Now that politics have focused down on the election, I find myself thoroughly demotivated.
There is a substantial percentage of the population who wish to see a very early withdrawal from the occupation of Afghanistan, who want genuinely firm measures against the casino banking economy, who are very sceptical about the direction the European Union has gone, and who do not want to waste many scores of billions of dollars on a nuclear submarine system which can wipe out half the world’s population instantaneously and the rest shortly thereafter.
Yet the great “leader’s debate” will be between three people who all follow the same pro-bank bailout, pro-Afghan war, pro-EU and pro-Trident consensus. The political differences between them are insignificant – they are engaged in a Mr Smarm contest. They are not even good at that – Brown is an aggressive churl, Cameron is comfortable only working alongside his team of fellow toffs, Nick Clegg seeks to avoid offending the establishment consensus at all costs.
Only in Wales and Scotland do any significant number of people have a hope of electing anybody who stands outside the cosy Westmnister consensus on key issues.
To work, democracy must present the electorate with real choices.
Our democracy does not work.
“Why is it that the British are so determinedly inhospitable to anything or body they don’t know?”
This is so terribly trivial I’m faintly embarrassed to suggest it, but … I think a lot of it might be simple laziness. It raises the possibility of having to deal with something new – think about something, maybe even act in new ways – and somehow the culture has thrown up ways where people can reassure each other that it’s allright to not have to do that, just be rude about it instead, make it go away. At least away from the range of things they have to engage with. “Go to strange exotic countries, meet strange exotic people, and dislike the whole experience because you can’t get a proper plate of fish and chips”.
Either that or it’s the outcome of 500 years spent dealing with foreigners over the pointy end of a gunboat.
(This is massively unfair to the many exceptions, of course, but that’s generalisation for you).
I’m 29 (nearly 30) and have never voted in any type of election in the UK. It’s a complete waste of time.
“Larry from St US might be one of those US patriots who patrol the Mexican border for free.”
You mean those people in San Diego, whose group numbers about 50 and the catchment area of which includes Phoenix? There’s, I don’t know, 10 or 15 million people in that area, and 50 – okay, maybe 100, show up to patrol the border.
Another anti-American fail.
Vronsky,
This would be a good time to suggest sortition again. A group of us sortition-supporters has formed a blog devoted to discussing and promoting this idea. It’s at http://equalitybylot.wordpress.com.
Craig,
I haven’t seen your response to the suggestion of building a political forum with a broadcast Question and Answer programme (TV)? Something like Dimbleby’s Question Time–only with matters of daily domestic and international politics to be considered.
Have I missed your reply?
“Ignoring the suggestion that.. the BNP march around in Nazi uniforms giving the Hitler salute, which they don’t”
So sorry – as Jon says:
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/465772/Angel-faced-racist-aged-12-Girl-burns-golly-at-BNP-fun-day.html
Will this change your view, person-not-a member-of-the-BNP in Canada? It is the News of the World, so you might like to google for the many other examples.
Interesting exchange, thanks Glenn and everyone. What did slip through was the canard that “the British National Party offers policies that most people support”.
And again:
“However, if someone says, Britain is a democratic country and must accede to the wish of the majority, which is for an end to further immigration, is that racist? And if it is, is it bad?”
It would be bad for the country, but in fact it is simply wrong. In the last Migration Watch poll 22 percent wanted an ‘end to immigration’; that leaves 78 percent who don’t. And no-one’s even asking about forced deportation.
I’m with many here who despise the rightwing messages of simpletons. What nobody seems to realise is that it is our colonial attitudes and rapacious practises that are exploiting the developing nations that lies at the heart of 2/3 of all immigration.
We ain’t seen nothing yet,imho, wait until EU factory ships have stripped the protein rich waters of the west African coast and thousands of small fishing communities, already eeking out less and less from the once abundantly teeming seas, can’t catch enough fish to feed their families anymore, then we will see hundreds of thousands wanting to leave their desolation.
many fish species are collapsing and the reverberations will be multiple.
You can extrapolate this on to agricultural economic sectors in almost any African state, the impunity of some of its Governments, or depseration, has led them to lease out some of their most valuable soils to foreign countries, at the detriment to the respective local population that sees large amounts of food grown on their soil and exported within 48 hours to some overstocked supermarket here, there and everywhere.
It is time that the public understands how migration is created, to cut through the loony and sometimes hatefull tirades by the like’s of the BNP and UKIP.
How can they possibly want to govern? if they are not able to make people understand that migration is mainly due to our own establishments practises and sheer exploitation?
ingo
If we exploited people, we’d be the establishment as well. Room enough in hell for all of them, including their wives and families and special indestructible editions of Harpers and Queen to remind them how they got there through their shameless greed.
@glenn – yes, I would reach for Mussolini’s definition of fascism too. I think the admiration of authoritarianism is an essential component too.
@CanSpeccy. There are two ways in which I think you are being disingenuous here. First, you insulted Vronsky with the notion that he should be “self-hating”, and then when I took you to task on it, you did not respond. An apology to him is in order, I would suggest.
Second, you are making the case for racism in a place where you know racism is likely to be resoundly rejected. Accordingly I think it is best to tread carefully on this topic. Your earlier post has a number of interesting features, but since we don’t know whether your motivation is based on societal well being or plain old hatred, we are likely to be suspicious, and it is not plausible that you would not be aware of that.
This is mirrored precisely, for example, in the nature of questioning the official numbers killed in the holocaust. One or two thoughtful posters here have in the past entered into that discussion on this board, but it was tolerated because there was no view that their motivations were racist. However, most people who raise this question *are* motivated by anti-Jewish racism.
But, if it is the case that you don’t hate non-white people, and you have good intentions for making a case for racial discrimination, then perhaps people will enter into the debate with you. Perhaps you could address your views on race/colour from that perspective?
Would it be racist if Britain shut its borders according to the wishes of the majority? It depends to whom and, in the main I think, for what reasons. Most people who are anti-immigration are, to a degree, racist – in soft subconscious terms, rather than in conscious and politically organised terms. But it is possible to be anti-immigration without being racist, I think, but it occurs less frequently.
Why should the people of the nations of Europe share their resources with the Third World? An excellent question, and I am glad you asked it. There are a number of issues here:
The motivations for financial immigration are directly connected to limited opportunities back in immigrant’s home countries. Contrary to popular view, people are not at all keen to leave their home and to go to a foreign land where they may not be welcome. True, there may be some “land of milk and honey” world-views, but financially-motivated migration would not occur in large numbers if work and food were available locally.
Furthermore, the developed West has directly and deliberately plundered from the Third World for hundreds of years, leaving it where it is today. True, African countries have further problems on top – specifically corruption – but the effects of the interference of empire are still visible today. Substantial developed world assistance for struggling countries that is not tied to IMF/neo-conservative conditionalities would directly reduce the demand for immigration into Britain. But the racist press would likely have a problem with this too: they would say “shut our borders AND reduce foreign aid”.
I would say that I am in favour of relaxed immigration controls for this very reason; it provides an incentive for the government to reduce immigration through foreign aid.
I would bring in here the notion that closed borders is inimical to the spirit of the free-market that we’re meant to be worshipping, and having closed borders is an impediment to the natural order of things that would have everything working in perfect Friedmanite order. But is the US government, primary driver of this neoconservative worldview, about to relax its borders with Mexico, Cuba, and the rest of the world? Of course not. Think about it this way: we have mainly free movement of money, free movement of goods, but not free movement of people. Surely if the hidden hand is meant to iteratively improve things, this substantial impediment should be removed completely?
I should say however that I don’t at all endorse the free market – but this contradiction between racism and capitalism rarely enters the debate.
That all said, I think there are some good points in your text, though voting for the Hitler-loving BNP is really not the solution (do all members like Hitler? Probably not. But if the leadership is so intellectually poisoned, it is a good idea not to encourage them). I am deeply suspicious of integration programmes, but perhaps – in terms of encouraging immigrants to be fluent in English and to actively learn useful skills – they have their advantages. But I regarded their recent introduction into the UK as a device to simmer justifiable tensions amongst migrant communities, especially as regards to “our way of life” that includes the killing people en masse in foreign countries. (Ditto our new religious hatred laws – a mechanism to assuage domestic Muslim unrest over British foreign policy.)
Regarding what politicians are truly like in private: it is relevant. If Griffin is meeting white supremacist groups in the US, as I believe he has done, then I want to know about it. It is not a “private matter” when one enters public service!
Is BNP right-wing? Yes, they are, on the social scale. Economically, they are generally left-wing, as Hitler’s party was. Read more about these distinctions at http://www.politicalcompass.org.
Incidentally I see your lists of working-class grievances as caused by rampant capitalism, not immigration. Part of the work of the Left is correctly regarded as educating (if that is the right word) an apolitical public that economic conservatism – aka greed – is a primary cause of their societal ills.
Craig, come back to Bonnie Scotland and fight for that difference. Please
This election is a time for the independent to shine. At no point in time has the electorate been more disillusioned with main stream part politics. Slanging matches and a failure to address the real issues are to blame.
Let’s hope the TV debates cover more contentious policies that the public want action on. EU and immigration are two. They’re divisive for the nation and for the parties and courage is needed to address them. The country would be better for it! @wiljt
We have choice in Scotland. Perhaps we are very fortunate.
I suspect I know where your journey for political consequence should be taking you.
It is the nature of disputative Scotland to suspect the motivation of all politicians and to do things very properly and very honestly when the time comes.
What a nation we can build when we get there
Aren’t elections about getting middle classes richer?
With Britain’s record in racist military adventures, it is difficult to smear Hitler even if he rose from his grave today.
Was just revisiting this thread & noticed that Canspeccy aka Alfred Burdett aka whatever is using the word ‘underclass’. Untermenschen, anyone? Sick stuff.
Although sorry, Mr Burdett, I don’t expect you meant it.
“Was just revisiting this thread & noticed that Canspeccy aka Alfred Burdett aka whatever is using the word ‘underclass’. Untermenschen, anyone? Sick stuff.”
Technicolour, why do you conflate the meaning of “underclass” and “untermenschen”?
Are you too lazy to look the terms up, or don’t you know how to? And do you not know that to assert or imply in writing, without a shred of evidence, that someone is a racist, Nazi-lover, etc., is potentially libelous. (Probably you do, since you don’t reveal your real name.) And even if it is not a libel that anyone will sue you for, do you not understand that there is a difference between rational civil debate and merely hooting and hollering abuse?
What this site shows is that the lib-left in Britain is heavily colonized by lovers of hate speech. It is enjoyable, I suppose, to exercise one’s lungs. Rather like the enjoyment that small boys derive from exercising their calf muscles and larynx. But it is childish, and it is socially destructive and contemptible.
And for your information here are a couple of definitions.
From Dictionary.com:
Underclass: a social stratum consisting of impoverished persons with very low social status.
From a U. of Texas web page
Underclass: William Julius Wilson, a sociologist, refers to the urban poor as the “underclass”.
The primary issue facing members of the underclass is “joblessness reinforced by an increasing social isolation in an impoverished neighborhood”. (1) They not only suffer from lower socioeconomic status, minimal education, and lack of opportunities, but they are further victimized by a lack of community safeguards and resources. The underclass’s defining characteristic is the absence of job opportunities coupled with the absence of societal supports.
From the Free Dictionary
Untermenschen: subhumans; Nazi conception of Jews and Slays.
An pology will be accepted.
Er, CanSpeccy/Mr Burdett, whatever – the word ‘sorry’ is above? But you carry on.
And, by the way, I am very cheered by the fact that despite all the evidence (see above) you see the BNP as a decent party – practically a Be Nice People party, in fact. Peace & love is what it’s all about, isn’t it? You carry on with that too!
CanSpeccy – If all immigration was stopped then the multinational companies would sack more people in the UK and move more of their factories and banks and headquarters to countries like China and Burma and Nicaragua and Thailand where democracy doesn’t exist and workers are exploited.
The only way to protect the interests of the poorest in Britain is to start by promoting democracy, the right to form trade unions independent of government (and governing parties) and decent minimum wages in countries like China and Nicaragua.
Unless that’s done the big firms can always move manufacturing or service sector employment to countries where labour is cheaper.
Banning immigration would just punish lots of poor people from other countries – including lots of torture victims.
The BNP promotes the myth that Britain is ‘soft’ on immigration. In fact many thousands of genuine asylum seekers who face torture or death are jailed in ‘detention centres’ and then sent back to torture or death in Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iraq etc every year.
See e.g
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/14/asylum-torture-evidence-ignored
What serves the ‘elite”s interests is dividing people using nationalism, so that the majority of people in every country don’t ally against the big firms and the billionaires. By seeing immigrants as the problem and by promoting nationalism you are helping the big firms and the billionaires divide the majority of people around the world and conquer them.
You ask “Why is it that the BNP platform — and I refer specifically to policies stated by leaders of the party and posted on the Party’s Website… is condemned as fascim..?”
The answer is that the party’s constitution on it’s website refers to representing the “Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Nordic folkish peoples” and says others (i.e non-whites, even those born here) should be “persuaded” to leave the country. It’s both racist and very similar to Hitler’s rhetoric about the “volk” – the folk or people of Germany.
On the original topic i see your point Craig. First-past-the-post is a long way from a properly democratic electoral system, but it’s still better than many countries have. The biggest barrier to independents and small parties’ candidates getting elected under it is that it creates the belief that these candidates have no chance – and that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Persuading people that if enough of them vote for that candidate they really can win is the only solution this side of electoral reform.
There’s always the option of standing as an independent (which i hope you’ll do again) or voting for one of the smaller parties or an independent candidate. It may take a long time to make a difference – only former big-party MPs or doctors who have lots of patients who trust them as a core vote seem to get elected on the first attempt as independent candidates. For other independents it may take many attempts – but in a General Election the big parties won’t be able to bus in party workers and volunteers from all over the country the way they could in the by-election – they’ll all be busy in other constituencies.
Even if independents and small parties don’t win they can influence bigger parties’ policies if they fear losing votes to smaller parties might lose them the seat to another big party.
I completely disagree with the people who say not voting is the way forward – that just allows an even smaller minority of voters to decide the government with the majority’s opinions ignored.
Duncan,
You say,
“If all immigration was stopped then the multinational companies would sack more people in the UK and move more of their factories and banks and headquarters to countries like China and Burma and Nicaragua and Thailand where democracy doesn’t exist and workers are exploited.”
Why would an end to immigration cause companies to sack anyone? There are already 8 million workers on the dole, working part-time when they need fulltime work or who have simply given up hope of finding a job and have quit looking. The idea that companies would have to fire people if there were no more mass immigration seems to make no sense unless you mean that companies will fire people unless they are able to continue driving down wages, for which purpose they need a vast army of the unemployed to scare the hell out of those who still have jobs.
“The only way to protect the interests of the poorest in Britain is to start by promoting democracy, the right to form trade unions independent of government (and governing parties) and decent minimum wages in countries like China and Nicaragua.”
I’m all in favor of democracy, but as I pointed out, so allegedly, is the BNP. They claim to be more democratic than anyone else, as they offer referendums, devolution of power and the creation of an English national assembly.
But as to promoting workers rights in China, forget it. The Chinese will have to sort out their own affairs. Britain’s power to influence events in China is negligible. China is thirty times the size of Britain, it has 20 times Britain’s population and it has the second largest economy in the world. They are already the greatest emitters of CO2, the have the world’s largest auto industry, their economy is growing many times faster than economies in the west. They have a manned space programme ?” something the US can no longer afford, they are building 15,000 km of high speed rail, versus a few hundred in the US, they are building 20 nuclear power plants versus one in the US.
China is not going to put a damper on its breakneck rate of growth by allowing stupid trades unions to price China out of world markets, as happened to the British car, coal and shipbuilding industries. Why would they? It would only condemn the mass of Chinese to continued poverty.
The Chinese are a great nation, but they are not soft. They have always considered China the greatest nation on earth and they intend now to prove it. Our best bet, in the western nations, is to attend to the needs of our own people.
“Unless that’s done the big firms can always move manufacturing or service sector employment to countries where labour is cheaper.”
In theory outsourcing of jobs can be prevented now, if that’s what people want. Britain had capital controls in the 1960s that severely restricted movement of productive resources offshore. The BNP say they will end massive outsourcing of jobs. So there you have a democratic solution to the adverse effect of globalization on British workers.
“Banning immigration would just punish lots of poor people from other countries – including lots of torture victims.”
Come on, the average immigrant to Britain is not a torture victim, and even the BNP has not said that it would deny entry to those genuinely in need of asylum.
“The BNP promotes the myth that Britain is ‘soft’ on immigration. In fact many thousands of genuine asylum seekers who face torture or death are jailed in ‘detention centres’ and then sent back to torture or death in Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iraq etc every year.”
You need to be quantitative. Britain is currently receiving something like 600,000 legal immigrants a year plus asylum seekers plus probably hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. In London, immigrant mothers now account for the majority of births. Do you think it fair to displace most of the indigenous people in London, in Leicester, and many other great cities by immigrants? Why is it that charity must be denied at home?
“By seeing immigrants as the problem and by promoting nationalism you are helping the big firms and the billionaires divide the majority of people around the world and conquer them.”
That seems to me to be a total inversion of reality. The global financial elite want absolute freedom to move resources ?” capital, raw materials, people ?” in accordance with the drive for profit maximization. Global governance is the antithesis of democracy. If people feel no loyalty to their own country or sympathy for their poor neighbours, how likely is it that a global government would give a damn about the underclass in Britain’s former industrial cities?
“You ask “Why is it that the BNP platform — and I refer specifically to policies stated by leaders of the party and posted on the Party’s Website… is condemned as fascim.. ………””
Look, the BNP are probably the most clutzlike party on the face of the planet, so much so that I have elsewhere speculated on the probability that the party is a security services front designed to slime all truly democratic options.
A striking piece of evidence for this view is provided in Nigel Copsey’s book “contemporary British Facism”, which cites an opinion survey, in which most people said mass immigration should be ended. However, when told that this was a BNP policy, most people changed their minds and said immigration was OK.
How come? Obviously because people think that to support anything the BNP advocates makes one a racist, fascist, Holocaust denying, nose-pulling beast. The fact is, however, loyalty to one’s own people, to the nation that gave one life and raised one to an understanding the world is not racism.
“The answer is that the party’s constitution on it’s website refers to representing the “Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Nordic folkish peoples” and says others (i.e non-whites, even those born here) should be “persuaded” to leave the country. It’s both racist and very similar to Hitler’s rhetoric about the “volk” – the folk or people of Germany.”
That’s all crap ?” what the BNP Constitution says, I mean, if they still say that in the revised constitution, because there is no need for it. All you have to say is that the party represents the British people, period, most of whom probably are folkish Nordic peoples or whatever gobblydegook they use.
Concerning your later post, I think there is little point in voting for parties with a track record of lying, since it only encourages the bastards. Voting for independents makes sense, but an independent has to build a reputation in a constituency, which takes a long time, e.g., twelve years in the case of Edwin Scrymgeour, of the Scottish Prohibition Party who, in 1922, defeated Winston Churchill in Dundee. I applaud anyone who will do the work, but I doubt if I would live long enough to have a chance of doing it.
Mind you, I have an idea for an affiliation that sounds sexier that the Scottish Prohibition Party: I am thinking of starting the DNTF Party, i.e., the Definitely Not the Fascists, party. The platform would borrow a good deal from the BNP but with out the rubbish about folkish Nordic peoples. Probably the party would ban former Nazis, provided that did not constitute a form of indirect discrimination with which the Equalities Commision would take exception.
Cheers. AB
CanSpeccy wrote “Why would an end to immigration cause companies to sack anyone?”
Because in an unregulated market with complete free trade between countries (like the one the big firms have secured now through lobbying governments)if they can’t get cheap labour in the UK they’ll simply move to other countries where they can still get cheap labour – China, Nicaragua, Thailand, etc – and then export the product (whether a manufactured one or a service like call centre calls) back to the UK.
The only ways you can stop this are
1) Protectionism – Which might work but would likely also reduce the overall wealth of the country, so everyone in it would be worse off
OR 2)Make any trade deals with undemocratic sweatshop countries like China, Nicaragua etc depend on greater democracy and higher minimum wages, the right to set up independent trade unions etc.
The second option would reduce the pool of cheap labour worldwide and ensure everyone benefitted from economic growth.
CanSpeccy wrote “But as to promoting workers rights in China, forget it. The Chinese will have to sort out their own affairs. Britain’s power to influence events in China is negligible. China is thirty times the size of Britain, it has 20 times Britain’s population and it has the second largest economy in the world. They are already the greatest emitters of CO2, the have the world’s largest auto industry, their economy is growing many times faster than economies in the west.” All true – i’m not suggesting the UK on it’s own could negotiate any kind of deal China.
The EU however, could – it’s more than big enough as a market that access to it matters to the Chinese as much as access to Chinese markets matters to the EU
CanSpeccy wrote “China is not going to put a damper on its breakneck rate of growth by allowing stupid trades unions to price China out of world markets, as happened to the British car, coal and shipbuilding industries. Why would they? It would only condemn the mass of Chinese to continued poverty.”
That’s the reverse of the truth. No amount of economic growth will benefit the majority of Chinese people unless they are allowed to form independent trade unions to negotiate a fair wage for their work. Overall in the decades since World War Two the world economy has increased its GDP per capita massively, yet there’s still poverty – because growth doesnt end poverty unless the existing wealth and that created by growth is distributed fairly.
“If people feel no loyalty to their own country or sympathy for their poor neighbours, how likely is it that a global government would give a damn about the underclass in Britain’s former industrial cities?”
I’m not arguing for global government – though you’ll certainly need some OECD wide deals to, for instance, crack down on tax avoidance and prevent multinational firms playing one country against another, as they have for decades – i’m arguing for everyone recognising that reducing poverty in other countries benefits them too, because it makes it harder for multinational firms to just move elsewhere to get cheaper labour.
“In theory outsourcing of jobs can be prevented now, if that’s what people want. Britain had capital controls in the 1960s that severely restricted movement of productive resources offshore.”
I’ve no argument with you there.
“The BNP say they will end massive outsourcing of jobs. So there you have a democratic solution to the adverse effect of globalization on British workers.”
There’s nothing democratic about a party that classes people born here as not British and says they should be “persuaded to leave” based on the colour of their skin.
CanSpeccy wrote “You need to be quantitative. Britain is currently receiving something like 600,000 legal immigrants a year plus asylum seekers plus probably hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. In London, immigrant mothers now account for the majority of births. Do you think it fair to displace most of the indigenous people in London, in Leicester, and many other great cities by immigrants? Why is it that charity must be denied at home?”
Do you really believe that there was any period in British history when there wasn’t massive immigration into the country? There always has been, from the ice ages on.
On top of that you’re defining “illegal immigrants” as people denied refugee status or work visas by the British government – but that government is so busy trying to please voters and tabloid newspapers who have an irrational hatred of all immigrants that it has quotas on the number of people to be deported each year.
As the article i posted a link to before shows immigration officials ignore medical evidence showing asylum seekers have been tortured.
On top of that the government has been treating Iraq, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe as ‘safe countries’ so that asylum seekers from them are deported back to torture or death.
The other group of immigrants are the so-called “economic immigrants” many of whom are leaving countries where they would watch most of their children die
before they ever reached adulthood – of hunger, of disease or due to war.
Duncan, I can’t deal with all these issues again. However, I will respond to a couple of points that you make.
“There’s nothing democratic about a party that classes people born here as not British and says they should be “persuaded to leave” based on the colour of their skin.”
The BNP do not say that people born here are not British. They say that those with British roots going back several generations are ethnically British, which is correct if the term ethnic means anything. They say those who are immigrants or the descendants of recent immigrants who are in Britain legally have the same rights as other citizens even though their ethnicity is not British. This is not very interesting to me, but it makes sense.
As to persuading people to leave, that could mean anything. The present government uses existing legislation to give certain immigrants an incentive to leave. I think that without coercion such departures would be minimal, and I don’t advocate coercion. However, what the BNP would do, I haven’t any idea. In fact, I doubt whether the BNP think that they will be doing anything. As I’ve indicated, I think they are spoilers intended to dupe the public into accepting the existing corporatist, globalist system.
“Do you really believe that there was any period in British history when there wasn’t massive immigration into the country?”
If you scan the discussion that proceeds this, you would find the answer to your question, which is yes I do believe that and, moreover, there is conclusive genetic evidence for the belief. Read Bryan Sykes, Oxford molecular biologist and human geneticist who has analyzed the mitochondrial genome and Y chromosome from over ten thousand British citizens.
http://www.amazon.ca/Saxons-Vikings-Celts-Bryan-Sykes/dp/0393062686
I have several degrees in biology, including a PhD in molecular biology, and see no reason to doubt the validity of Sykes’ assessment that the great majority of the British population date back to those who followed the retreat of the glaciers 9000 years ago plus Neolithic farmers who arrived about 5000 years ago. The only other major immigrant wave, before the that of the last 60 years, was that of the Vikings who contributed as much as 20% to the present gene pool in certain areas of eastern England.
CanSpeccy – Your versions of BNP policy are very rose tinted. Here’s what their current constitution on their website says -Section 1 “a)…The British National Party… believes that the indigenous peoples of the entire British Isles, and their descendants overseas, form a single brotherhood of peoples, and is pledged therefore to adapt or create political, cultural, economic and military institutions with the aim of fostering the closest possible partnership between these peoples.
(b) The British National Party stands for the preservation of the national and ethnic character of the British people and is wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples. It is therefore committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white make up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.”
http://bnp.org.uk/resources/constitution-1th-edition/
So apartheid style segregation of black and coloured people from whites and ‘negotiating’ all non-white people in the UK being made to leave the country, even if they were born here, or their parents were born here too, or their grandparents or their grandparents.
——————————
The genetic studies are interesting but mostly show that genetics probably can’t distinguish between groups that are genetically similar or shared common ancestors – like e.g Normans (descended from vikings) or Angles, Jutes and Saxons.
There have been many waves of immigrants and invaders to the British isles – the Celts, Irish , Attecotti, the Romans (who also brought North African troops, some of whom settled here), the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes and the Normans to name the main ones that preceded the vikings. If you’re telling me not many Angles or Saxons settled here where did the Anglo-Saxons come from? If not many Normans did how did they govern the place?
So all the genetic study shows is that the only groups that genetic science can distinguish between are vikings and non-vikings. That’s not proof that the vikings were the only large scale immigrants to the UK in any way.
Nor does it explain why you think immigration is such a terrible thing, still less how you think it’s going to be possible to prevent it peacefully and humanely if the current methods of ‘detention centres’ (jails) and deportation by force aren’t preventing the hundreds of thousands of “illegals” you complain of (people who have committed no crime whatsoever and many of whom have suffered torture but have been denied asylum by quotas for deportations per year set to keep the anti-immigrant brigade happy).
So what’s your solution? ‘Send them all back’ – including even more of the victims of torture and people who’ll be killed when they’re sent back. Shoot them to deter others? How exactly will you come up with a method tougher than the current government’s brutality and quotas for numbers of people to be deported that won’t involve killing people directly along with killing even more of them than now by deporting them back to torture and death?
You’re also obsessed with the symptoms but completely ignore the causes – which include our governments’ backing for dictatorships in other countries and willingness to trade with them (including arms sales), invasions and occupations of other countries – and impoverishing them by demanding they open their markets to our government subsidised exports while we protect our own markets from their exports. On top of that there’s global warming which will lead to more and more flooding, the spread of deserts and droughts, creating more destitute people. Do you want to just let them all starve to death quietly as long as it happens somewhere else so you don’t have to see it?
You ignore the word “consent” in the section of the constitution concerning repatriation.
What you say about the genetics of the population of the UK is mostly nonsense according to Bryan Sykes, an Oxford don who I am more inclined to believe than you.
His point is that the indigenous people of Britain are all of the same ancient stock, with a significant addition of genes from the Vikings, who may include the Normans, although who the Normans brought with them from France is probably unknown. According to Sykes there is only the slightest trace of the Roman presence in Southern England, mainly that of slaves from the Middle East.
Anyway, why is it impossible to talk about the BNP platform without being attacked as an advocate of some bloody stupid BNP policy. I’ve already stated that I think the BNP are either the stupidest political party on the face of the earth or an outfit intended solely for the purpose of sliming anyone who opposes the policies of the existing corporatists/globalist financial elite that own the government.
Why not think about that for a bit. Sixty percent of the British population oppose mass immigration (which is quite a separate issue from that of repatriation by “negotiation and consent”) until you tell them that is BNP policy, then the back off.
Sixty-three percent of the British population want the troops home from the criminal war of aggression in Afghanistan. But if you tell them that is BNP policy they’ll probably back off that too.
CanSpeccy wrote “You ignore the word “consent” in the section of the constitution concerning repatriation.”
Right so you now admit, presented with the text of their constitution, that they are racists; that they do not want “non-white” people as British citizens – even if they and their parents and grandparents were born here; that they want apartheid until they can get the “consent” of all non-whites to leave.
How would you feel about a party that said you should be “persuaded” to leave the country you were born in because your skin was the wrong colour? How would you or the BNP get the consent of all these British people to be forced out of their own country? They won’t leave voluntarily – why should they?
Unless you’re a racist it shouldn’t bother you what genetic stock or race people came from if they were born in this country, or granted citizenship and don’t break the law.
“What you say about the genetics of the population of the UK is mostly nonsense according to Bryan Sykes, an Oxford don who I am more inclined to believe than you.”
Really? So genetics can tell the difference between an Angle or Saxon who came from Denmark or northern Germany in the 4th c AD and a Danish viking who came a few centuries later? Or between a Danish viking who arrived in the UK in the 7th century AD and a Norman who invaded in the 11th(the Normans having been descended from the viking chief Rollo and his settlers)?
I greatly doubt it – I also doubt Professor Sykes makes any such claim himself.
Much of the population of Britain today does indeed have it’s head filled with Daily Mail and Sun crap about immigrants ‘swamping the country’ and Britain being supposedly a ‘soft touch’ when in fact no asylum seeker can live in anything but poverty on the pitiful benefits they can claim (considerably less than unemployment benefit) and genuine torture victims and people fleeing for their lives are being jailed and deported by the thousand every year.
That doesn’t mean that, when i know the truth, i should pretend the majority are right rather than point them to the actual facts.
The BNP are opportunists – they’ll adopt any policy that they see the majority support if they think it will help them piggyback their racist, immigrant-hating agenda on them.
I don’t admit to anything that I didn’t say.
As for the genetics, you’re trying to argue a case against a professor of genetics without even reading the evidence. This is totally futile.
And on the question of immigarion, you cannot deal competently with numbers. It’s not crap to say that immigration has added around 1% to the population every year for a number of years. And its not crap to point out that the immigrant community is much more fertile than the indigenous community. It is not crap, therefore, to point out that the immigrant community very rapidly, in a historical context, will come to dominate and largely replace the indigenous community.
If that’s what you want, its fine with me that you advocate it. Just don’t be surprised if people think members of the indigenous community who support your view are self-hating losers. And don’t try to justify you position with bogus arguments and false statistics.
I am sorry to be irritable about it, but you need to come to grips with the facts and, if you want to comment on what I have said, you should do me the courtesy of paying attention to what I’ve actually said.
“It’s not crap to say that immigration has added around 1% to the population every year for a number of years. And its not crap to point out that the immigrant community is much more fertile than the indigenous community.”
No, it’s not – both those claims are valid – largely because first generation immigrants are on average younger and poorer
“It is not crap, therefore, to point out that the immigrant community very rapidly, in a historical context, will come to dominate and largely replace the indigenous community.”
This however, does not follow from your first two points for several reasons.
First, second generation immigrants or people who’ve lived here for decades are no longer immigrants but British.
Second the longer they’re here the better off they get – and it’s a proven fact that wealthier people have a lower birth rate than poorer people – the poor in the third world having more children in place of pensions they don’t get – and because more of their children tend to die of hunger and disease.
Third the immigrants are influenced culturally by the ‘indigenous’ population just as much as the ‘indigenous’ population are influenced by the immigrants. For a start pretty much every immigrant family’s children speak English with an English or Scottish or Welsh accent.
You also seem to view non-white people as some kind of alien race who will wipe us all out – in fact cultural and genetic diversity strengthens both cultures and gene pools – as a geneticist i’d have thought you’d know that, but maybe you’ve fallen victim to prejudice that blinds you to it?
Inbreeding does not make a population healthier or more resistant to disease.
“If that’s what you want, its fine with me that you advocate it. Just don’t be surprised if people think members of the indigenous community who support your view are self-hating losers. And don’t try to justify you position with bogus arguments and false statistics.”
This is neither an argument nor is it pointing to any argument i’ve made.
It’s merely a ridiculous insult like those used pro-Israel extremists who call any Jew or Israeli who criticises Israel a “self-hating Jew”. It’s even more similar to the racists of the BNP who call any white person who isn’t a racist like them “self-hating”. I am not “self-hating” – you are racist – you hate non-white people and want South African style apartheid and to “persuade” all non-white people to leave Britain “by consent”.
Also please point out my bogus arguments and exactly why they’re bogus – and what ‘false statistics’ i’ve cited.
I’m sorry to be irritable and to point out your obvious prejudice and hypocrisy, not to mention your desperate resort to insults when you’re shown to be wrong both on the facts (e.g the BNP’s racist constitution) and the logic of your arguments.
p.s i’m sorry to have to say all that CanSpeccy but the “self-hating” jibe used to justify racism and bigotry is well below the belt