I predicted recently in these pages that, whatever the government claim they are going to do about illegal migration, they won’t. And once again, they haven’t.
The last Tory government talked a good talk about flying illegals out under two Home Secretaries, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman. But each time they tried, even with planes loaded, not even one took off.
An uncooperative blob, spurious legal challenges and the spectre of the European Court of Human Rights ensured that they were thwarted each time. I don’t know which company the government uses but perhaps they should try Ryanair, not just for the punishment of flying with them but because Michael O’Leary waits for no man.
On 15 September the first plane due to fly to France under the ‘one in, one out’ deal which Starmer struck with France was cancelled due to last minute legal challenges. “How many migrants were on board?”, I hear you ask. Was it a hundred, fifty, twenty or ten? Brace yourself…it was one. One!
The number of illegal migrants in the UK is estimated to be somewhere between 120,000 and over one million; a difference of 880,000 between the two estimates. Let’s use the lower estimate (it matters little). If we are only planning to move illegal migrants out one at a time and we cannot even achieve that then the net efflux of the great unwanted will equal the square root of sod all. Zero, none, nil.
(Update: The first migrant deported under the ‘one in, one out’ scheme finally left our shores on Thursday morning. That leaves a mere 5,589 illegals that have arrived since the scheme came into effect at the start of August!)
As I also said in these pages, there soon won’t be any piss left to take. And that is what Tommy Robinson’s March last Sunday was all about. Like him or dislike him (I cannot make up my mind) he probably held the biggest rally ever held on British soil. It certainly looked big from the aerial footage I saw on New Culture Forum. Police estimates of ‘up to’ 150,000 people marching are laughable and, of course, willingly repeated by the BBC and other captive media.
Of course, The Guardian described it as ‘pure and simple’ racism. They obviously did not account for the black singers on stage before Tommy Robinson addressed the crowd or the many South Asian faces among the marchers. The march was about immigration; legal and illegal. The people of the UK having long realised that both are excessive but the difference now is that they are no longer afraid to give voice to their concerns.
British people are afraid that their identity is becoming diluted and they are afraid to display symbols of that identity. Legal migrants, already well established in the UK, also have a lot to lose from uncontrolled migration. They came here for higher salaries and a better life. The last thing a well-integrated and peaceful Pakistani migrant wants is more Pakistanis coming here. Especially if they want to bring Pakistan with them in the shape of Sharia Law, the abuse of women and the general sense of misery that seems to emanate from Islamic zealots.
What the endgame will be following Robinson’s march is not clear, but it is clear that he has a larger following than even he probably thought. Keir Starmer can nasally intone “far-right” as often as he wants. He could not be more wrong, but it barely matters. People are becoming immune to labels.
If it is ‘far-right’ to want your taxes spent on your own deserving cases and your own culture to flourish rather than on abject scroungers who do not respect our culture, then I must be far-right. If it is racist to state the blindingly obvious about the origins, beliefs and behaviour of the marauding hordes of ‘beach boys’, then I must also be a racist. We must let these labels run off our backs like ducks.
Starmer, almost certainly, is toast; either soon at the hands of his own backbenchers, or later when the country votes. It is of genuine concern who succeeds him. Will Reform deliver? If the economy crashes, as some are predicting, will a future government even have the resources to mount the massive and much needed remigration that Farage promises?
Sooner or later, someone will have to stop treating the British people like a nuisance in their own land. The public mood is shifting, and fast; people are less afraid of being called names than of losing their country altogether. Whatever one’s view of Tommy Robinson or the march itself, it cannot be denied that a corner has been turned. Unless those in power grasp this shift and act decisively, they may discover, for real, what ‘far-right’ and ‘racism’ really mean.
Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.
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I wish I shared your optimism that any corner has been turned. Marches achieve nothing (that’s why I never attend any).
One or two illegals on a plane isn’t ever going to succeed, planes must be chartered and filled with ‘passengers’ suitably restrained and adequate onboard security (that rules out Plod).
Nathaniel,
I used to share your opinion about marches and part of me still wonders precisely what is the point of “anti-Government policy” protests of any kind these days. Then I remember my surprise after the Brexit vote to see, what was it, around a million “remainers/remoaners” marching through the streets of London. It brought home to me the strength of feeling on the opposite (to me) side of the debate. And that, if nothing more, is what will have been achieved by the Unite the Kingdom march at the weekend. If it shakes Keir & Company out of their complacency, even a bit for now, it will have been worth it. And it reminds the rest of us that we’re not alone, we’re not “racists” or ‘phobes of one kind or another just because we don’t want a massive take-over of the UK by people, good, bad or indifferent, from foreign parts of the world, where the way of life, culture, political and religious beliefs are incompatible with that of the indigenous population.
You are totally correct, of course, about the “one or two illegals on a plane” being next door to useless, but that is an issue relating to the abuse of the courts which I think needs to be addressed with real urgency. No judge should be permitted to ride roughshod over the perfectly legitimate decisions of an elected Government. Where are these illegal people getting the money to take their (non) cases to court in the first place? They’ve broken into the country and they should be marched, literally, straight out again. They’ve forfeited the right to any sort of “due process” by breaking the immigration law in the first place, so the courts should not, must not, be involved at all. Let them go back to their homelands and there, if they really want to do so, apply for legal entry to the UK. THEN, the due process kicks in – not before.
I really should enrol for that assertiveness course – been meaning to do so for years now!
Once again, I’m back with something I forgot to include in my reply to Nathaniel.
The author writes:
“Will Reform deliver? If the economy crashes, as some are predicting, will a future government even have the resources to mount the massive and much needed remigration that Farage promises?”
Frankly, after a period of hope in Nigel Farage, I’ve come to the realisation that the “Farage promises” are even less reliable that Starmer’s promises. Starmer, at least, has attempted to remove one illegal migrant, while Farage showed shock horror at the idea (put to him in an interview recently) that he would organise mass deportations. Despite the fact that it was a win-win for Trump who (subsequently and immediately) delivered, Farage will not risk the wrath of the elite, even if it brings the votes.
Having listened to former allies of his, I have come to agree with their assessment: Farage is in it for Farage. He cannot be trusted. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, would love to be proven wrong, but I see him in a very different light now, as the real possibility of achieving high office approaches.
Farage and Reform is a beginning – and will pave the way for a real right-wing party and politics – and the inevitable ensuing civil war.
I doubt it, a Reform Government will do as much damage to the right wing cause as this current Labour Government is doing to the left wing. Civil War possibly, but more likely surely back to the swings and roundabouts of the uniparty (of which Reform is a part).
Who knows… by the time the next election comes round, everything but everything could have changed drastically.
However, for now, it would be difficult to beat the headline above. One in (No)One Out – spot on…perfect!
Happy days the government i believe in.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to post a link here, but I’ll try.
I very rarely read any Guardian articles, mostly because they make me scream, but also because they don’t even have the courage to let anybody have a right to reply. But this article by Helen Pidd made me angry to the point where I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
She is genuinely dismayed because people are rejecting the labels of ‘far right’, ‘racist’, Islamophobe’ – all of which she attributes to those attending Saturday’s march – and is particularly distressed because people are ignoring those words from THE GUARDIAN! She is bewildered that these slurs don’t work any more, at least not as much as they used to.
On balance I think I’ll opt for laughing. None of this is funny, but the genuine head scratching panic of a Guardian columnist almost makes being subjected to all the stupid name calling worth it.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/i-left-the-tommy-robinson-rally-with-the-worrying-realisation-this-movement-is-only-going-to-get-bigger/ar-AA1MJOf1?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=68cb028b34434664a389ef1daff6eb7d&ei=13
‘Since leaving I’ve been grappling with how best to describe what I saw and heard. It was a far-right rally, yes, but many people attended unperturbed by the fact it had been billed as such by many media outlets, including the Guardian. They did not feel alienated by such an extreme, and previously fringe, label. In his speech, Robinson said something that I fear may be true. “They tried to silence us for 20 years with labels,” he said. “‘Racist’, ‘Islamophobe’, ‘far right’. They don’t work any more!” ‘
In case the link isn’t allowed, the last paragraph is an extract from the article by Helen Pidd.
Kill off all Jihadi believing muslims or better still kill the fucking lot.
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