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    UK: Immigration: A Plan to Alter the Nation's Soul

    Immigration: a plan to alter the nation's soul

    The government's policy of mass immigration was intended to remodel the social fabric of the nation, says Janet Daley

    By Janet Daley
    Published: 9:00PM GMT 13 Feb 2010

    Open door: Labour deliberately encouraged immigration in order to transform the culture of Britain Photo: PA

    So now we know what Labour's immigration policy was really about. The "open door" was not simply held ajar in order to admit a fresh workforce that would help to fill gaps in the growing economy. Nor was it just a gesture of hospitality and goodwill to those who were fleeing from repressive or inhospitable regimes in order to seek a better life. Both of those aims would have been credible – if controversial and not thought-through in all their consequences. And so would the longer-term view that dynamic, cosmopolitan societies are generally healthier and more productive than in-bred, isolated ones, or that immigrants who tend to be ambitious for themselves and their families could help to counter the passivity and defeatism that tend to be endemic in the British class system.

    But as it turns out, the policy was motivated by something far more radical and fundamental than any of this. The full text of the draft policy paper composed in 2000 by a Home Office research unit – the gist of which had already been made public by a former Labour adviser – was released last week under Freedom of Information rules. Properly understood, it is political dynamite. What it states quite unequivocally was that mass immigration was being encouraged at least as much for "social objectives" as for economic ones. Migration was intended specifically to alter the demographic and cultural pattern of the country: to produce by force majeure the changes in attitude that the Labour government saw itself as representing.

    Tony Blair's "forces of conservatism" speech; his improbable presentation of Britain as a "young country"; the advocacy of a multicultural society which would have to reassess its own history, replacing traditional pride with inherited guilt: all of this could be facilitated by a large influx of migrants whose presence in the population would require the wholesale deconstruction of the country's sense of its own identity.

    This may all sound rather far-fetched now, but try to recall just how much hubris the New Labour tide brought with it in the beginning: the contempt for history and the Year Zero arrogance with which they set about "modernising" the nation's institutions. It was, in this respect, a prime example of the new direction which Left-wing parties were forced to take in the wake of Marxism's collapse. Having lost the great economic argument of the 20th century, the Left had to switch its focus to society itself: if humanity could not be transformed through the redistribution of wealth and the socialist command economy, then it would have to be transfigured by altering social relations.

    The object of the exercise was still to produce, in the words of an old Left-wing protest song, a "new world" based on a "new man". But now the new man (sorry, "person") would be formed not by changes in the power of capital or the ownership of the means of production, but in cultural attitudes and behaviour. The revolution now had to be confined to what went on in people's heads: to their values, their assumptions and their reactions to each other.

    The phrase "altering consciousness", which had once meant awakening the proletariat to its own economic enslavement, now referred to raising awareness of social injustices, such as intolerance of cultural differences, social inequality, or discrimination against minorities. But the subtext was always self-examination and personal guilt: the indigenous Briton must be trained (literally, by the education system) always to question the acceptability of his own attitudes, to cast doubt on his own motives, to condemn his own national identity and history, to accept the blame even for the misbehaviour of new migrants – whose conduct could only be a reflection of the unfortunate way they were treated by the host population.

    Included in this programme for the newly constituted British psyche was a whole package of subliminal assumptions, which were adapted from the Old Left stable: international solidarity rather than national sovereignty, collective values rather than personal conscience, and "social equality" rather than individual achievement. It was a peculiarity of New Labour's vanity that it actually tried to persuade the country that, under the miraculous Blair dispensation, it could have both sides of these dualities at the same time. But the full consequences of the new country that it envisaged, and the role that immigration was to play in the creation of it, broke the most basic rule of the democratic process: the electorate was never told it was voting for that.

    The goal was a social revolution abetted by the influx of a huge variety of diverse cultures, which would provide both the need and the pretext for reshaping British life. It may have been relatively new (at least in Britain) as a specific political policy, but it was much of a piece with the conventional objective of Left-wing political movements, which is to transform human nature.

    When you decide whether to give your support to a party of the Left or of the Right, you are actually making a judgment about what you think politics is for. If you believe that it is the function of government to alter or determine people's perceptions and responses – their innermost feelings about themselves and others – then you will probably opt for the Left. If you take the view that the state should concern itself only with behaviour – with what people do, especially insofar as it affects other people, rather than what they think or feel – then you will be more likely to veer to the Right. So this is really a question of whether you want politics to be concerned with what goes on in people's heads as much as with events in the objective world.

    But of course, at least since the 1960s, when "raising consciousness" became the refrain of every group that sought change in any sphere, almost all parties have had to talk this way to some extent. It has become part of the politician's acknowledged brief to suggest ways in which the internal lives and attitudes of voters can be influenced or directed. There is scarcely a party leader now who would dare to say that these matters are none of his (or any government's) business.

    Almost no one seems prepared to discuss the obvious danger: that if politics becomes a replacement for religion by taking upon itself the responsibility for transfiguring human nature then politicians, of all people, become the prophets and the priests. Just at the moment, I can't think of a more absurd idea.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu ... -soul.html
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    Almost no one seems prepared to discuss the obvious danger: that if politics becomes a replacement for religion by taking upon itself the responsibility for transfiguring human nature then politicians, of all people, become the prophets and the priests. Just at the moment, I can't think of a more absurd idea.
    Thank You Texas2step, neat read. And to think this bit of wisdom is not new or revealing to some.

    Pride before the fall,... anyone?

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    Senior Member Richard's Avatar
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    A bad action from Labor definitely something we can agree on.
    I support enforcement and see its lack as bad for the 3rd World as well. Remittances are now mostly spent on consumption not production assets. Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

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    Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser

    Labour threw open Britain's borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a "truly multicultural" country, a former Government adviser has revealed.

    By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor
    Published: 6:42PM BST 23 Oct 2009

    The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

    He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".

    As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.

    Critics said the revelations showed a "conspiracy" within Government to impose mass immigration for "cynical" political reasons.

    Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s.

    Writing in the Evening Standard, he revealed the "major shift" in immigration policy came after the publication of a policy paper from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a Downing Street think tank based in the Cabinet Office, in 2001.

    He wrote a major speech for Barbara Roche, the then immigration minister, in 2000, which was largely based on drafts of the report.

    He said the final published version of the report promoted the labour market case for immigration but unpublished versions contained additional reasons, he said.

    He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

    "I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."

    The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said.

    Some 2.3 million migrants have been added to the population since then, according to Whitehall estimates quietly slipped out last month.

    On Question Time on Thursday, Mr Straw was repeatedly quizzed about whether Labour's immigration policies had left the door open for the BNP.

    In his column, Mr Neather said that as well as bringing in hundreds of thousands more migrants to plug labour market gaps, there was also a "driving political purpose" behind immigration policy.

    He defended the policy, saying mass immigration has "enriched" Britain, and made London a more attractive and cosmopolitan place.

    But he acknowledged that "nervous" ministers made no mention of the policy at the time for fear of alienating Labour voters.

    "Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.

    "But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."

    Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: "Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite.

    "Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right.

    "This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage."

    The chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, MPs Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, said: "We welcome this statement by an ex-adviser, which the whole country knows to be true.

    "It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain."

    A Home Office spokesman said: “Our new flexible points based system gives us greater control on those coming to work or study from outside Europe, ensuring that only those that Britain need can come.

    “Britain's borders are stronger than ever before and we are rolling out ID cards to foreign nationals, we have introduced civil penalties for those employing illegal workers and from the end of next year our electronic border system will monitor 95 per cent of journeys in and out of the UK.

    “The British people can be confident that immigration is under control.â€
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    Paying the price for a decade of deception

    COMMENTARY By Sir Andrew Green

    Chairman of MigrationWatch and former British Ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia

    Last updated at 4:32 PM on 10th February 2010


    So there was indeed a Labour conspiracy to change the nature of our society by mass immigration.

    New evidence confirms claims made by a Labour political adviser last October which he subsequently tried to recant.

    In an article for the Evening Standard, Andrew Neather revealed that ‘it didn’t just happen: the deliberate policy of ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year ...was to open up the UK to mass migration’.

    Community spirit: Today's Britain is multicultural

    He went on to describe a Government policy document which he had helped to write in 2000.

    He said that ‘drafts were handed out in summer 2000 only with extreme reluctance: there was paranoia about it reaching the media’.

    The paper eventually surfaced as a purely technical product of the research department of the Home Office but earlier drafts that he saw ‘included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural’.

    We in Migrationwatch have now obtained an earlier draft of that policy paper, circulated in October 2000.

    It had already been censored but it was to be neutered still further. In the executive summary, six of eight references to ‘social’ objectives were cut from the version later published.

    What could have been meant by social policy in the context of immigration, especially as it was dressed up as combating social exclusion?

    This must surely have been code for increasing the numbers substantially, as Mr Neather revealed. If not, why all the secrecy?

    Why the censorship that has now been laid bare? Reading between the lines of these documents it is clear that political advisers in Number 10, its joint authors, were preparing a blueprint for mass immigration with both economic and social objectives.

    None of this was in the Labour manifesto of 1997 or 2001. One passage in the report that the political censors failed to cut was a prediction about foreign immigration from outside the European Union.

    This had it climbing from 142,000 in1998 to nearly 180,000 in 2005 (in fact, it reached nearly 200,000 by that date).

    But what this shows is that ministers were clearly warned about a continuing rise in immigration which, even leaving aside the East Europeans, has been even greater than expected.

    So what can we deduce from all this? Mr Neather later withdrew some of his remarks but examination of the texts shows that he had, in fact, blurted out the truth.

    It seems there was a project led by Downing Street political advisers to introduce a secret policy of mass immigration.

    Their economic arguments surfaced in an obscure research document but the social objective of greatly increased diversity was entirely suppressed for fear of public reaction – especially from the white working class.

    These are the very people who are now paying the price for a decade of Labour deception. What the Government now fears is that they will take their revenge on election day.

    Why on earth should they have taken such a risk with their traditional supporters? Was it pure ideology or were there other factors at play?

    One point to consider is the impact on the electorate. It is not generally realised that Commonwealth citizens legally in Britain acquire the right to vote in general elections as soon as they put their names on the electoral register.

    In Labour years we have now seen an additional 300,000 from the Old Commonwealth and about one million from the New Commonwealth.

    They may well have been conscious that they have much stronger support among the ethnic communities than their Conservative rivals.

    Given that mass immigration is heavily in Labour’s electoral interest, they may have thought that they could get away with it.

    The trades unions have been silent despite the concerns of their members. And they may have calculated that anyone who opposed it could be silenced by accusations of racism.

    They have not succeeded but we are left with a tale of betrayal which has generated a very dangerous current of extremism which could yet come to haunt us.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... al-UK.html
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