April 2, 2013

Britain's left moving right on immigration

Unlike what we are told by the American press, Amnesty Fever is not sweeping the rest of the world. From the left-of-center New Statesman of London:
Leader: Liberalism now feels inadequate in this new age of insecurity 
The stakes could not be higher. 
BY NEW STATESMAN PUBLISHED 27 MARCH 2013  
Ever since the Thatcher era, British politics has been defined by forms of economic and social liberalism. The right won the argument for the former and the left the argument for the latter, or so it is said. Yet in the post-crash era, this ideological settlement is beginning to fracture. ... 
Two thinkers, Phillip Blond and Maurice Glasman, and their respective factions – the Red Tories and Blue Labour – were quicker to recognise this than most. Mr Blond may no longer have the ear of the Prime Minister, if he ever did, but since the appointment of Jon Cruddas as the head of Labour’s policy review, the Blue Labour faction has emerged as the dominant intellectual influence on the Labour Party. 
With his support for a technical baccalaureate, employee representation on remuneration committees and a new network of regional banks, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has embraced elements of the German social-market model long championed by Lord Glasman. At the same time, Blue Labour has encouraged the party to begin to articulate concerns on social issues that have long been neglected by the left and to speak about culture as well as economics. 
In a recent speech to the Fabian Women’s Network, Diane Abbott, the shadow public health minister and once on the hard left of the party, spoke out against the “sexualisation” of childhood. “For so long,” she said, “it’s been argued that overt, public displays of sexuality are an enlightened liberation. But I believe that for many, the pressure of conforming to hyper-sexualisation and its pitfalls is a prison.” Ms Abbott concluded: “We’ve got to build a society based on open-minded family values and not ‘anything-goes’ market values.” 
More contentiously, in the case of immigration, Blue Labour has provided Mr Miliband with a language in which to engage with what went wrong under New Labour. According to Tony Blair’s globalist narrative, an open immigration policy was an unalloyed good. The interests of workers who saw their wages undercut and who felt confused and left behind by the pace of change were subordinate to those of the corporations that benefited from a larger and more flexible labour pool. Mr Miliband appears to have accepted the argument of Lord Glasman, Mr Cruddas and others that the Labour Party was too slow to respond to such anxieties among its natural supporters in working-class communities. He has argued that Labour was wrong not to impose transitional controls on migration from accession states such as Poland, as other members of the EU had done. He has pledged to ban recruitment agencies that operate exclusively by bringing in foreign workers to Britain without trying to fill vacancies locally. If it is true that immigration has had a generally beneficial effect on aggregate output, it is also true, as Mr Miliband has observed, that: “People don’t live their lives in the aggregate.”

It's good to hear that Lord Glasman hasn't yet been banished for crimethink. I wrote about Lord Glasman's revival of old-fashioned Orwell-style patriotic conservative socialism two years ago for VDARE:
Lord Glasman has found himself on the less privileged side of the central ideological divide of the 21st Century—a gap that sprawls across the more familiar ideological chasms of the 20th Century. The crucial question is no longer capitalism vs. communism, but globalism v. localism, imperial centralization v. self-rule, cosmopolitanism v. patriotism, elitism v. populism, diversity v. particularism, homogeneity v. heterogeneity, and high-low v. middle. 
Barack Obama, for example, epitomizes the first side of these dichotomies, especially the high-low coalition. By being half-black, he enjoys the totemic aura of the low, but has all the advantages of the high. He has never, as far as anyone can tell, had a thought cross his mind that would raise an eyebrow at a Davos Conference. 
In contrast to the President, Glasman is certainly an original thinker. But anybody on his side of these new dichotomies faces a tactical disadvantage.
Because globalists want the whole world to be all the same, they share common talking points, strategies, conferences, media, and so forth. 
In contrast, because the localists want the freedom to rule themselves, they often don’t even realize who else is on the same side of this divide. 
For example, to most Americans, "socialism" is a very foreign-sounding word. To a lot of Brits, however, socialism is what their grandfathers looked forward to while they fought WWII and then came home to create the National Health Service. ...
Glasman recently described Orwell as "a conservative patriot working in a socialist tradition," and much the same could be said for Glasman himself.

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't believe the British Left has really moved right on immigration. Just look at Milliband's biography to know his sympathies. The thing is, because of the seemingly eternal class resentments in Britain, the Tories were never able to capture the white working class the way Republicans did in the US. The white working class are still attached to Labour. And unlike the democrats, Labour hasn't succeeded entirely (yet) in electing a new people, so they still need the working class (for the time being). Their rhetoric will be a mea culpa for the time being until they no longer need the white working class.

Anonymous said...

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions/

Media have been as frenzied about global warming as it's been about 'gay marriage'--both underwent name change to 'same sex marriage' and 'climate change'--, and yet, there's been less popular support for climate stuff than for gay stuff.

Something to think about.

Anonymous said...

Labour's only doing this because they got found out - and hated for it into the bargain - for trying to sneak out (in the manner of a silent fart) - an open-borders immigration 'policy' that the british public never, ever wanted and would never, ever have agreed to, if it was published in the party manifesto - (if this was done John Major would have won in '97 giving effective one-party Tory rule for perpetuity).
It's only now that UKIP's put a rocket up their flatulent, incontinent foul-breathed ass, are they now weeping crocodile tears and doing beat of chest-beating and hair-shirt wearing.
Deep down, you can bet your boots that they haven't changed and would sneak ou the same silent malodorous fart if they thought they could get away with - rather like 5 year olds wreaking havoc and annoyance at the play-pen.

Anonymous said...

The only group called out in the article is Polish immigrants, whose descendants in the USA are law abiding and have high incomes. You never hear much about the "Polish Mafia" or street gangs, do you? Also with an ultra-low birthrate and a somewhat strong economy I doubt they are really going to be coming for much longer.

Orthodox said...

I smell a big UKIP victory coming.

Anonymous said...

"Mr Blond may no longer have the ear..."

Is this a hidden "Reservoir Dogs" reference?

Evil Sandmich said...

I was wondering if this was amnesty as usual, but I'm staring to wonder (hope) that amnesty/immigration proponents see this year as their Waterloo where they want to be the Brits rather than the French. With the economy ready to dip, big, again at any moment they know that Americans will be quite cool to the idea of immigration of any sort in a completely ruined economy.

Gordo said...

1404 insufoUKIP are winning votes, so the main parties are making a gesture against the immigration flood.

It is only a gesture.

Anonymous said...

Of course, it may be too late. Even if immigration is stopped, there are well over a million Africans and millions of Muslims. They'll have so many babies and do so much race-mixing that UK may be lost forever as a cohesive civilization.

"Years to build and moments to ruin."

Merlin to Uther in EXCALIBUR.

Anonymous said...

In Europe the elites aren't as hostile to the native population as they are here. I would say in Germany and France, not too hostile; in Britain, more; in the US, the most.

And the problem is worse in Britain. They have a blatantly hostile Islamic immigrant population. (Note however that they don't mention this, but Poles.) The indios and mestizos here are almost as contemptuous and hostile to our civilization as the Moslems are to Britain's, but they are less obvious about it and being nominally Christian fit in a little better. Plus they have been pretty well cowed; in the initial Spanish conquest, and in the crushing of the communist insurgencies in the 1980's, which have to be seen mostly as an Indian rebellion under all the European ideology.

Anonymous said...

http://wapo.st/XGtYKt

"Sen. Mark Kirk has become the second GOP senator to announce support for gay marriage."

Another whore. I was right. Time to end the GOP.

Anonymous said...

With all this gay mania, the 'left' is radiculous.

Anonymous said...

If England and France both implode, it is very likely that the US will implode. Why? Because White Americans will feel much more comfortable with the idea of fighting back against the rot. In other words, the implosions of England and France will embolden White Americans.

But this is just the first step. If it is not possible to share the same real estate with nonwhites, then there would have to be a movement to expel.

We are going to lose California,Texas, and South Florida completely. Here is the big question:will White Americans tolerate having Non-White independent Nation States within the former US? Of course, millions of White Americans have yet to contemplate the enormity of massive territorial loss. It is very hard to wrap ones head around this stuff, but we are going to have to very soon.

Matthew said...

"More contentiously, in the case of immigration, Blue Labour has provided Mr Miliband with a language in which to engage with what went wrong under New Labour."

Do Miliband and Labour really plan to address the "anxieties" of the natives about immigration, or are they simply trying to neutralize the weapon of their enemy? Talk like they want reform, then continue down the same old path once they're back in control?

Were I British I don't think I would ever trust Labour after what they've done to the country. They're just patting native Brits on the head, cooing "nice doggie" until they can find a nice big stick to club them with.

Anonymous said...

Our Western societies become more and more Orwellian. But in the good old socialist sense.

Satoshi Kanazawa is fired again, a new victory for the left thought police.

http://bigthink.com/the-voice-of-big-think/the-end-of-a-bold-experiment-big-think-and-satoshi-kanazawa

I believe he was intolerable for some of the big financiers behind Big Think.

Nation states of white peoples are intolerable for our Big Overlords either.

Nothing else matters.

Bloke on the Clapham Omnibus said...

Hmmnnn...

Well I wouldn't trust them to deliver on whatever promises they make.

I can't help but get the feeling the Left in the UK are becoming alarmed about where all the numbers point to where we are heading and the increase in what they would see as reactionary voices.

Labour Party was too slow to respond to such anxieties among its natural supporters in working-class communities.

The working class must be soothed and reassured.

They certainly aren't going to stop immigration. Unless the UK leaves the EU immigration from within the EU isn't going to stop. Its worth pointing out that an awful lot of the UK's ethnic minorities hold EU passports. I am talking about people like Somalis with Dutch passports not blond haired blued eyed Poles.

He has pledged to ban recruitment agencies that operate exclusively by bringing in foreign workers to Britain without trying to fill vacancies locally.

This is just noise. Its unworkable. If the recruiting is within the EU I don't see how this can be stopped without leaving the EU.

For example, to most Americans, "socialism" is a very foreign-sounding word. To a lot of Brits, however, socialism is what their grandfathers looked forward to while they fought WWII and then came home to create the National Health Service.

Spot on.

Nevertheless, I am quit sure that a substantial number of Americans were not that hostile to socialism prior to the cold war - and I think there's a clue right there as to how this seems to have disappeared down the memory hole..

Aging Hag said...

Wow, that Glasman sure sounds like the International Jew your commenters are always bitching about, Steve.

Not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Glasman,_Baron_Glasman

(He was a jazz trumpeter!!)

It is interesting that there is more open debate about immigration in Britain than here, and in France, a solid bloc of people from left to right came out to demonstrate against SSM.

And we think our country is so free. What nonsense!! The USA suffers under the big business boot.

Anonymous said...

We hear of equality, equality, and equality.

Okay.. if children can work in the entertainment industry, why can't they work in factories or restaurants? Or if children can't work in factories or restaurants, why can they work in the entertainment industry?

Isn't this anti-equality? If children have the right to work as actors in movies or singers in Disney specials, why can't they work in other fields?

Whiskey said...

Steve, reading the FT, Britain's left is NOT moving right on immigration. If anything, guys like Simon Kuper, John Gapper, women like Gillian Tett, are all wanting more of it. They are delighted as most of Britain's left leadership class (which is all of it) that London is majority non-White. Its class warfare to the ultimate extension.

If Britain's Left was moving to the right, they'd try and get more votes by offering to deport great masses of non-Whites. Instead they offer up more and more non-White privileges over native Whites. More and more power over to the EU and UN. More and more foreign aid to non-Whites in Africa, and less and less for employment at home.

That's the whole point of being on the Left, being the "correct" aristocracy crushing the peasantry, without the tiresome duty of a landed estate.

Anonymous said...

There are many more social conservatives than gays in the GOP and American conservatism, but the top elites of conservatism are moving over to 'gay marriage'.
Quality beats quantity. Elites are few, but they got the muscle and money.
So, all those conservatives who gave their votes to the GOP are being betrayed. They were nothing but dummies who were used by whore politicians. Social conservatives voted for the GOP in past elections, but the only thing GOP ever did was push for globalism. And today, GOP is going over to the side of 'gay marriage'.

Had enough already?

Anonymous said...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/22/wikileaks-iraq-war-logs-i_n_772658.html

When gays do it, it's not sodomy. When crazy Muslims do it, it's sodomy.

Anonymous said...

"You never hear much about the "Polish Mafia" or street gangs, do you? Also with an ultra-low birthrate"

The recently arrived Poles in the UK have a pretty high birthrate. one of the local authorities with the highest birthrate is Boston, Lincs - full of Polish agricultural workers. The other authorities with high rates are heavily Muslim.

I'd beware of putting too much trust in anything the Labour Party says. Even in power they'd come out with the occasional tough soundbite, but it signified nothing.

Anonymous said...

Immigration

That's how you spell it, dude.

Aging Hag said...

I think what Abbott said about the "sexualisation" of children, blaming it on market forces, is quite interesting.

She is opening a window on a family values leftism, which is on a total collision course with progressive politics as we know it today.

Don't forget who brought SSM to NY State: a moneybags liberaltarian Republican, with a gay son.

Anonymous said...

Must be weird being a Labour politician: you hate the white working class, and you're terrified of the Muslim underclass. The leftists London elites must be starting to feel besieged in their own party.

Anonymous said...

Not without precedent. In the US the progressive movement helped lead the push to restrict immigration in the 1920s.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget who brought SSM to NY State: a moneybags liberaltarian Republican, with a gay son.

Heh. Which one do you mean, Paul Singer, Steven Roth or Steven Cohen?

Anonymous said...

"She is opening a window on a family values leftism, which is on a total collision course with progressive politics as we know it today."

Gays were always going to be thrown under the bus when the muslim vote got big enough.

Ironic that it will be so soon after they get gay marriage.