November 12, 2013

Former Labour minister admits "spectacular mistake" on immigration

From the Daily Mail:
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
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. ... 
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’.


By the way, Straw has also shown some courage in mentioning the pattern of Pakistani gangrapes of young English girls.

It's interesting how American elites are almost alone in the world in maintaining a unified front in never ever apologizing for what they've wrought with their immigration policies.

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

"By the way, Straw has also shown some courage in mentioning the pattern of Pakistani gangrapes of young English girls."

Well, that's the rub, isn't it? It's one thing to bash a bunch of boring, hardworking, funny-speaking Poles, but to admit that letting in a bunch of Pakistanis was a mistake? Is that even posssible?

Bert said...

Don't praise Jack Straw. He's a miserable worm who knew full well what he was doing, but is terrified of the UKIP, so he has to pretend that he cares.

Does anyone else find it funny how mainstream British politicians who talk about immigration only ever mention Poles? No mention of arrivals from a certain continent to the south of Europe or from a certain subcontinent to the east ever escapes their lips.

PropagandistHacker said...

the american elite don't have to admit their mistakes. First off, they made no mistake when they facilitated the mass invasion of cheap foreign labor. They knew it would lower wages and lower social capital. That was the goal all along.


Also with respect to the other white nations on this planet, the other white nations are populated by white people whose ancestors were never slaves. America started out in the early 1600s as a white slave colony, and from that misbegotten genesis was created a national culture and character wherein the white majority has always adopted a submissive stance with respect to the elite.

Once a slave, always a slave.

Hunsdon said...

Our host said: It's interesting how American elites are almost alone in the world in maintaining a unified front in never ever apologizing for what they've wrought with their immigration policies.

Hunsdon amplified: Or their fiscal policies, or their foreign policies, or their nutritional policies, or their other policies, which I can't think of at the present, but for which they also do not apologize.

Anonymous said...

Research published this week by University College London says that immigrants who arrived after 1999 were 45 per cent less likely to claim state benefits or tax credits than UK natives in the period 2000-2011, and that those from the EU ‘put in considerably more in taxes and contributions than they received in benefits and transfers’.

Even those from outside the EU area contributed two per cent more in taxes than they received, compared with indigenous Brits who paid 11 per cent less in tax than they got back.


The above quote is from Jack Straw's column. I am not from the UK, so maybe one of you can answer this. When Straw writes, "indigenous Brits" or "UK natives", does he mean white British people whose ancestors have lived for generations on that island? Or does he also include UK-born children of immigrants?

From what I see over here, I'd imagine a lot of your welfare beneficiaries are the children of the Caribbean and South Asian immigrants. So might that be inflating his claim that "indigenous Brits" are taking more out of the system than post-1999 immigrants?

Anonymous said...

Apologize? Immigration isn't wrong for them.

Besides, while Jack Straw may think of himself as British, does anyone believe our 'elites' think of themselves as Americans?

Anonymous said...

Excuse my ignorance, but isnt massive immigration from poland a good thing? Poles have the same iq as native white english people. They assimilate and their children speak english. If you are politically anti leftist as i am shouldnt you welcome them? They vote against the left and can only drag britain away from the left

Anonymous said...

By the way, Straw has also shown some courage in mentioning the pattern of Pakistani gangrapes of young English girls.

Lately, Straw has been on a roll.

Anonymous said...

Why not massive immigration from Albania? We owe it to our poor white brothers.

Auntie Analogue said...


Straw's excuse that it was the "fates" that determined the actual influx of immigrants far in excess of the rate foreseen by the Government's crystal ball gazers doesn't hold up under scrutiny. What did Straw, his fellow cabinet members and the PM expect would happen when they made Britain the only EU country that allowed such immigration - and thus made the UK the only outlet for all those immigrants?

While I watched many of Mr. Straw's appearances on the Charlie Rose PBS programd I could not distinguish whether I'd stuck my finger down my throat to provoke my gag reflex, or I was merely watching television.

Anonymous said...

Unlimited funds available to Israel? What about the funds from the Arab oil states available to Islamists trying to topple the Assad regime or every seditious Muslim organization operating in the West?

Anonymous said...

"Also with respect to the other white nations on this planet, the other white nations are populated by white people whose ancestors were never slaves"
-----
Don't be an idiot. They were serfs for hundreds of years. Some parts of what is now Germany still had legal serfdom into the 1850s. Plus, many Eastern Euros and Greeks were slaves of the Ottomans for centuries.

David Davenport said...

America started out in the early 1600s as a white slave colony, and from that misbegotten genesis was created a national culture and character wherein the white majority has always adopted a submissive stance with respect to the elite.

That is wrong, crackpot stuff.

peterike said...

Indeed, letting in a million Eastern Europeans was an immigration mistake for the U.K. And it was the very smallest of their many, many immigration mistakes.

hbd chick said...

@anonymous - "Excuse my ignorance, but isnt massive immigration from poland a good thing?"

poles aren't english.

(but they make great kolackies!)

Anonymous said...

Apologizing is one thing, doing something about it is another.

Straw is trying to have it both ways; he knows it will end in tears, he knew exactly what he and his sordid Labour Party co-conspirators were doing, and now he wants to distance himself from the growing backlash.

You make your bed, and lie in it; not lie about it.

Anon.

Anonymous said...

not a mistake.

it was willful.

wren said...

maintaining a unified front in never ever apologizing for what they've wrought with their immigration policies.

I think what they've wrought needs to be clarified.

Easy to grasp stats on crime, taxes, welfare, education expenses, penal expenses, etc. would be helpful.

I suppose the idea that they've permamnently tipped electorate is also something.

Anonymous said...

For your information, Jack Straw was a very senior member of the New Labour cabinet that wilfully, knowingly and deliberately unleashed the biggest immigration surge the UK ever saw in its history.
In fact, more immigrants entered in just one year (2010) than in the combined nigh on thousand years of 1066 through to 1945.

If you don't believe Straw's complicity just read the Andrew Neather revelations - made when Straw was Home Secretary and probably referring to direct personal communications with Jack Straw.

So I now find these latest utterings as hypocrisy beyond belief, if not contempt.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8.01 PM,

Those numbers are purely fallacious and intended to mislead. Most immigrants to tthe UK are a self selected group with the age profile of young, productive workers. After all, the intent of most eastern Euros is to make a pile of cash here and send it home. this self selected group is being compared - by a gaggle of professional liars - to the generality of the UK population. So, of course, their tax profiles are better.
What the report deliberately witholds is the fact that their eventual retirement costs are deliberately not factored in. If this is done the mirage evaporates.

Basically it's pure propaganda nd deceit from the immigrationists.

PropagandistHacker said...

David Davenport qouted me and said:

America started out in the early 1600s as a white slave colony, and from that misbegotten genesis was created a national culture and character wherein the white majority has always adopted a submissive stance with respect to the elite.
.........


That is wrong, crackpot stuff.
========================

Read and learn:


http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

Top Marx for Miliband said...

Labour aren't apologizing: they knew what they were doing, which is why they concealed it at the time. It was a deliberate act of treachery and malice. This is Lord Glasman:

In many ways [Labour] viewed working-class voters as an obstacle to progress. ‘Their commitment to various civil rights, anti-racism, meant that often working-class voters... were seen as racist, resistant to change, homophobic and generally reactionary. ... So in many ways you had a terrible situation where a Labour government was hostile to the English working class.’

Miliband ally attacks Labour migration 'lies' over 2.2m they let in Britain

Now Labour are pretending to feel the pain of the white working-class supporters they deliberately harmed. If they win the next election, the sincerity of their apologies will rapidly become apparent.

Anonymous said...

“The English are not worth saving as a race” – Jack Straw.

“Saddam's weapons pose a grave threat to international peace and security, ... We must not shrink from our commitment.” - Jack Straw.

"My father was in the RAF during the Second World War while Mr Straw's father was in prison for refusing to fight Adolf Hitler," - Nick Griffin.

"Two months after learning that MP's expenses were to be made public, Straw wrote to the fees office to confirm that he had over-claimed on the Council Tax for his constituency home. He attributed this to an oversight" - Wikipedia

"He is of 1/8 Jewish descent - his maternal grandmother's father having come from an Eastern European Jewish family" - Wikipedia

“I happen to be, in the modern jargon, ‘straight’. It doesn’t make me a better person." - Jack Straw

Enough said?

Peter the Shark said...

isnt massive immigration from poland a good thing?

I agree, at least relative to immigration from South Asia or the Caribbean. Not surprising that a politician would apologize for allowing too many white Europeans into Great Britain, but will never apologize for allowing millions of unassimilated Muslims to dominate British cities. If it weren't for the Poles Britain would be even closer to a Shariah state than it is today. Maybe that's the "mistake" Straw is talking about.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, letting in a million Eastern Europeans was an immigration mistake for the U.K. And it was the very smallest of their many, many immigration mistakes.

That could even be the case, they allowed millions of immigrants who the natives were actually allowed to complain about and once the issue was in play...

CJ said...

"Virtually every other EU state, apart from Ireland and Sweden, kept their jobs markets closed for the seven years permitted."

Hmmm. Britain and Ireland are islands, and Sweden is something close to an island, buffered from unpleasantness by Finland and Norway. So, everybody who had serious experience of land borders knew better.

Unknown said...

Jack Straw was also less of a grovelling lapdog to Bush Jr than Tony Blair might have wanted. He appears to have some remaining shreds of moral judgement and honesty when compared to the moral mutants who now dominate politics.

Anonymous said...

That is wrong, crackpot stuff.

Who are you calling a crackpot, you hatemonger?

Chicago said...

Always bashing the Poles and of course the ever popular Gypsies, both of whom have become some form of pinata for politicians. Nothing much is said about the Afro-Asian elephant in the room except when unavoidable and only in the most minimal way. The deceit of deliberate omission and spin is inherent in the phony apology. The lying just never stops, over there as well as here.

Anonymous said...

it was a mistake. They know exactly what they are doing.
They realize the 'natives are restless' and they will pretend to take action, continue to flood the country with immigrants and then say 'oops we messed up again, sorry guys!'

Anonymous said...

Why not massive immigration from Albania? We owe it to our poor white brothers.
Albanians are muslim - and involved in the same sort of behavior.

Anonymous said...

mentioning the pattern of Pakistani gangrapes of young English girls."
It is not just gang rapes it is also sex slavery. He didn't mention the police refused to prosecute and often threatened parents /and or turned them away when they went to the police for help

You will start to see more and more white girls converting to islam because it is the only thing that offers them security and protection.

The left loves this - ANYTHING that wipes out Christianity and western culture is 'good'.

Anonymous said...

If an dyed-in-the-wool marxist immigrationist like Straw suddenly 'turns Turk' and repudiates immigration, then you really do know that it's all over in England for the cause of massive, uncontrolled immigration. Not that it will stop or anything, just that the political purveyors of that creed can't stand the smell any longer.

Saying that, be in absoulutely no doubt whatsoever that if the grand financial f*ck-up never happened in 2008, if New labour wasn't kicked out in 2010 and that Straw & Co continued in there own merry little, mass immigration into the UK would top some 1 million per annum by now.
Straw would denounce anyone who dared question it as a 'racist' and would continue to parrot bullshit about "the economy needs immigration!", "they are only here to pay for our old-age pensions" et etc.

It took the general UKIP-mediated backlash against uncontrolled immigration to do this. Basically the British political class is kakking itself about the amount of damage UKIP will inflict on them.
If UKIP didn't exist Straw would be humming a different, marxist, immigrationist tune.

Anonymous said...

"Well, that's the rub, isn't it? It's one thing to bash a bunch of boring, hardworking, funny-speaking Poles, but to admit that letting in a bunch of Pakistanis was a mistake? Is that even posssible?"

Your observation is correct. The media in the Netherlands have no problem with reporting on the drinking behaviour of some Poles (since they are white).
But are reluctant to report on muslims or more coloured ethnic minorities, who are overrepresented in more harmful activities...

countenance said...

Jack Straw admitted a "spectacular mistake."

Okay, so when are they going to repair this mistake?

Crickets.

Anonymous said...

We get give them our Mexicans and we can take the Eastern European, hows that.

Londoner said...

I don't get the feeling he is apologising though. It feels much more like a gloat thinly disguised as an apology. 'Yeah, we ruined your country, for ever - gee, sorry.'

Anonymous said...

You will start to see more and more white girls converting to islam because it is the only thing that offers them security and protection.

I also see more and more white men convert to Islam because it is the only thing (left) where a man can still be a man.

Anonymous said...

Why not massive immigration from Albania? We owe it to our poor white brothers.

Albanians are muslim - and involved in the same sort of behavior.

Albanians are also white and European, and like the more photogenic Poles, were oppressed by decades of communist slavery. So what if they happen to be Muslim - and lackadaisical muslims at best?

Dutch Boy said...

If the Poles can avoid inculturation to WASPdom and continue to procreate they'll be running the place in 3-4 generations.

Marc B said...

England has every right to remain English, but this smacks of scapegoating the Poles when it's really people from other parts of the world causing the majority of the destabilization.

Bert said...

Albanians are a race of criminals and child traffickers. The less of them in the world, the better.

Unknown said...

I'd swap our vibrant menagerie for their Eastern Europeans in a minute.

Sam said...

Why do Western "elites" have so much disdain for average people?

And who exactly are these "elites?" Academics? business leaders? landed gentry? mandarins?

Anonymous said...

Steve, they do this all the time. There are European elections coming up. The BNP were neutralised by the simple expedient of publishing the entire membership a few years back, addresses and all, so now it's UKIP they're worried about.

Interesting how the definition of "far right" has changed in the UK.

1950s/60s - The British Movement, an organisation which pretty much agreed with Hitler

1970s/80s - National Front - some ex-Nazi leadership types

1990s/2000s - British National Party - still less nazi than the NF

2010s - UKIP - former Tories.

Yet all of them got - and get - exactly the same stuff thrown at them. Any party wanting to stop mass immigration is dangerous to profits.

Anonymous said...

Albanians are also white and European, and like the more photogenic Poles, were oppressed by decades of communist slavery. So what if they happen to be Muslim - and lackadaisical muslims at best?

That was meant to be ironic, but did have a few points. There is a lot to love about Islam, including the fact that the Poles and Albanians, Serbs and Croats owe their freedom to the Muslim Mujahediin who overthrow the bloodthirsty Soviet Empire.

I do realize that Muslims don't make the best neighbours, and that lax Muslims (much more than strict ones) are the worst for crime and corruption.

IIRC, the problem with Albanians is not that they are Muslim. (Only about 50-60% of them are.) There is something about their deeper culture that makes Islam attractive to them, and their looter lifestyle. Keep in mind that Islam is as much a law & order cult as Judaism and Christianity. The problem, like I said, is with lax Islam. Under Ottoman rule, there were many periods of stringent Islamic law, and during those the Albanians were super-good neighbours.

Anonymous said...

"Excuse my ignorance, but isnt massive immigration from poland a good thing?"

Mass immigration is not ever a good thing. While Polish immigration might work out several generations down the road, right now they are just depressing wages and giving cover to the other problem groups.

America actually had a frontier to absorb the immigrants we took in 100 years ago, that simply isn't true of anywhere today.

Anonymous said...

if Jack Straw really thinks his government made a terrible mistake he should either resign in recognition of that mistake or defect to UKIP in an attempt to start undoing the damage. In the absence of either such move, I assume he's just triangulating.

Meanwhile in America, this alumni magazine snippet was in my inbox today:

Forming a New Immigration System for the United States

"About nine out of 10 Americans have seen their incomes rise because of immigration," says Professor Tino Cuellar, MA '96, PhD '01, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. If that's the case, why does legislation such as the bipartisan immigration bill recently passed by the Senate have little chance of getting through Congress? Watch his micro lecture and prepare to meet Professor Cuellar at Stanford+Connects Los Angeles.


I'm sure George Borjas would take issue with that 9/10 number. Does it include public costs externalized to the taxpayer? Liabilities for future health care and pensions? What does the ratio become when we look at native-born Americans exclusively? And so on.

In any case, it's a good example of the economistic reasoning of our ruling class. They may not know what a nation is, but they know what GDP is.

I also like the insinuation that the stupid, racist natives won't let their technocratic betters make them rich and happy via Schumer-Rubio.

Thank goodness!

jody said...

"Also with respect to the other white nations on this planet, the other white nations are populated by white people whose ancestors were never slaves."

this is probably the biggest misconception in the whole game. in reality, europeans were slaves for thousands of years in europe. we just can't tell who's ancestors were slaves and who's weren't simply by looking at each other, is all. lots of us are descended from slaves.

i know you were talking about the US, canada, and australia, and yes, no europeans were slaves in those nations. but some of the ancestors of the people who built those nations were slaves. and millions of people in europe today are descended from slaves.

we gonna pretend that slavery wasn't absolutely normal in europe for 2000 years? no slaves in greece i suppose? no slaves in the roman empire? we just gonna watch those movies and television shows where they OPENLY call people "Slave, hey slave, do this for me slave", then turn off the television and pretend no whitey was ever a slave? every time one tribe conquered another, the surviving losers became slaves.

'Oh, but that's different.'

yeah, it's different. whitey doesn't complain about his ancestors being slaves. that's how it's different. the romans conquered england and had thousands of english slaves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_Isles

"According to the Domesday Book census in 1086, over 10% of England's population were slaves"

if whitey did complain then all that would happen in italy today would be millions of people would stomp their feet and whine about how they were slaves during times of previous management, so they deserve to be paid by the current government to sit around all day and do nothing but eat pizza, and hey, where is my free vespa scooter. pizza reparations 2013, i think we found our new cause.

Anonymous said...

It's amazing how different the public discourse on immigration is here in America than it is in other Western countries. No where else is immigration viewed so uncritically by the establishment and media.

We should be publicizing this as much as possible. It would help the cause of immigration reduction in America if Americans knew that in the UK and other European countries, legal immigration is often publicly criticized, even by liberal politicians.

The open borders lobby strives to create the impression that everyone in America wants open borders, except a few crusty old extremists. They wouldn't want average Americans know that opposition to large scale immigration is mainstream in Europe.

Anonymous said...

"Excuse my ignorance, but isnt massive immigration from poland a good thing?"


It's certainly put the last few nails into the job prospects for the left hand side of the English bell curve.

There are very few jobs where a modicum of intelligence isn't an advantage, and that means that a not-so-bright native without useful contacts will always find there's a bright boy from Katowice ahead of him in the queue - even if the job is filling shelves in a supermarket.

At the same time as jobs, even on minimum wage, are harder than ever to get, the government is forcing the unemployed to jump through a lot of hoops (not literally) for their money. While this may deter the "blaggers", it just makes life even harder for the poor guy who just wants to find work.

Anonymous said...

Polish immigration is probably the ONLY good immigration Britain has had since 1948, when the United Kingdom's immigration disaster began. Poles are hard working and are white Christians, just the kind of immigrants a white Christian country SHOULD want, assuming it wants or needs any immigrants at all. The only BAD "eastern Europeans" would be the Gypsy Roma, if that is what is being referred to in code here.

Speaking as a Canadian, I would welcome all the Polish immigrants to come here if I could. Polish people have never made any trouble here, unlike say, Jamaicans and Somalis who have turned Toronto into a war-zone.

Anonymous said...

"By the way, Straw has also shown some courage in mentioning the pattern of Pakistani gangrapes of young English girls."

He was Justice Minister at the time it was being covered up and only mentioned it after the story broke in the Times.

What's happening is the English have been mostly cleansed from the inner cities and the next outer ring but because the process has been so rapid all the various immigrant groups are now squashed together and starting to fight causing a PC meltdown as there's no white indigenous population left in those areas to blame.

One advantage of being a small country is there's no room for lots of suburbs so a lot of the things that are easy to hide in the states are very difficult to hide in the UK.

Anonymous said...

"Besides, while Jack Straw may think of himself as British, does anyone believe our 'elites' think of themselves as Americans?"

In Europe the "national" elites have defected and are only loyal to the EU.

Anonymous said...

"Excuse my ignorance, but isnt massive immigration from poland a good thing?"

*Massive* immigration from anywhere over a short period of time is never a good thing for the indigenous population even though under other circumstances Poles would be among the better candidates.

Although who knows how it will all pan out. It might turn out to have helped but it's too early to say yet.

Sean said...

Even the leader of the Labour party has been saying those things. Straw was the man who forced the London police commissioner to say the police were institutionally racist (or be sacked). There was a halt to police stop and searches, and crimes including some really serious ones, went through the roof.

Straw is 100% pro immigration, and a liar, he said there were signs 'no Irish or dogs' in the 50's. No-one every put up such a sign in England, unless they wanted a brick through their window.

These people are just self-consciously rationalist, they don't like nations or anything traditional. They don't have any intention of reversing course, Those who think that is beginning to happen are destined to be disappointed, yet again.

Anonymous said...

The comments above are not to say that people like Straw being forced to admit that everything isn't perfect after all things isn't a good thing. It is. It's just to say they are being *forced* to say it by events. They're not genuine and they don't intend to change course. They're just trying to stop the herd stampeding on the way to the slaughterhouse.

neil craig said...

The world is full of politicians who show "courage" in saying politically incorrect but popular things in opposition when they did the opposite in government.