Thread: A spectacular mistake on immigration: Straw finally admits Labour messed up letting

A spectacular mistake on immigration: Straw finally admits Labour 'messed up' by letting in one million East Europeans

• Former Home Secretary said the party's 2004 decision to hand immediate working rights to migrants from other EU states was a mistake
• Admission in his local paper is furthest any Labour minister has gone
  
• His successor David Blunkett also warned Roma migrants could cause riots
• Government had predicted influx of 13,000 a year - 1m came in a decade
  

By JACK DOYLE
PUBLISHED: 17:45 EST, 12 November 2013 | UPDATED: 19:45 EST, 12 November 2013
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1,051 View comments


Mistake: Former Home Secretary says the 2004 decision was 'well-intentioned' but 'messed up'

Jack Straw has admitted that throwing open Britain’s borders to Eastern European migrants was a ‘spectacular mistake’.
The former Home Secretary said Labour’s 2004 decision to hand immediate working rights to Poles and migrants from other new EU states was a ‘well-intentioned policy we messed up’.
His comments emerged on the same day as his successor as Home Secretary, David Blunkett, warned that the influx of Roma migrants into Britain risked causing riots.
Mr Blunkett’s comments reinforced the significance of Mr Straw’s admission about Labour’s failure to anticipate the scale of migration when eight former Soviet bloc nations became EU members, and Britain – almost alone in Europe – allowed the free movement of workers between countries.
At the time, the Government predicted up to 13,000 migrants would come to Britain each year. The actual total over nearly a decade was more than a million.
Virtually every other EU state, apart from Ireland and Sweden, kept their jobs markets closed for the seven years permitted.

In an article for his local paper, the Lancashire Telegraph, Mr Straw – who is MP for Blackburn – admitted the forecasts were ‘worthless’.

And he accepted the ‘social dislocation’ which can be caused when ‘large numbers of people from abroad settle in a particular area’.
Mr Straw said: ‘One spectacular mistake in which I participated (not alone) was in lifting the transitional restrictions on the Eastern European states like Poland and Hungary which joined the EU in mid-2004.

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‘Other existing EU members, notably France and Germany, decided to stick to the general rule which prevented migrants from these new states from working until 2011.

'But we thought that it would be good for Britain if these folk could come and work here from 2004.



Not alone: Mr Straw's successor David Blunkett (left) has also spoken out about problems caused by immigration, warning that Roma migrants could cause riots. Ukip leader Nigel Farage (right) applauded him

It is estimated that more than 700,000 people from Romania could try to find work and settle in Britain

‘Thorough research by the Home Office suggested that the impact of this benevolence would in any event be “relatively small, at between 5,000 and 13,000 immigrants per year up to 2010”. Events proved these forecasts worthless.

‘Net migration reached close to a quarter of a million at its peak in 2010. Lots of red faces, mine included.’

Also critical: Last year Ed Miliband said Labour's policy left communities 'struggling to cope'

His comments are the furthest any senior Labour figure has gone in accepting the party made serious errors in immigration policy during its time in power.

Mr Blunkett told the BBC that Roma groups from Slovakia who had settled in a district of Sheffield were behaving like they were living in a ‘downtrodden village or woodland’ where there were no toilets or litter collections.

They were dumping rubbish on the streets, loitering late at night and causing ‘friction’ with residents, he added. The tensions have prompted existing residents of the Page Hall area to set up street patrols to try to combat the anti-social behaviour.

Since 2004, several hundred Roma families have settled in the area, many with eight children or more.

Mr Blunkett said: ‘We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming Roma community – because there’s going to be an explosion otherwise.

'We have got to be tough and robust in saying to people, “you are not living in a downtrodden village or woodland” – because many of them don’t live in areas where there are toilets or refuse collection facilities.’

Mr Blunkett said the ‘understandable tensions’ between different groups could lead to a repeat of the 2001 riots in Oldham and Bradford.

'If everything exploded, if things went wrong, the community would obviously be devastated. We saw this in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham all those years ago when I first became Home Secretary.’

Back track: Mr Straw wrote in his local newspaper that the decision was made based on data showing 5,000 to 13,000 migrants a year would come to Britain. 'Events proved these forecasts worthless'.

Tough: Support for the Labour party hit a three-year low in 2004 following the immigration announcement

Mr Blunkett’s comments were welcomed by Ukip leader Nigel Farage, who said they reinforced the need for a re-think over the dropping of similar border controls with Romania and Bulgaria on January 1 next year.

Immigration campaigners have predicted the arrival of up to 50,000 people a year as a result of ending the transitional controls over nationals from the two countries. Romania has one of the largest Roma populations in Europe, with an estimated two million living there.

Last year Ed Miliband was criticised for dropping an admission that Labour’s policy had left communities across Britain ‘struggling to cope’. In advance of a speech in December, his spin doctors suggested he would admit that the party’s failures on immigration had damaged Britain and increased community tensions.


'The Home Office suggested the impact would be relatively small... between 5,000 and 13,000 migrants a years. Events proved these forecasts worthless'
- Jack Straw in his local newspaper

He had been expected to say: ‘We did too little to tackle the realities of segregation in communities that were struggling to cope.’ But the admission was dropped in favour of a vague acknowledgment that the party had made ‘mistakes’.

Mr Straw’s comments will prompt further calls for Labour to apologise for its failure on immigration.

Mr Farage said: ‘Mr Blunkett should be admired for the courage he has shown by speaking so plainly.

‘The fact that he is talking of the significant difficulties with the Roma population already in his constituency should be taken seriously by the likes of Cameron, Clegg and Miliband.

'My question is if they won’t listen to the dangers of opening the door to Romania and Bulgaria next year when Ukip speak out on it, will they listen to David Blunkett?’

A recent Salford University study suggested Britain’s population of Roma – estimated at 200,000 – is one of the largest in Western Europe.

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Some clarification about the so called “Roma” is needed. The “Roma” are nomads that in English would be called Gypsies. Although they now come from MIDDLE Europe,they are not the indigenous people of MIDDLE European countries like Slovakia or Poland. My family’s roots are in Slovakia and I can tell you Slovaks are hardworking, CLEAN people who do not throw their garbage in the streets. The “Roma” make up a tiny minority of Slovakia’s population, and the indigenous Slovaks are not fond of them. But the “politically correct” Marxist that dominate the EU have demanded that the Slovaks pander to the Roams as a price of admission into the EU..

British immigration policy was not a mistake, it was an attack on British society

Immigrants in Britain.

Former Labour party leader Jack Straw is being applauded for calling Britain’s immigration policy a “spectacular mistake.” British columnists Richard LittleJohn points out that Straw didn’t make a “mistake.”

His action were a calculated and intentional attack on British society to tranform the electorate. He used anti-British rhetoric to justify his policies of mass immigration.

LittleJohn Column in UK Mail Online…

Two former Labour Home Secretaries are being congratulated on their belated candour about immigration. Jack Straw now says letting so many people settle in Britain was a ‘spectacular mistake’.

David Blunkett has gone further, warning of civil unrest in his home city of Sheffield because the behaviour of recently arrived Roma gypsies is ‘aggravating’ the locals.

Joy there is said to be in Heaven over every repentant sinner.

But before the angels start cracking open the Bollinger, it is worth pausing to consider the part played by both men in creating the mess we find ourselves in today. Straw and Blunkett were two of the most senior figures of the Blair/Brown era. They were fully signed up to the New Labour ‘project’.

Mass immigration wasn’t a ‘mistake’. A mistake is forgetting to take an umbrella when heavy rain is forecast. A mistake is wearing brown suede shoes with a blue pinstripe suit.

No, trawling the globe for immigrants was a deliberate Labour policy. It was designed, in the memorable words of former Blair speech-writer Andrew Neather, to ‘rub the Right’s noses in diversity’.

Neather says Straw conspired with Blair to ‘dishonestly’ conceal the plan from the public because they knew voters would never go along with it if the truth came out. And Neather should know, because he worked for Straw at the Home Office.

The reptilian Peter Mandelson, another co-conspirator, has since joked about Labour ‘sending search parties’ for immigrants from the four corners of the Earth.

Labour set out utterly to transform the demographic make-up of England without making any attempt to obtain democratic consent.

I say ‘England’ specifically, because it is England which has borne the brunt of mass immigration and is now struggling to live with the consequences.

New Labour hated the English. We weren’t to be trusted. In 2000, Straw himself damned the English as violent nationalists who have used force to subjugate other races. It was a despicable slur, but entirely in keeping with Labour’s core strategy.

That preposterous Welsh-born oaf Two Jags, who demeaned high office for a decade, even claimed: ‘There is no such nationality as English.’

The fear was that the love affair with New Labour wouldn’t last and the English would revert to type and return a Conservative government. So the plan was to flood the country with immigrants who would then repay the favour by voting Labour.

Ministers told bare-faced lies about their true intentions and smeared anyone who objected to the unprecedented influx of foreign nationals as a ‘racist’ or a ‘xenophobe’.

http://topconservativenews.com/2013/...itish-society/

A multicultural hell hole, that we never voted for

PAGE Hall in Sheffield is a monument to the failure of the state's experiment in multiculturalism.

By: Leo McKinstry
Published: Mon, November 18, 2013

48

Comments

Roma people gather on the streets of Page Hall [ROSS PARRY]
Due to official dogma, this area is rapidly turning into a cauldron of suspicion and squalor. A never-ending influx of Roma people from eastern Europe is fuelling combustible tensions with local residents, many of whom are immigrants from Asia. As complaints about feckless, intimidating behaviour by the Roma intensify, the air is now thick with warnings about ethnic conflict.
The sense of deepening social chaos in Page Hall was vividly illustrated last week by this paper's reports of two attempts by Roma immigrants to make money from the sale of babies. In one, Colin Barton, the owner of a chip shop, said that he was approached by a teenager who offered him a new-born child for £250. It is almost unbelievable that this could happen in 21st-century Britain but such depraved conduct is part of the world created by the ideology of multiculturalism, where the values of traditional civilisation are constantly undermined.
Page Hall's descent into social breakdown is just a foretaste of what will happen across Britain next year as the final restrictions on migrants from eastern Europe are removed. From January, 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians will gain the right to settle here, bringing a large number of Roma to our shores.
Already there are estimated to be 200,000 Roma people living here but that number will be dwarfed once all border controls are lifted. "In January the only thing left will be the goat," says one Roma father of seven, warning that his entire village plans to come to England.
This wave of mass immigration from two of Europe's most impoverished countries will be a disaster for Britain, hastening the collapse in national identity, wrecking social cohesion and imposing an intolerable strain on civic infrastructure.
Welfare bills will soar, not least because many migrants are adept at exploiting the laxity of our benefits. Even now a third of all sellers of the Big Issue fundraising magazine are Romanian, since such a role allows them to claim self-employed status and thereby gain access to social security. Incredibly, over the past five years there have been 27,000 arrests out of an estimated population of 87,000 Romanians living in London.

David Blunkett warned that there could be rioting in Britain's cities [GETTY]

Real integration is impossible when ethnic groups are encouraged to cling to customs, practices, even languages from their homeland

This act of institutionalised self-destruction has been foisted on us by a treacherous political class that selfrighteously preens itself over its devotion to multiculturalism and open borders. The imposition of mass immigration over recent decades has been accompanied by a barrage of official propaganda extolling the joys of diversity and portraying all opposition to this creed as racist bigotry.
But the spin machine cannot maintain the illusion of success.
Even the high priests of political correctness have to admit that something has gone wrong. So last week two of Sheffield's most senior MPs, Labour's David Blunkett and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats, attacked the conduct of the Roma in their city.
Blunkett warned that there would be "an explosion" unless there is a change "in the culture of the incoming Roma community", while Clegg said that the Roma "behave in a way that people sometimes find intimidating, sometimes offensive". Yet for all its apparent candour, the language of the two men reeks of opportunism and double-standards. In reality they were both responding to grievances expressed primarily by the local Pakistani community.
Would they have used such rhetoric if it was just the white British working-class people complaining about a minority group? I doubt it.
In such a case they would probably have shrieked about the intolerance of the indigenous population. Indeed, Clegg now has the nerve to bleat about the duty of the Roma "to be sensitive to the way of life as lived in this country", yet he had never taken such a robust line with Muslims in Yorkshire, even as some cling to deeply unBritish practices such as the adoption of Sharia law or the wearing of the burka.
Obsessed with hierarchies of victimhood the Left sees grievances as only being legitimate if they come from a migrant community.

Jack Straw admitted his government made a 'spectacular mistake' on migration [GETTY]
We are paying a terrible price for the creed of Left-wing politicians.

They pose as champions of progress yet their fixation with multiculturalism is dragging us into a new dark age. In many of our cities, social solidarity is being replaced by divisive tribalism, democracy by identity politics.
Real integration is impossible when ethnic groups are encouraged to cling to customs, practices, even languages from their homeland.
Female emancipation has been set back by misogyny imported from the developing world, as re-flected by honour killings, forced marriages and female genital mutilation. There are estimated to be 66,000 cases of such torture in Britain yet not a single prosecution has been mounted. In the name of liberal tolerance, vicious intolerance is flourishing in our midst, repressing free speech and promoting dangerous extremism.
The tragedy is that immigrants wanted to come to Britain precisely because it was a well-ordered and harmonious place. "The gentleness of English civilisation is its most marked characteristic," wrote George Orwell in 1941. Now, as Page Hall shows, all that is being lost through the multicultural revolution.


Related articles

• Britain's cities could riot over Roma influx, warns David Blunkett
• Arrested Romanian laughs as he's led away by police
• A 'spectacular mistake': Jack Straw admits Labour got it badly wrong on immigration
• Nick Clegg brushes off migrants fear

http://www.express.co.uk/comment/col...ever-voted-for