Sunny,

Can you explain what distinction you are making between …

“The point is that people completely over-estimate the impact politicians have on public debate and how many people pay attention to the media. I’m not saying politicians had zero impact, but this is always over-emphasised in Westminster”

and

“There are lots of reasons why concerns over immigration have been rising exponentially since 2006. But a significant part of that has been the way Migration Watch has been able to frame the debate in the media”.

That seems contradictory at first reading. And I would be surprised if you are arguing that “politicians + media” can’t shift attitudes but also that “pressure group + media” can. (A group like Migration Watch or Taxpayers Alliance or whoever may have a media profile, but they do not have anything like the public and media profile of a Prime Minister when it comes to agenda-setting and framing, etc do they?)

***

Point (1) certainly true that there is considerably less racism in Britain, though right too that it has not disappeared or eliminated.

Point (2): the Conservatives have changed significantly on race and it would be silly to claim that they have not. So the Smethwick by-election slogan does not tell us anything much about the contemporary Tory party, which would immediately sling out any candidate who said anything like that. It is a legitimate policy and political position to debate immigration, and favour restricting immigration without somehow being Powellite, and nothing Cameron said was anywhere within a million miles of Powellism.

The perhaps rather more valid challenge to Cameron (which is the content of Cable’s point) is that he says he is making the speech to reassure and so reduce public concern, yet it may be that the reception of this tends to do the opposite. (What New Labour did was to make ‘tough’ speeches to send a ‘we get it’ message, eg on asylum after 2001, but this did not have a reassuring effect, which was the intention).

“There are lots of reasons why concerns over immigration have been rising exponentially since 2006”

Personally I’m quite happy with high levels of free movement of people, (provided some related concerns are dealt with), but the major reason that “concerns over immigration have been rising” is likely to be the huge increase that started as Labour took office*. If you fail to acknowledge the numbers and the genuine assimilation difficulties that is going to cause I don’t see how “Rock(ing) Against Racism” is going to address the problem.

* http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=260

As to UAF, they come across as little more than mirror images of their opponents.

I agree with this 300%

I agree with Sunder about the “nigger for a neighbour” thing: it was long ago, and saying it reflects on the current Tory party is like saying Labour want to put a 95% tax on high earners. Good article overall, though – I especially agree that the left should be keeping the focus on the NHS at the moment.

Had a glance at “I Love Migrants”: looks good.

Remember that the Conservatives have been blowing the racism dog-whistle for decades. This is the party of Enoch Powell and ‘if you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour‘.

Yeah yeah, as Sundar quite rightly says, the goings on in the Smethwick election doesn’t tell us anything about the modern Conservative party.

If we’re going to go back that far, then we may as well go back a few more years to the post WWII Labout government, you know, the one that gave us the NHS etc., and also, quite illegally rounded up ethnic Chinese men in Liverpool and shoved them onto boats back to China. Many of these men had fought in the war, more than a few had English wives and mixed race kids who didn’t know what had happened to their husbands and fathers.

When it comes to issues of race, the Labour party has long had a history of saying one thing and doing another.

Labour’s strategists should appreciate that nearly 1.5m votes are cast for the Party by Black and Minority Ethnic voters, who expect an anti-racist policy framework within the Party’s programme. Not the pandering or the dog-whistles. These fool no-one and lead to a growth of cynicism on the one hand, and room for parties like L-Ds to attack Labour’s exposed flank.

I agree with Sunny’s point that the trades unions have been consistent in supporting Black workers and campaigning against racism in the workplace (as well as in the wider community). Surely Labour must take up this lead and campaign consistently against racism and against the causes of racism.

“The point is that people completely over-estimate the impact politicians have on public debate and how many people pay attention to the media… this is always over-emphasised in Westminster.

“I don’t see the point in complaining that Labour aren’t willing to piss in the wind… by offering sound-bites on TV. They’re not in power and they can’t affect the issue at all.”

What about Ed Balls, who finally said something (in notably sound-bite form) about the economy just the other week – you were plugging it yourself – was this “pissing in the wind” too?

Why bother being number one cheerleader for Ed Balls, whom you praised for giving the coalition a “bloody nose” and being such a vicious attack dog – what’s the point, if he “can’t affect the issue at all”?

The answer, of course, is that politicians *can* affect the issue(s), regardless of whether or not they belong to the party in power; if Labour wants to be taken seriously (for example, in the upcoming local elections) as a genuinely progressive party with something positive to say about im/ migration, now is the time to speak up.

But of course, they won’t – the Labour party is nothing but spineless career men (and women) with no ideology and no principles.

@6 True enough after the Grunwick strike but there was racism in the unions before this and even racist strikes. Not relevant today perhaps but then neither is the ‘if you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour‘ slogan.

Hi Sunder – the difference between Migration Watch and someone like Cameron is several I think.

1. MW aren’t politicians. Sounds obvious I know, but the cloak of independence they push does make them more compelling to ppl who dislike Tories.

2. MW run stories regularly using demographic data. The idea that we’ll have 50bn people living here in a million yrs at the current rate is fat worse than the abstract argument that Cameron makes. And it’s far more constant. It’s a drip feed that the media has fed.

3. I say partly because I dint think MW are responsible for it all. I think rising immigration itself is responsible for some of the backlash.

Also, the point about the smethwick by-election was to say that the journey the conservatives have had to make on this issue is long. And they had to do it reluctantly, and without much shaming from Labour.

Focussing on migration, and more particularly immigration patterns, is missing the real key issue.

Some years ago I was on a creative writing Adult Ed class (so those of you who think my writing style here is cr*p, blame Westminster LEA 😆 ) with a young woman of Indian origin who was more than happy to let her mother find a husband for her. “And will you do the same for your daughter when the time comes?” I asked. “That” she replied “is a very good question”.

Imagine that each year several million people immigrated into Britain, and as many left. If migration nets off, it must be OK, right? Particularly if, as might well be the case, the migration pattern reduces the average age of the population – we might need more schools but fewer psycho-geriatric facilities…

Yet the way that migration is perceived is not only about numbers. It is about how the immigrants see themselves, and thus how they are seen by their “indigenous” neighbours. A good example is the Jewish community – at one extreme they’ve integrated to the point where many of us probably know Jewish people without even knowing they’re Jewish – at the other the ultra-Orthodox are ritually polluted if they have anything to do with anyone else at all. You can hardly claim that increased Jewish immigration would have the same consequences whether the immigrants were secularised liberals or bearded, black-clad haredim.

One argument which was put to me forcibly back in the day was this: “it is foolish to immigrate, it is wise to conquer”. Mass emigration, other than in conquering armies, has always been a surefire indicator of cultural weakness and most Britons of subcontinental origin see it in those terms.. Dylan put it well:

I pity the poor immigrant
Whose strength is spent in vain

Do Sunny and Sunder support the right of British residents not to speak English, or even to understand it? Do they think that I, a white Englishman, should learn an Asian language (or even an African one)? When does an expectation that ethnic minorities should adopt “white” cultural practices stop being racist, if ever? Were the Jews wrong to assimilate? – many Muslims think they were. What, indeed, is the answer Sunny and Sunder would give – purely as an aspiration, of course, and with no obligation whatsoever – to my “very good question” to that urbane young woman?

Wow…nasty racist Brits in nasty racist Britain. The concentration camp oven to immigrants it seems.

And yet they still keep fucking coming by plane, road and sea. I wonder why?

I guess it’s because in reality Britain (and the Brits) is one of the most tolerant countries in the world. And always has been. And if not…why the fuck are any immigrants here, let alone still coming!?

And hey…feel free to even try and find a speck of such tolerance in almost any of the countries these immigrants come from!!!

But now that tolerance has been abused, used against us and we are being culturally, socially, ethnically cleansed (literal ethnic cleansing in many city areas that is so ruthless and complete that if it had been done at the point of a gun the U.N would take action) and traitors and 5th column apologists like those on here are helping to ease the passage of this conquering by stealth towards its chosen goal.
Halal all round I guess. Pass the veil.

the Tories are the party of Peter griffiths “if you was a N****r as your neighbour” ,ne commet made by one person who was de selected bt ted Heathafter 15 months, do you dismis the entire tory party based on that

as for Labour apologising for racism of Its immigration issue ,I wouldn’t hold your breat ,I’m still waiting for the rest of the Labour party to apologise for Bernie Grants anti white Racism when he said P.C Blakelocks anti white racist murder was a .bloody good hiding fior that policeman ,Let alone Diane Abbotts comments all white people are racist or her anti white racist comments that theNHS wanted blonde haired finnish nurded to work rather than black nurses, and yes I was a labour meber when all those comments were made

Hope Not Hate, yes.

UAF, no.

The ”I love migrants” message seems pretty patronising. It does not work as a T shirt at all.

UAF are dicks. They might mean well but they have too much of the SWP about them. Just look at the youtube of them outside the BBC when Nick Griffin was on Question Time. Making a nuisance of themselves and chanting ”shame on you” at the police for holding them back. Total drama queens.

They do it every time. Making a huge song and dance about the EDL. Talking about ”NAZIS” and exaggerating the danger the BNP pose.
But that’s just my opinion. I think that LC is just generally closer to UAF than I am.

I should probably have never listened to this guy.

What’s with all the mythologising about Rock Against Racism? Those self-congratulatory concerts demobilised a generation.

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5041/

“This is the party of Enoch Powell and ‘if you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour‘.”

Except that nobody, but nobody, can produce a copy of this supposed leaflet from Smethwick.

“And yet they lost the battle for public opinion on the issue over the decades.”

Is there polling data on public attitudes towards immigration?

I thought the leaflet said “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour”. How come everyone’s chopped out Liberal?

@ 12 Davey Boy

Britain is indeed a remarkably tolerant nation by many standards. Of course, we have a few nutters who think that immigrants are destroying our culture and stealing our country – one or two are so stupid they’d even describe it as “ethnic cleansing”! 8o

But generally we’re good, and know it’s best just to laugh at the bigots.

Remember that the Conservatives have been blowing the racism dog-whistle for decades. This is the party of Enoch Powell and ‘if you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour‘.

This sits uncomfortably with Sunder Katwalas claim that the left have not tried to shut down discussion of immigration . David Cameron makes a speech which could hardly be more balanced and what do we see ?Hysterical anachronisms as if every time the Labour Party tried to stop reform of the NHS we were referred to their support for murder in the Soviet Union
It is the height of conceit to imagine that Conservatives alone were set in ice and only dragged into a post racial age by “ rock against racism” an event that scarcely registers. Prejudices of various sorts have subsided as has loyalty and selflessness at the personal level bravery idealism and much more .
So change has taken place for good and bad . The Conservative Parrty and the Labour Party are no more than names thrown up from time to time .

Sunny.

“Also, the point about the Smethwick by-election was to say that the journey the conservatives have had to make on this issue is long. And they had to do it reluctantly, and without much shaming from Labour”.

This is a ‘narrative’ for which you lack evidence. I think its just wrong. .

You began with Smethwick. The Prime Minister in the Queen’s speech debate caused an enormous furore by declaring the MP elected should spend his time in the House as “a Parliamentary leper” for a racist campaign. What more could he have said?

Can you identify any explicitly racist statements which Labour failed to condemn?

The Labour Party had rather more to do with challenging racism than even laudatory efforts such as Rock against Racism. For example, establishing the then highly controversial principle that you should not be able to deny employment or services on grounds of race, and making a clear principled argument for this

I don’t think it is particularly productive to beat parties over the head for statements and attitudes that were expressed in the past. We had the Aliens Act passed as long ago as 1906. TUC leaders made speeches that accused immigrants of simultaneously stealing our jobs and living on welfare. In Parliament, a Tory MP likened arriving Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe to diseased cattle arriving from Canada. A Liberal MP’ blaming immigrants for the shortage of housing, asked in Parliament.

“What is the use of spending thousands of pounds on building beautiful workmen’s dwellings if the places of our own workpeople, the backbone of the country, are to be taken over by the refuse scum of other nations?”

The point is language and attitudes were different in the past and it is usually unfair to judge historical statements from a 21st century perspective. What they say and do now should be how we assess the merits of their language and policies.

“Except that nobody, but nobody, can produce a copy of this supposed leaflet from Smethwick.”

The idea that it was a leaflet is a later elaboration.

More interesting is the fact that it wasn’t the only Tory campaign in the West Midlands that year to use the issue of immigration in a somewhat questionable way. There’s no particular point in pretending that the Tories in the West Midlands were anything other than racist during that period; the evidence from other sources (local newspapers are especially revealing, but see also the survey results in Second City Politics) is overwhelming. Of course racism in the area was hardly limited to active Conservatives (the reputations of more than just a few local campaigners on other issues have been systematically whitewashed, so to speak, regarding the issue), and using that whole unpleasantness to bash the Tories now is – yes- ridiculous.

I find it so hard to talk about without it taking on a life of its own. I don’t think this is a Cameron tactic to avoid the NHS, I think it maybe to attract AV. Distinguish the party – vote Tory, vote Borders. It ain’t racist – it’s tactic. All very well watching the Lib Dems squirm to brand themselves, Labour’s brand is ‘rebuild and keep it buttoned’, Tories is – ‘yeah, honestly, there is some Tory here somewhere, honest.’

Berlusconi has just granted 35,000 refugees from northern Africa temporary residency and the news bureux in Europe are going mental. Russia needs to step in and open its borders more. Their population is dwindling significantly and its land mass is over 1/5th of the globe.

Incidentally, does a copy of the legendary,” Straight choice for Bermondsey “l, eaflet ,Simon Hughes attacked Peter Tatchell with, exist ?

@ Paul Newman

“Prejudices of various sorts have subsided as has loyalty and selflessness at the personal level bravery idealism and much more”

What’s your basis for saying that loyalty, personal selflessness, bravery and idealism have subsided? This sounds a bit like you’ve got your rose-tinted nostalgia specs on.

Get in! 1st stat on Westminster Hour. Hurray!

When simon Hughes was outed, there were prints of it in Newpaper at the time, Some must be online,

Definition of Ethnic Cleansing.

“”is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

Ask the people of many a London area (say the East End) or various towns/cities like Leicester, Birmingham etc…if my description is remotely wrong!

True…It’s not really violent (though hey, suicide bombings, car bombings, plane bombings and local groups/mosques embracing such deeds would add a certain air of threat, yes?) it’s more stealthy than that.

You know via the single biggest group increase in immigration, the single biggest growth in birth rates, taking over local councils and departments (including local Policing policies), shutting down any and all debate about what’s happening….but the end result IS EXACTLY THE SAME…
“”one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.””

Take a walk around a few London areas where literally everything on public display and many things not (including all the forced marriage, child marriage, female circumcision, honour killing, first cousin in-breeding etc) are 100% the trappings of a 3rd world Islamic country. Literally everything.

But hey! It’s stinking white people in stinking Britain with their stinking culture, stinking society and stinking history that’s being completely removed. Who cares!?
we’re Liberal. We certainly don’t! Right kids?!

Can you identify any explicitly racist statements which Labour failed to condemn?

Sunder – I’m not saying it did not or did. I’m questioning the view that condemning them changed views on immigration. I’d like to see any evidence for that.

My view is that public opinion has moved largely due to cultural reasons rather than political interventions.

Sunny@29

You are changing your argument. You said Labour didn’t challenge/shame (which it did) and you were earlier talking about party opinion (not public opinion) in the comment I challenged. Party shifts can be about elite political/civic pressure as well as attitudes (eg development aid now).

It is simply quirky to argue that Rock Against Racism mattered in shifting social attitudes, but that Labour political interventions (such as race equality legislation, black MPs) mattered less.

It is difficult to unpick the obviously linked and reinforcing political intervention/social attitudes/civic pressures dynamics. Certainly, all civic actors on all sides always believed the political interventions were important: that is why eg the race equality laws were contested. (Do you want to argue that gay rights campaigners were wrong to think that, say, Section 28 on the one hand or legislating civil partnerships on the other did a lot to set the political and social climate? I imagine this helps to reflects why LC spends a lot of time challenging and debating elite political and media discourse). Race equality laws shifted social norms, as indeed did seatbelt laws and drink driving laws.

Electing black MPs – a contested area where civic pressure thought it important to operate inside party and parliament – was important. Clearly, the reason the Tories think after 2001 (when they elect 37 men and 1 woman, all white, as their new MPs) that they need to bring more non-white and female Tory MPs to Westminster is because another party has significantly shifted the norm. They felt no such compunction in 1983, because political interventions hadn’t shifted the norm.

John Redwood recently gave Labour and the broader left credit for shifting attitudes on racism. It is difficult to see why you can’t also do so.

Also, the point about the smethwick by-election was to say that the journey the conservatives have had to make on this issue is long. And they had to do it reluctantly, and without much shaming from Labour.

Since we are apparently considering racial politics from 40 years ago, have you compared and contrasted the treatment of Kenyan Asians in 1968, and Ugandan Asians in 1972?

@ 28 Davey Boy

“Definition of Ethnic Cleansing.

“”is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.”

Ask the people of many a London area (say the East End) or various towns/cities like Leicester, Birmingham etc…if my description is remotely wrong!

True…It’s not really violent[…]”

So it’s not ethnic cleansing. Well done for proving yourself wrong.

“You know via the single biggest group increase in immigration, the single biggest growth in birth rates, taking over local councils and departments (including local Policing policies), shutting down any and all debate about what’s happening….but the end result IS EXACTLY THE SAME…”

Yes, it’s JUST like normal ethnic cleansing where people are massacred or forced from their homes at the point of a gun by militias raping and pillaging their way through their homelands.

You fucking moron.

“Take a walk around a few London areas where literally everything on public display and many things not (including all the forced marriage, child marriage, female circumcision, honour killing, first cousin in-breeding etc) are 100% the trappings of a 3rd world Islamic country. Literally everything.”

Until you know what the word “literally” means, you should probably avoid using it.

“But hey! It’s stinking white people in stinking Britain with their stinking culture, stinking society and stinking history that’s being completely removed. Who cares!?
we’re Liberal. We certainly don’t! Right kids?!”

Wrong. Look: you assume everyone must be prejudiced against people based on religion and/or colour because you judge us by your own standards. However, we, unlike you, are not pathetic little hysterical bigots with the overall intelligence of a concussed duck.

Now go back to commenting on YouTube videos.

“”Yes, it’s JUST like normal ethnic cleansing where people are massacred or forced from their homes at the point of a gun by militias raping and pillaging their way through their homelands.”””

Yes. It is.

But you see if violence happened people would be forced to do something about the exact same result. So stealth cleansing (not just ethnic either, cultural, historical) is the smart move and a move that cunts like you actually help

And hey…as far as the ‘no violence’ aspects goes…want to Google some attacks, threats, intimidations made on non-Muslims by Muslims in Muslim ghettos…go do it. Everything from women, old men and Vicars.

And then add the actual terrorist aspect that runs like a cancer through Islamic communities and all the fear that actual and possible violence has on those around or in such neighbourhoods and you have a mighty goos mattering of violence and threat added to the stealth.

But hey. A tan and a burning American flag (and “God Bless Hitler” banners) will always be okay with you fake liberals.

But who am I talking to anyway?

A prick who bases his screen name on a Commie mass murderer who butchered many a homosexual.

http://sisoyglbt.blog.com/2007/06/02/che-guevara-was-an-a-hole/

Nothing fucking liberal or moral about you.

@ 33, 34 Davey Boy

Ah, screen-name based attacks. Could you be more desperate?

If you truly can’t tell the difference between ethic cleansing and immigration, well… you’re a moron. But we knew that already!

“Nothing fucking liberal or moral about you.”

A bigot tries to assess my morality and liberality! ROFL

Davey Boy

– “Take a walk around a few London areas where literally everything on public display and many things not (including all the forced marriage, child marriage, female circumcision, honour killing, first cousin in-breeding etc) are 100% the trappings of a 3rd world Islamic country. Literally everything.”

– skipping your over reliance on “literally” and “100%” etc etc, I want to pick up on those behaviours which you claim are 100% the trappings of a 3rd world Islamic country. With the possible exception of female genital mutilation, I think you will find they are all established practices of the Royal Family (though less so through the 20th Century).

-so you might equally accurately rephrase:

“Take a walk around a few London areas where literally everything on public display and many things not…. are 100% the trappings of our constitutional monarchy.”

Davey Boy
– forgot to remind you of the hatred in your postings. You need to meet a muslim, and give yourself a chance to realise they are people, not monsters.

New Labour had nothing to do with increasing levels of racism or extremism? Really? So deepening deprivation in communities with high levels of dependence on welfare benefits, while scapegoating those within, alongside the Islamophobic rhetoric of the War on Terrror, turning the screw on immigrants and asylum seekers, legendary policies on asylum seekers- did nothing to change the way race was discussed-or create tensions in those communities? THere is no similarity in the change of the rhetoric of far right parties, and the rhetoric used by Labour in the last however many years, and no connection with the widening inequality that accelerated under Labour?

And we should join Hope not Hate- whose strategy is very much about engaging in communities and tackling precisely the problems caused by this- who are using research which has showed precisely the change in identity politics in the UK, and whose findings become extremely important at a time when austerity measures hit the communities most vulnerable to the EDL hardest and first (with political consensus which is fine cos Labour isn’t all about welfare you know..sad fact:-D)- – a good leftie would do this on the assumption that Labour had either no role to play, or could have no role to play in this situation because they are er….in opposition?

Sunny- are you basically saying that in order to be a leftie, one has to refuse to apply political, economic, ideological, or social analysis to any issue- we must ignore any historical context, and basically attend media friendly gigs like ‘rock against racism’, tweet our liberal credentials from rallies- and not criticise Labour too loudly?

Good comment Lisa Ansell, last bit of the second paragraph, Are you saying that the EDL are apealing to (poor)white Working class communities who see their own poverty casued by new labours inequality is somehow due to Islamic extremism, which gianed under the increase in the gap between the rich and poor?