Politics latest news: People want immigration controls, Tony Blair warns Keir Starmer.
One of the joys of growing up working class (middle class in the American sense) and becoming middle class (in the British sense) is that – from your weird bubble where neither the people you grew up with, nor the people you now live with, quite accept you as fully belonging – you get to see just how little our people know of each other's lives.
Take the example of immigration. In the linked article, Tony Blair (who seems somehow to have been re-elected last week, though he appeared on no ballot papers) says immigration is a good thing with the following example;
I think there is a centre ground that can hold which is where people understand there are enormous benefits to immigration, and by the way a lot of what we are talking about, these great AI innovations, look at the people leading them, many of them are immigrants into this country.
I am more than ready to believe that the immigrants Blair encounters in his high-powered, wealthy life are driving innovations in AI. It's far more plausible than that Blair understands what AI is, for example. The immigrants of his acquaintance are like the immigrant I married. The ex-Mrs P II has a masters degree and pays not only her taxes but all the visa fees and NHS contributions required of legal immigrants pending acquisition of citizenship or legal right to remain. She's responsible, law-abiding and less likely to trouble the Metropolitan Police than the average native-born Londoner.
I suppose that immigrants of that quality might still present a threat to our culture if there were enough of them, but let's face it there just aren't. Even if there were millions whose arrival would instantly raise our GDP, improve our social order and raise educational standards in our schools such people are thoughtful and polite enough to take note of local culture and make an effort to integrate.
Blair and his metropolitan mates however need to understand that if you're a working class person in Luton or Leicester, those aren't the immigrants you meet. You're far more likely to encounter not just un-educated but viciously mal-educated people with attitudes more suited to England's Middle Ages than its 21st century. Mr Blair, there's nothing racist about them noticing that.
Here's a link to an account of a pogrom in England. I take no pride in that dark history, but I am delighted it's so far in our past. There have been no pogroms in our country in modern times – yet. The kind of immigrants who cause voters concern are those who are more than likely – I personally fear that it's inevitable – to shatter that proud record of peace and tolerance and sully our history with a modern pogrom.
There is a middle ground. Rigorous enforcement of immigration laws, with rapid deportation of illegal immigrants, coupled with a reduction in both the costs of legal immigration and of bureaucratic obstacles to qualified migrants. Making it easier for useful, respectable people to come here, regardless of colour or creed, would confirm (as has long been the case) that Britain is the best place on Earth to be a member of an ethnic minority.
We should be proud of being the least racist country in the world. Excluding and if necessary deporting those who demonstrate – by breaking our laws on the very day of their arrival, by upholding doctrines incompatible with our values or by themselves being racist (anti-semitism counts) – would not in any way contradict that. Unless, as would never be the case under our laws, legal distinctions were made based on race.
Though it's hilarious he can't see how rarified his example is, Blair is right that there are benefits to controlled immigration. Bringing in people of the quality he describes is a good thing. There are however no benefits to importing ignorant, backward enemies of Western civilisation, whatever colour their skin is.
The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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