An epic mistake on immigration

On 22 March 2013, the David Goodhart article, Why we on the Left made an epic mistake on immigration, adapted from his book, The British Dream, appeared in The Daily Mail.

This said:

"Among LEFT-LEANING ‘HAMPSTEAD’ LIBERALS like me... our instinctive reaction has been that BRITAIN IS A RELENTLESSLY RACIST COUNTRY bent on thwarting the lives of ethnic minorities, that THE ONLY DECENT POLICY IS TO THROW OPEN OUR DOORS TO ALL and that THOSE WITH DOUBTS ABOUT HOW WE RUN OUR MULTI-RACIAL SOCIETY ARE GUILTY OF PREJUDICE. And that view — ECHOED IN WHITEHALL, WESTMINSTER AND TOWN HALLS AROUND THE COUNTRY — HAS BEEN THE PREVAILING IDEOLOGY, setting the tone for the immigration debate...

I am now convinced that PUBLIC OPINION IS RIGHT AND BRITAIN HAS HAD TOO MUCH IMMIGRATION TOO QUICKLY.

FOR 30 YEARS, THE LEFT HAS BLINDED ITSELF WITH SENTIMENT ABOUT DIVERSITY. BUT WE GOT IT WRONG...

PARTS OF WHITE WORKING-CLASS BRITAIN HAVE BEEN LEFT FEELING NEITHER VALUED NOR USEFUL, BELIEVING THAT THEY HAVE BEEN DISPLACED BY NEWCOMERS NOT ONLY IN THE JOB MARKET BUT ALSO IN THE NATIONAL STORY ITSELF...

For a democratic state to have any meaning, it must ‘belong’ to existing citizens. They must have special rights over non-citizens. Immigration must be managed with their interests in mind. But it has not been.

THE JUSTIFICATION FOR SUCH A LARGE AND UNPOPULAR CHANGE HAS TO BE THAT THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS ARE SIGNIFICANT AND MEASURABLE. BUT THEY ARE NOT.

One of the liberal elite’s myths is that we are a ‘mongrel nation’ that has always experienced high inflows of outsiders. But THIS ISN’T TRUE. FROM 1066 UNTIL 1950, IMMIGRATION WAS ALMOST NON-EXISTENT (EXCLUDING IRELAND) — A QUARTER OF A MILLION AT THE MOST, MAINLY HUGUENOTS AND JEWS.

Post-World War II immigration has been on a completely different scale from anything that went before. THESE DAYS, MORE PEOPLE ARRIVE ON OUR SHORES AS IMMIGRANTS IN A SINGLE YEAR THAN DID SO IN THE ENTIRE PERIOD FROM 1066 TO 1950, excluding wartime...

A net immigration of around four million foreign-born citizens since 1997 has produced easily the most dramatic demographic revolution in British history. Yet there was no general discussion in the New Labour Cabinet of the day about who Britain wanted to let in and in what numbers; no discussion about how the country could absorb them without pressure on public services... WE ARE DEEP INTO A HUGE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT…

THE FAULT LIES WITH OUR LEADERS... THERE HAS BEEN A HUGE GAP BETWEEN OUR RULING ELITE’S VIEWS AND THOSE OF ORDINARY PEOPLE ON THE STREET. This was brought home to me when dining at an Oxford college and the eminent person next to me, a very senior civil servant, said: ‘WHEN I WAS AT THE TREASURY, I ARGUED FOR THE MOST OPEN DOOR POSSIBLE TO IMMIGRATION [BECAUSE] I SAW IT AS MY JOB TO MAXIMISE GLOBAL WELFARE NOT NATIONAL WELFARE.’

I was even more surprised when the notion was endorsed by another guest, ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL TELEVISION EXECUTIVES IN THE COUNTRY. He, too, felt global welfare was paramount and that HE HAD A GREATER OBLIGATION TO SOMEONE IN BURUNDI THAN TO SOMEONE IN BIRMINGHAM…

Then, whenever there were problems with immigrant communities, the tendency was for the host society to be blamed for not being sufficiently accommodating or for being racist… Thus, THE ABSENCE OF FATHERS IN MANY AFRICAN-CARIBBEAN HOUSEHOLDS WAS EXCUSED AS A CULTURAL TRAIT THAT JUST HAD TO BE ACCEPTED RATHER THAN A DERELICTION OF DUTY THAT NEEDED ADDRESSING…

What, for example, do we say to the elderly white people of the Pollards Hill estate in Merton, in South-West London, which I visited on my travels, many of whom feel displaced and disrupted by the arrival of a large Ghanaian population in recent years? TO THE LOCAL WHITES, THE GHANAIANS ARE NOT FITTING IN BUT IMPOSING THEIR OWN WAY OF LIFE ON THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. Similar small battles are taking place in thousands of other housing estates up and down the country…

MULTICULTURALISM, IN ITS EXTREME FORM, EVEN TURNED A BLIND EYE TO PRACTICES THAT WERE THE OPPOSITE OF THE LIBERALISM THAT INSPIRED IT, FORCED MARRIAGE, FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION, THE HOUNDING OF GAYS.

THE ROOT PROBLEM WITH SEPARATIST MULTICULTURALISM IS THAT MINORITY BRITONS ARE ENCOURAGED TO IDENTIFY FIRST AS A MEMBER OF THAT MINORITY AND ONLY SECOND, IF AT ALL, AS A CITIZEN...

THE PROBLEM WITH MASS IMMIGRATION IS THAT, WITHOUT INTEGRATION, IT DAMAGES THE INTERNAL SOLIDARITY OF A COUNTRY SUCH AS OURS."

I entered this in the Comment section underneath the article.

"So now the "racist Fascist, Nazi bigots" (Joe Public) were right all along. They were right to want the third world prevented from ethnically cleansing them out of their own ancient stamping grounds.

What's the matter, Goodhart, someone who doesn't speak English with ten kids moving into next door to you? Your leafy suburb suddenly being inundated by people very different to you and your family? Our leafy suburbs were overrun decades ago. But you never gave a damn about that.

You betrayed your own people with a mindless, shiny-eyed certainty that brought disenfranchisement and horror to many. Do you think we forgive you now because of your pinkly faux, smack-my-bot confession?

We come last in the land we made because of you. We're dumbed-down, drugged-up and afraid to speak out because of you. Our little girls are being raped and prostituted as we speak because of you. Our safe, stable, proud old England is dead because of you.

Go to hell, Goodhart.

We'll see you there."

As for the 'senior civil servant' who 'argued for the most open door possible' and the 'most powerful television executive' who felt he had 'a greater obligation to someone in Burundi than someone in Birmingham', well, the Nationalist has been trying to warn the British people about such unpatriotic types for more than seventy years now.

The people, to their cost, were not inclined to listen.

When we take our country back, ladies and gentlemen, you can rest assured David Goodhart will be required to name the traitors cited above. Once named, they will be arrested, charged with treason and found guilty.

I hope I'm still around to see the sentence carried out.

As for the Goodharts, all those 'left-leaning Hampstead liberals' who finally discovered some sympathy for their own after decades of anti-indigenous treachery, well, ten years down the mines alongside us?

Might teach them some manners.