the greatest threat to the survival of secular liberal democracy. In other words, if we let immigrants come here, they should know that our tolerance doesn't extent to subverting the values of secular liberal democracy, and we should be making the same point clearly to everyone who lives in this country, otherwise there's little point in hanging around waiting for the inevitable to happen - and it surely will, a decade or two down the line.

  • AlexisdeTocqueville

    24 April 2008 3:23PM

    @Fridah

    Thanks for your link and reference to that exchange between Thatcher and Powell. I will check it out.

    @DaleyThompson

    I get your reference to Iraq and the former Yugoslavia re: ethnic tensions, and the use of a dictator (Saddam and Tito) to keep these tensions in check. I do not think the same parallel can be made with reference to Britain and (mass) immigration of different nationalities and ehtnic groups. Well, not yet. I don't claim to be an expert on the creation of nation-states, but with regard to Iraq, the former Yugoslavia and many countries in Africa, they were artificial constructs of nation-hood, where until (relatively) recently, they had no concept of being one nation, but instead where smaller or larger ethnic/tribal groups. That is why (as you know) when Communisim collapsed in Yugoslavia, the old tensions in the Balkans were - in my view - innevitably going to boil over, if not necessarily into war. The same goes for the divisions in Iraq (Sunni, Shia, Marsh Arab, Kurd, etc) and Zimbabwe, where the main tribes are Shona and N'debele, where people tend to vote on tribal lines for Mugabe and Tsvangari. Will we reach that point in the UK. I sincerely hope not but if serious questions aren't addressed re: integration and assimilation then the answer is, yes, possibly.

    @Gigolo

    You posted:

    'You know perfectly well what I mean. It is the reductio ad absurdum of your argument that because Britain has never had a homogenous population before, it should not matter who comes here.

    Reading your replies, you seem to be doing some pretty heavy back-peddling'

    How can you assume I know perfectly what you mean? I am a mind reader? I have many talents, granted, but mind reading ain't one of them! You can infer and challenge me to explain my views or comments but you should never assume that you know what I mean, as is makes an ASS of U and ME (ASSUME).

    As for back peddling, your confidence is misplaced. If you read carefully my replies and rebuttals, you'll see that I merely state that I never said or inferred X or Y, which is what I was being accused of. If people want to know where I stand on an issue, just ask.

    @Sluijser

    You posted:

    'Your modesty is commendable but misplaced. Identity is not something that is determined by experts, but how people see themselves and others. Anyway, their opinion makes no sense. Great Britain never was the same as The Empire. And since there is no empire anymore, any reason to see a one-to-one relationship between Commonwealth and UK is gone. Like every country in the Commonwealth, the UK has its own identity'.

    I never claimed that identity was determined by experts, merely that they have studied the topic exstensively and offer an opinion on the topic. Whether they are right or wrong I leave for other people to decide, I merely cite their knowledge, credibility and as a starting point for the discussion. I know that identity is a binary process of defining oneself by what we are as opposed to what we are not, something I posted in an earlier response to Sunder K. However, it is not only a process of how WE DEFINE OURSELVES, but similarly how OTHERS DEFINE US. This can include offical agencies like Govt Departments who define who is and who is not British (c.f. the various Nationality Acts during the C20th).

    You are partly right about Britain's relationship with it's post-colonial states and the birth of the Commonwealth, where the UK and Zimbabwe are equal members. However, for certain members of a particular generation, born before the end of Empire and the beginning of the Commonwealth, to be born in India, Pakistan, Barbados, etc, YOU WERE BRITISH. You were seen as a British Citizen/Subject, 'God Save The Queen' was the National Anthem, The Queen the Head of State. You were taught and inculcated in all things British. Britain was the 'Mother Country'. Being born in the British Empire and being British were indivisible. This feeling of being British but born elsewhere in the British Empire is well documented but excellently captured (in my view) in Adrea Leavy's 'Small Island'.

    So you are right, that fondness and feeling towards Britain from Commonwealth member states may no longer exist as once it did, but the thing about historical ties and the 'organic link' that existed, is that they are sometimes hard to break. I take your point, but there are those in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean who still identify very strongly with Britain (for all kinds of historical, cultural, familial, economical, etc), despite the countries of the birth, in the main, having independence from the UK.

    All Gilroy, Hall, Sivanandan et argue, is that a British Identity should be malleable and adaptable enough to acknowledge this historical fact.

  • Solid

    24 April 2008 4:12PM

    AlexisdeTocqueville: Your most recent post is extremely obscure. Why should British identity be shaped in any way by what people in Pakistan and Bangladesh think of us? They are independent of us and we are independent of them. Why should we take in more immigrants from those countries when it is just a fact that they integrate badly, have tended to have low skills, have brought with them all the problems of extremist and moderate Islam, and in worrying numbers do not like us, think of us as imperial oppressors, and want to change our society. Someone above mentioned that Asians are racist about whites. They are, according to the Asian News:

    http://www.theasiannews.co.uk/news/s/531/531081__one_in_five_wont_marry_white.html.

    And the number of polls that say huge numbers of Muslims think the west is decadent and put their religion ahead of England is similarly worrying. I have way more in common with Americans and Europeans than I do with the average Asian Muslim. Pakistan and Bangladesh are alien countries and should no longer be looked to for immigrants. Moreover, we need to get over cultural relativism and get back the missionary spirit that animated leftwing social reformers in the early twentieth century and start educating people who are already here in Islamic communities about how to be better English citizens. We have to be better people ourselves too, but that shouldn't stop us insisting that Islamic immigrants become much more like us than they have so far. With respect to Sunder Katwala, the Fabian Society itself should look to its roots and try to reform Islamic communities accordingly. It is in many ways, extremely bad policy to take in more immigrants who are Islamic, whether or not they come from the Commonwealth.

  • Irondog

    24 April 2008 4:46PM

    Etheldolph

    "Let's talk about skin colour. Is it relevant to immigration policy? I think all of us would answer that in an ideal world it should not be relevant, and that skin colour reflects nothing intrinsic of significance. And I hope that all of us work hard to try to be colourblind, which is very different from being culture-blind (a foolish thing to be)." _____

    While culture and race can be mostly separated they probably cannot be entirely right to the nth degree. Culture is partly a genetically caused phenomenon, and genes vary in frequency between racial groups. For example, the high rates of alcoholism amongst Australian aborigenes and native Americans probably has a partly genetic cause. The high academic achievement of Ashkenazi Jews is also possibly due to genetic average differences among other things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence

    While this cannot justify discrimination against individuals it would be foolish to expect that a million Australian aborigene immigrants and a million Ashkenazi immigrants will be behaviorally identical if only we could somehow equalise the environmental influence on culture.

  • Solid

    25 April 2008 7:46AM

    AlexisdeTocqueville: Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of this: "There are those in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean who still identify very strongly with Britain (for all kinds of historical, cultural, familial, economical, etc), despite the countries of the birth, in the main, having independence from the UK. All Gilroy, Hall, Sivanandan et argue, is that a British Identity should be malleable and adaptable enough to acknowledge this historical fact."

    Does this not say that people in Britain should have their identity shaped by people in far-flung ex-imperial domains?

  • Sluijser

    25 April 2008 10:47AM

    SunderKatwala,

    Slightly disappointed not to see any reaction from you to my view that the second Powell passage quoted by you does *not* justify your conclusion that Powell did not think coloured people could have a British identity.

    Solid, Comment No. 1299735, April 25 7:46, GBR *** AlexisdeTocqueville: Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of this: "There are those in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean who still identify very strongly with Britain (for all kinds of historical, cultural, familial, economical, etc), despite the countries of the birth, in the main, having independence from the UK. All Gilroy, Hall, Sivanandan et argue, is that a British Identity should be malleable and adaptable enough to acknowledge this historical fact."

    Does this not say that people in Britain should have their identity shaped by people in far-flung ex-imperial domains? ***

    Personally, I think that basically means that there is a Commonwealth Identity. And that Commonwealth Identity is the reason why there is a Commonwealth. But there is no reason on earth to expect that anybody with Commonwealth Identity is presumed to have British (let alone English) identity.

    Etheldolph: agree with your last post. However, it does not detract of someone's human dignity, nor does it say anything about superiority or inferiority, to state that people of a certain identity (that includes culture and appearance) feel more comfortable with people not too unlike them, and that they have the right to restrict and select would-be immigrants on that basis. After all, there is no automatic human "right" of immigration. Once accepted as citizens, ofcourse the law should be blind to any such criterium.

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