THE LOONY LEFT

Those visiting the maternity wing of Calderdale Royal Hospital, near Halifax, have been told that they should not look into the maternity cots or ask mothers about their labour.

Apparently, this is to protect the babies’ right to privacy.

The hospital held an ‘advice day’ last week in order to promote the new rule. Cards were handed out to visitors headlined ‘Respect my baby’ and which had a message as if from a baby:

‘I am small and precious so treat me with privacy and respect. My parents ask you to treat my personal space with consideration. I deserve to be left undisturbed and protected against unwanted public view.’

Debbie Lawson, a ward sister, said:

‘We know people have good intentions and most cannot resist cooing over new babies but we need to respect the child.

Cooing should be a thing of the past because these are little people with the same rights as you or me.

We often get visitors wandering over to peer into cots but people sometimes touch or talk about the baby like they would if they were examining tins in a supermarket and that should not happen.

Hopefully our message comes across loud and clear. The Government has set a benchmark that every patient has a right to privacy and dignity and we say that includes tiny babies as well.’

Lynsey Pearson, who gave birth to her daughter Hannah 4 weeks ago disagreed:

‘This ludicrous idea is taking patient confidentiality to the extreme. If people did not ask me questions about my baby I would be offended.

I am so proud of Hannah and I want to show her off and I would imagine all new mums feel that way.

When I was in hospital even the cleaners asked me questions and touched her and cuddled her. Babies love attention and I think it is cruel to ask visitors and parents basically to ignore them.’

Enough said.

NATIONHOOD AND NATIONALITY

In a skirmish that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown had with some English nationalists recently, Alibhai-Brown is quoted as previously making the following comments:

‘Once, as a rabid anti-imperialist (which I still am), I would have applauded anybody who publicly humiliated the English. If it was done cleverly and with panache it was even more satisfying. Like other nationals who had been subjugated for so long, these small affronts were liberating, a way of confronting that arrogance of Englanders.

But these days I feel more disquiet than wicked delight when the English are gratuitously slagged off.’

During the skirmish, Alibhai-Brown made the following comment:

‘I would never want to be English that is my point. That is a promise too. Anyone can be British which is why I claim that proudly.’

Alibhai-Brown is a Ugandan Asian refugee and Muslim who immigrated into this country in 1972. She has done little else other than attack the English ever since.

In February this year [see English Rights Campaign entry dated the 14 February 2005], Alibhai-Brown wrote an introduction to a British Council exhibition which was touring the Middle East in which she said:

‘Too many young Muslims are emotionally homeless. Racism makes them believe they cannot belong in Britain.’

At a time when British troops are in Iraq and when we are supposed to be fighting a war on terror, such comments can do nothing other than encourage anti-British hatred amongst Muslims, can only be helpful to Al Qaeda and other anti-Western terrorist groups and their supporters, and cannot be other than damaging to this country and the safety of our soldiers and citizens.

Shortly after 7/7 she held to this view when she wrote in the Daily Mail and repeated the above quote verbatim.

Alibhai-Brown need not fret herself. She is not English.

The criteria which might be considered regarding nationhood and nationality has been raised in the English Rights Campaign entry dated the 21 July 2005.

It is a matter of fact that Alibhai-Brown is not ethnic English. She does not share English culture, either politically or religiously. Instead, she is openly antagonistic towards the English. She was not born in England, but is an immigrant. She does not consider herself to be English, as she herself states.

Legally, she is not English either. She has a British passport - not an English one. There is no such thing as an English passport. It is possible for someone to acquire British citizenship, but impossible for someone to become English.

Whether she has or is entitled to dual nationality is unknown [ie it is not known if she retains Ugandan nationality since the fall of Idi Amin, or whether she has a right to Indian nationality].

In the article in The Independent entitled ‘My hopes of progress are turning to ashes’, which led to the above mentioned skirmish, Alibhai-Brown complains about the sense of pride and patriotism flowing from the impending Ashes victory for England’s cricket team. In reference to the English, she wrote:

‘New Labour and devolution created fresh challenges for these patriots. England was no longer Great Britain. It was part of a changed United Kingdom, now ruled by too many Scotsmen. From what I heard during my sessions at the Edinburgh book festival this August, the Scots not only despise Englanders, they want precious little to do with the edifice which holds us together, Great Britain.

I have a lot of sympathy with the English who feel left out in the cold by this constitutional rearrangement, and even with those who resentfully ask why English people are denied the right to express their ancestral identity and ethnicity. It is indeed unfair that children are taught it is cool to be Afro-Caribbean or delightful to be a Bhangra-dancing Punjabi, but that there is something shameful and ridiculous in proclaiming your Englishness.’

It is to be noted that Alibhai-Brown acknowledges that the English are an ethnic group. Once again, this underlines the fact that one cannot become English. Ethnicity cannot be acquired.

She then goes on to say that English children should be taught English history, and says that the English are:

‘The most adventurous, open and promiscuous, wilfully and joyously appropriating, replicating and incorporating different cultures and ideas and peoples from the world.’

She then continues:

‘Yet today’s understandings pull in the opposite direction. Currently the most ardent advocates for England want to tame these wild and defining characteristics of Englishness. They want to remake Jerusalem. They want green and pleasant villages and church spires and cricket greens where no impertinent outsiders will be admitted, as they have under the messy and inclusive British flag.

Reading between the lines, these calls for purity are pitched by cricket pundits imagining the England they want - an England unsullied by the likes of us or gypsies or Albanians, I reckon.’

And:

‘Yes folks, there is white flight into Englishness, and it seems unstoppable. And if the Ashes are won, I reckon this purification and reclamation project will be boosted immeasurably. And many more white Britons will give up on Britain and take refuge in England.’

She then manages to turn the article around to the 7/7 terrorist bombings:

‘And if this disengagement carries on, will Britishness be like an inner-city area, a dejected, hopeless place for poor blacks left behind with nowhere to go? When I think the four British born Muslim men who blew up London, I fret about their lack of connection to this country. Did they feel homeless? Their own people probably told them never to become too English, and some must have been rejected by indigenous locals who hate Pakis.

It isn’t to excuse their acts, which will remain unforgiven. But if even I can feel forlorn and bitter about the different ways my countrymen can make me feel unwanted by drawing up bridges using the arsenal of abuse, how must it be for black and Asian men with no opportunities to make themselves matter to themselves and others?’

[As a matter of fact, one of the bombers had been born in Jamaica - only 3 had been born in England.]

She concludes:

‘Britain could carry on becoming a modern, confident internationalist nation or a sadly balkanised one, progressive hopes turned to ash. The ball is in England’s court.’

If only that last sentence were true. The ball is not in England’s court. England has no means of democratic outlet, and no means of addressing the manner in which Labour have rigged the constitution and the last election. We are powerless.

Alibhai-Brown is a longstanding opponent of devolution in general, and an English parliament in particular. Her opening comments about being sympathetic towards the English are nothing more than flannel. The thrust of her article is an attack upon English nationalism.

There is a constitutional problem with Scots and Welsh continuing to vote on English affairs, despite having home rule for themselves. And the English are being fleeced financially. An English parliament is the only solution to that, and that gives rise to English nationalism.

Alibhai-Brown caricatures the English as being ‘open and promiscuous’ etc, and then invents another caricature of the English nationalists as being, in effect, white supremacists and racial purists [this is very similar to Vince Cable’s recent Demos report]. She then talks of ‘white Britons’ giving up on Britain and taking ‘refuge in England’.

The number of Scots and Welsh [also white Britons] who Alibhai-Brown avers intend to ‘take refuge in England’ is not quantified.

The English Rights Campaign and the overwhelming majority of English nationalists do not argue for an independent England. What we want is internal control of our own affairs. In that scenario, we will all remain British [that is a statement of fact].

There will therefore be no change in Britishness, only an internal change in the governance of England.

The end of Alibhai-Brown’s article is as silly as it is nasty. She is trying to portray the suicide bombers as victims of English racism, and she implies that the terrorists were driven to their terrorism because they ‘must have been rejected by indigenous locals who hate Pakis’ [note the objectivity] and possibly felt ‘homeless’.

This is a nasty little trick to try and perpetuate the notion of the victim status of immigrants. Racism did not play any part in the terrorist bombings at all. We know so because one of the terrorists told us so in his pre-recorded video, in which he said:

‘Our words have no impact on you therefore I am going to speak to you in a language you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood...

I and thousands like me have forsaken everything for what we believe. Our drive and motivation does not come from tangible commodities from what the world has to offer. Our religion is Islam.

What we have is obedience to the one true God and following in the footsteps of the final prophet and messenger Mohammed. This is how our ethical stances are dictated.

While your democratically elected Government continually perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world your support for them makes you responsible. Just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters, now you will taste the reality of this situation.

Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing and torture and imprisonment of my people we will not stop.

We are at war and I am a soldier.’

Mohammed Khan was clear enough. This was someone who had been globetrotting to Pakistan and white water rafting in Wales. He had a good job and had even visited the House of Commons as a guest of the Labour MP Jon Trickett, with whom he had been on friendly terms for 17 years and was considered a family friend.

Khan’s motives were religious, including the concept of Jihad [see the English Rights Campaign entry dated the 2 August 2005 for the obligations of British Muslims as set out by the Muslim Parliament of Britain]. He was a Muslim fundamentalist. His loyalty was to the Muslim Ummah. He did not regard himself as English at all.

He was not a victim of English racism.

The idea that cricket, or the cricket pundits, have anything to do with the causes of Muslim terrorism is pathetic.

Alibhai-Brown is another who can keep her grubby little smears to herself.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

‘When dealing with law and order, and justice, it is important to emphasise the need to be on the side of law-abiding citizens, as opposed to the criminals. I come down heavily in support of those who believe that our modern system of justice tends to lean over towards the law-breaker. So while supporting impartiality in the administration of justice, as depicted in our coat of arms showing the scales evenly balanced in the centre, if we have to choose between the good guy and the bad guy, there should be no equivocation.’

Ian Smith [former prime minister of Rhodesia]

Most people would undoubtedly agree with this view. That the ‘rights’ of terrorists and criminals should not be promoted at the expense of the interests of ordinary citizens. Labour, however, disagree.

Labour, and the British ruling class in general, have placed the ‘rights’ of so-called asylum seekers to enter England ahead of the rights of the English to live in their own country free from persecution, and free from the threat of terrorism.

Labour, and the British ruling class in general, have also been prepared to tolerate various organised crime rackets [eg Chinese Snakehead syndicates] making huge profits from smuggling so-called asylum seekers and illegal immigrants into this country.

Labour, and the British ruling class in general, have also been prepared to indulge the activities of extremists instead of defending the victims of terrorism.

There have been 3 main acts of terrorism in England since the commencement of the war on terror [after 9/11]. There was the murder of PC Stephen Oake in 2003, the 7/7 suicide bombings, and the subsequent 21/7 failed attempted terrorist bombings. In addition, there have also been other terrorist activities by British Muslims abroad [eg the 2 suicide bombers in Israel].

It may be recalled that Stephen Oake was stabbed 8 times in the chest as he wrestled with a terror suspect, the Algerian Kamel Bourgass, in a flat in Manchester. Another 2 men were found at the flat and another surrendered himself to the police shortly afterwards in connection with the murder.

All 4 of these men were so-called asylum seekers. The police believed that they were Algerian Muslim extremists.

The tenant of the flat had had his application for asylum refused, but had not been deported. Instead, after he had been on the run for 4 years, he was finally caught but then granted exceptional leave to remain because it was alleged that he would be in danger if he were returned to Algeria.

Up to 3,000 GIA Algerian Muslim extremists were let into the country by the Tories in the 1990s. The GIA are conducting a terrorist campaign in Algeria.

Of the four 7/7 suicide bombers, Mohammed Khan, Hasib Hussein, Shehzad Tanweer were born in Britain. Germaine Lindsay was born in Jamaica, although he immigrated to the UK as a young child.

Of the five 21/7 terrorists [including the man who is believed to be responsible for the discarded bomb subsequently found], Maktar Ibraihim, Yasin Omar, Osman Hussein, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu and Ramzi Mohamed - at least 4 are immigrants. Details of Ramzi Mohamed’s background have not been released by the police.

Asiedu is Ghanian and needed an interpreter for his court appearance. Ibraihim is Eritrean, Hussein is Ethiopian and Omar is Somalian. Hussein was granted a British passport as an act of fraud, claiming to be an asylum seeker which it is now clear he was not. He also goes by, and has another passport in the name of, Hamdi Issac.

Ibrahim also managed to obtain a British passport, despite his criminal past which included shoplifting, the targeting of whites for mugging, his drug use, and serving half of a 5 year prison sentence during which he participated in a riot in which several prison officers were injured. He also used aliases and at times claimed to be Sudanese.

There are of course others who have been detained and charged for assisting the terrorists, and those who have entered and fled the country who are believed to have been involved.

Of the 13 people who were in the forefront of the terrorist campaign, at least 9 were immigrants of various descriptions. Some have been allowed to stay, or even given British passports, despite clear criminal activity.

Without continued immigration, it would have been very difficult for Al-Qaeda to have carried out its acts of terrorism. Certainly, its activities would have been much reduced.

Nor should the comment by Lord Hoffman be forgotten when the judiciary decided to overturn government legislation and allow the Belmarsh detainees [who were immigrants the government believed were involved in terrorism] to enter this country:

‘The real threat to the life of the nation... comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.’

Immigration and so-called asylum seeking are key factors in the Al-Qaeda terrorist campaign in England. It is not in the interests of the English that immigration and asylum seeking continue. Yet Labour are determined that there is to be no change in government policy.

Then there is the recent victory for the animal rights terrorists with the announcement that the Hall family would stop breeding guinea pigs at their farm in Staffordshire. The guinea pigs were used for scientific research.

This is after a 15 year terrorist campaign of death threats, graffiti, night-time use of loudhailers, cars being damaged, bricks thrown through windows, cut telephone and electricity lines, smear campaigns, hate mail, bomb hoaxes, arson attacks and, most depraved of all, the digging up of the grave of 82-year-old Gladys Hammond whose body was stolen. The campaign of intimidation was not confined to the Hall family, but also included anyone who had any contact with them.

The Hall family were unable to rely upon the rule of law and were effectively hung out to dry by the government and the judiciary. Even after the desecration of Gladys Hammond’s grave the local residents were refused a 25 mile exclusion zone which would have kept the terrorists away from the locality.

However, the judge said that he wanted to give the terrorists, as he himself described them, one last chance and instead granted an injunction which would allow protests to continue on Sundays between 12pm and 3pm.

One of the terrorists, John Curtin, had previously been convicted for trying to dig up the body of the Duke of Beaufort. This had been an anti-hunt protest. Another, Mel Broughton was jailed for 4 years in 1997 for trying to smuggle incendiary bombs into an animal testing facility. Another, Kerry Whitburn, is a full-time activist and has been jailed several times.

The Hall family have now finally found they have no alternative but to close down their business at the end of the year. The so-called animal rights activists have made clear that they will continue to harass the Hall family nonetheless, and that they will move on to other targets after their success.

The fact is that the British ruling class in general, and Labour in particular, do equivocate when they have to choose between the good guy and the bad guy, and if anything, they prioritise the ‘rights’ of the bad guy.

THE BRITISH INQUISITION

Below is an extract from the recent speech given by Trevor Phillips in Manchester.

‘Equality

At the core of our equality work lies our enforcement of the Race Relations Act. We are this year spending over a million and a half pounds on support of meritorious legal cases brought either to the CRE or to our local grassroots partners. We intend to continue that support.

There has been some suggestion that the CRE has, in recent times, been less than vigorous in its enforcement work. This is particularly surprising since we have just seen a record award in an employment tribunal in a case of race discrimination – an award of £1.6m. It is surprising given that the CRE is spending well over a million pounds on grassroots legal support, in addition to handling several hundred cases directly. This year we expect to win in excess of a million pounds in settlements of cases handled by CRE staff; this will be multiplied several times by our partners in grassroots law firms, RECs, trades unions and CABx.

We have begun and concluded nearly 300 enforcement actions against public authorities in the past 18 months; we started and completed the largest ever formal investigation – into the police – in the Commission’s history; and we have just expanded our enforcement team after many years of its being starved of resources.
It may be that in the past, people got used to the CRE talking a lot and doing little. We now prefer it the other way around.

But we intend to go further. We will step up our efforts to work with government and public authorities to enforce the race equality duty. A vital weapon in this work is our race equality impact assessment. We will expect public authorities, including government departments, to conduct serious impact assessments on anti-terror laws, or whether, for example, the move of jobs from London will have a disproportionate and adverse impact on ethnic minorities.

If the answer is yes, we expect the policy to change. And let me be clear, if it does not change, we will seek redress in the courts.

But in our equality work we won’t ignore the fact that racial inequality and disadvantage strikes all kinds of people. Our investigation into the treatment of Gypsies and Travellers is all about people who are white; and the work we are doing on the educational achievement of boys may pay as rich dividends for white boys as I hope it will for black boys.

We will also be seeking new approaches to tackling institutional racism in both the public and private sectors: equality audits, new powers for company directors to demand information about equality performance of potential partners, and new incentives for shareholders to hold their boards to account on equality issues.’

The extract comes about 80% of the way into the speech. Presumably, Mr Phillips believed that by dealing with his plans for a more aggressive prosecution of the British Inquisition this late into his speech, and after a lot of flowery language, that by then people would be slumbering and not notice/understand what he is saying.

Given by the widespread response, if that was his calculation then he was right.

Mr Phillips is openly boasting of the number of prosecutions he is hoping to bring, boasting of the expansion of the ‘enforcement team after many years of its being starved of resources’, and boasting of the manner in which the CRE is pushing public authorities around. He even threatens to prosecute the government if it does not do as he says!

This is an unelected quangocrat talking.

Even the private sector can expect the CRE to tell it what it can and cannot do and faces the extra red tape of so-called ‘race equality impact assessment’, the enforcement of a ‘race equality duty’, the demand for information of ‘equality performance of potential partners’, ‘equality audits’, ‘and new incentives for shareholders to hold their boards to account on equality issues’.

To Mr Phillips, equality means race quotas. This is all about the enforcement of race quotas. Be there no mistake, no matter how much he may seek to deny it, that is what he is advocating. And as the ethnic minorities increase as proportion of the population [the proportion is doubling every 20 years], then so will the size of the race quotas. This will eventually result in the English becoming a persecuted racial minority in their own country. Mr Phillips is advocating racial engineering and the ethnic cleansing of the English in England.

It is a thoroughly evil policy.

Nor should it be forgotten that this is the man, an unreconstructed communist, who has been chairman of the CRE in the period following 9/11 and in the run up to 7/7. His tenure of the CRE has been a disaster for the country.

Both Mr Phillips and CRE should be consigned to the dustbin of history. The CRE should be immediately closed down.

Mr Phillips’s speech has even won support from the Tory party - needless to say. They have not even objected to Mr Phillips’s concept of equality, which is simply the persecution of the English and the abolition of a free society.

That is why the English can no longer rely on the old decadent establishment parties. We need our own nationalist party - the English Democrats Party - to represent our own interests.

[There will be a more complete response to Mr Phillips’s speech shortly.]

THE BRITISH INQUISITION

Ann Quayle, an expectant mother, was forced to go private after she was told by a midwife that her husband would be unable to stay with her overnight in an NHS hospital, as it would be offensive to Muslim women.

Instead Miss Quayle, who is 44 and had suffered 2 miscarriages, took out a credit card loan to fund private treatment costing £10,000. She said:

‘I accept that religion and culture should be catered for but so should my needs. If we’re supposed to be a multicultural society, we don’t need people spouting this kind of nonsense.’

She further stated:

‘I was disappointed to have to go private. I pay my taxes and I feel I have paid to have my baby on the NHS. I am a huge supporter of the NHS. My mother is an NHS nurse.

My axe to grind is that my husband staying with me would not have cost a penny.’

The Royal Free Hospital in London denied the allegation and claimed that they were unable to accommodate partners until labour starts and the woman is transferred to a labour ward. A spokesman said:

‘We don’t know whether anyone made any comments about the religious or cultural needs of other patients but certainly that would not be an appropriate comment. It was not the reason that Miss Quayle’s husband could not stay the night.’

A CLASH OF IDEOLOGIES

The recent Demos report written by Vince Cable has caused a small stir and is useful in that it has highlighted a major ideological objection to an English parliament.

There are 3 competing views for the future of England.

Firstly, there is British unionism. This view is strongly opposed to the introduction of an English parliament. It is tolerant of the devolution status quo, irrespective of the unfairness of it on the English.

The furthest that this view goes to meet that unfairness, is to advocate the introduction of English only voting in the House of Commons for English affairs. It does not propose any alteration of the Barnett Formula, or the abolition of the Scottish and Welsh Offices.

This view is held by the Tories, Veritas and UKIP. Some in Veritas and UKIP will even allege that the campaign for an English parliament is an EU plot to break up the UK [this is not a spoof], and conveniently ignore the fact that the creation of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly has already broken up the UK to some extent.

An English parliament would merely re-establish a more balanced constitutional arrangement.

Secondly, there is the English nationalist view that there is a need for an English parliament to redress the democratic deficit in England. Some go further and advocate English independence, but this is the minority view among English nationalists.

An English parliament would represent the views of the English and would hold English politicians accountable to their electors. It would also stop the payment of subsidies under the Barnett Formula.

The exact powers of an English parliament, and its relationship with the British parliament, is presently unclear.

The most likely scenario for the constitutional reform, would be that the House of Commons becomes the English parliament, whilst the House of Lords changes into the British parliament. This also has the added bonus of removing Tony’s cronies from the House of Lords.

Thirdly, there is Political Correctness. This is the view recently advocated by Vince Cable.

This view states that all forms of nationalism are wrong, racist, and must be undermined and destroyed. The aim of this view is to subsume the UK into the EU and undermine England by breaking it up into regions. There is the further desire to transfer as much power as possible to quangos and other non-elected overseas organisations.

A major part of the ideology of Political Correctness is the promotion of mass immigration with the aim of reducing the English into being a racial minority in their own country. This will take about another 50 years on present trends. Anyone who so much as questions this is denounced as a racist.

Political Correctness also aims to push aside English culture and replace it with a mishmash of multiculturalism. This creed does not recognise that Britain belongs to the British, or that England belongs to the English, or that there has ever been such a thing as Britishness or Englishness other than racism.

The first and third ideologies are currently in alliance against the second. The English nationalist view is under attack from both British unionists and the Politically Correct.

There is also a choice of analysis. On the one hand, there is the analysis as voiced by Vince Cable that the world has moved on since the Cold War and that the political issues of today are ones of identity. That there is a choice between nationhood, or supranationalism [as typified by the EU] coupled with multiculturalism or an updated version of it.

The other analysis, as voiced by the English Rights Campaign and others, is that there is unfinished business following the end of the Cold War. That we may have defeated communism from without, but that we now need to defeat neo-communism [aka political correctness] within.

NATIONALISATION OF THE FAMILY

Labour’s Sure Start scheme, which has already cost £3.1billion, has been found to be a failure by Birkbeck College, London, which had been commissioned by the Government to conduct research into the scheme.

Sure Start is supposed to offer childcare and parenting classes at children’s centres in some of England’s poorest areas. The scheme is due to be expanded from 400,000 to 3million over the next 5 years. The aim is to have a Sure Start centre in every neighbourhood.

The research found that, overall, children had not shown any improvement in language or behaviour since the Sure Start’s launch in 2001. In fact, children of teenage mothers actually did worse than those who had not had access to the scheme.

One of the more insidious aspects of Sure Start is its capacity to foist political correctness on young children [needless to say]. The guidance to the scheme’s officials is that they need to ensure that children ‘unlearn any negative attitudes and behaviour they have already learnt’ in order to ‘offset the process whereby children may learn to be racially prejudiced at an early age’.

MULTICULTURALISM

Trevor Phillips has caused something of a stir over the last 18 months, with his criticism of multiculturalism. Some Tories have jumped on a bandwagon to endorse his reported sentiments, although it is clear that they have not properly examined what he is saying.

The initial problem is to try and define multiculturalism. Most would regard it as being the tolerance of distinct cultures existing side by side in the UK. But within that definition there are nuances. Mr Phillips himself wrote last year:

‘In 1978 the tabloids reported what seemed like a threat from a hairy, dashiki-wearing student radical, that “we [black Britons] are here and here to stay”. People called this multiculturalism.’

Clearly Mr Phillips is not calling for an end to black people being here. So what does Mr Phillips actually mean?

In the same article, Mr Phillips wrote:

‘When I remarked last month that it was time for Britain to move on from divisive, 80s-style "multiculturalist" policies, I thought it might cause a mild stir among Britain's diversity professionals and activists. In fact, it unleashed a passionate argument both at home and abroad. I have even, as one friend grumpily complained, ruined a couple of dinner parties where the "Britishness" debate got ugly.’

It would seem that the Islington dinner party circuit was somewhat disconcerted!

But the statement about it being time to ‘move on’ shows that Mr Phillips is not turning against multiculturalism, but that he believes that it is time for a new policy to supplement it in the 21st century. This belief is also held by that fellow communist, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who was flogging her book ‘After Multiculturalism’ as long ago as in the year 2000. In an article in the Telegraph, Alibhai-Brown wrote:

‘Treating black people differently has enabled white institutions to carry on as if nothing substantive has changed since the arrival of Windrush from the West Indies. As long as “ethnic minorities” were given some money and space to play marbles in the ghetto, nothing else needed to happen. Whether you look at the BBC or the top FTSE companies, the multicultural answer has failed to transform anything very much.’

Alibhai-Brown clearly agrees with Greg Dyke who once described the BBC as being ‘hideously white’, and also thinks the same of Britain’s leading companies too. Being white is unacceptable, apparently.

Both Alibhai-Brown and Mr Phillips have also made adverse comment of the all white composition of the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly. In the autumn of 2002, Alibhai-Brown wrote:

‘The brand new, young, rediscovered Scottish nation, locked as it is in an ethnic redefinition of itself, found no space for the visible communities... They relegated black Britons to second class status. Ditto Wales.’

Since the ethnic minorities make up less than 1% of the populations of Scotland and Wales, there is no reason why, even statistically, there should be ethnic minorities in either the Scottish parliament or Welsh Assembly.

It would seem that the Scottish and Welsh are the wrong colour.

Both Mr Phillips and Alibhai-Brown are strongly opposed to devolution in general, and an English parliament in particular. In that sense they are not very multicultural at all and never have been.

However, writing in 2004, Mr Phillips set out his criticism of multiculturalism thus:

‘The institutional response to the demand for inclusion has been cynical and bureaucratic - a series of bribes designed to appease community leaders coupled with gestures to assuage liberal guilt, while leaving systemic racism and inequality untouched. Multiculturalism is in danger of becoming a sleight of hand in which ethnic minorities are distracted by tokens of recognition, while being excluded from the real business. The smile of recognition has turned into a rictus grin on the face of institutional racism.’

And:

‘The prevailing orthodoxy for 40 years was that we could not change the behaviour of the majority community until we changed its attitudes. Some of us now think differently. What matters is what people do rather than what they say they think. That is why the CRE is now focusing on delivery of race equality outcomes - measured in numbers of people employed and resources distributed - rather than on declarations of goodwill.’

Mr Phillips has set out his views for racial engineering. He intends to manipulate and control the English in order to fit in with his view of a multiracial Britain. As the head of the Commission for Racial Equality [CRE] he intends to statistically re-order society.

In May this year Mr Phillips repeated his views and upped the ante by condemning ‘corporate multiculturalism’ and claiming that unless there was integration then ‘what we will end up with is a Los Angeles in flames’, in reference to the 1992 Los Angeles race riots in which 50 people were killed.

Mr Phillips continued [italics are English Rights Campaign emphasis]:

‘By integration, I mean that it is a society in which your life chances, whether they be chances of a job, chances of becoming an MP, or chances of living in a particular area or chances of going out with someone of a different race should be utterly unaffected and statistically unrelated to your race. At the moment this is not the case.

A perfectly integrated society is one in which your ethnicity would not be able to determine the outcome of your life. Some minorities, Jews historically, Vietnamese, arrived and soared, some are anchored to the bottom - Afro-Caribbeans, Somalis, and so on.’

One can either have equality of opportunity, or equality itself. But one cannot have both. Mr Phillips wants equality [as might be expected for a communist]. He wants those who, for whatever reason, be it skill, determination, luck or whatever, are able to do well for themselves, to be held back so that those who did not do as well are equal. He seeks to manipulate this in order to statistically integrate ethnic minorities and re-order society.

To concentrate on statistics essentially means race quotas. That is inevitable. If statistically an organisation does not have a proportion of ethnic minorities, then it must be judged racist, prosecuted, and compelled to recruit a quota of ethnic minorities. This is currently happening with the Metropolitan Police.

Mr Phillips is advocating quotas. He even seeks quotas for who people date! Presumably there will be undercover race zealots in nightclubs and pubs to ensure that people racially ‘integrate’.

The choice of the word ‘integrate’ is not haphazard. Mr Phillips does not use the word ‘assimilate’. The reason for this will be explained in the near future.

This statistical integration needs to be considered alongside the policy of mass immigration, which is now so vast that the English will be reduced to a racial minority in England in roughly 50 years. If Mr Phillips has his way, then as the proportion of ethnic minorities grow as a proportion of the population, then so will the size of the quotas and hence the statistical integration.

In other words, Mr Phillips is bent on supplementing multiculturalism by introducing a form of ethnic cleansing in order to push the English aside and replace them with ethnic minorities.

This is a thoroughly vile policy and no one believing in a free England should have any truck with it.

THE NHS

This time it is as much a case of “I’m all right, Taffy” as “I’m all right, Jock”.

Welsh patients attending the Hereford County Hospital are being given drugs which are denied to the English. Even those English living in Hereford.

Even English cancer patients are being denied drugs, and are told that they will have to wait up to 2 years for the drugs to be approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence [NICE], which has reduced the number of drug appraisals each year from 3 to 2 due to funding cuts from the government.

Meanwhile, the Welsh and Scottish boards have had no such funding cuts and drugs are being approved without delay. NICE also seems to be leisurely in its activities.

As the payment of drugs is governed by where a patient lives, rather than where he is treated, then this means that English hospitals can give drugs to Scottish and Welsh patients and at the same time refuse them to the English.

The Scots and Welsh are of course able to pay for all this courtesy of the English taxpayer and the extra subsidies they receive under the Barnett Formula.

RACE WAR POLITICS

The left wing think tank, Demos, has caused a small brouhaha this last week with the publication of a report written by Vince Cable MP, who is the Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor.

Mr Cable is the MP for Twickenham. Although born in Yorkshire, he attended and was a lecturer at Glasgow University, and was also a Labour councillor in Glasgow from 1971-74. He is married to a Goan. He has spent much of his life abroad. This background might help explain his views.

In his report, Mr Cable states the following [italics are English Rights Campaign emphasis]:

‘Anecdote is reinforced by fact: census data confirms that a significant majority of non-white ethnic groups living in Britain regard themselves as British or British in conjunction with other identities.

The threat to harmonious social relations in Britain comes from those who insist that multiple identity, including Britishness, is not possible: white supremacists, English nationalists, Islamic fundamentalists. This is the opposition and they have to be confronted.’

It is to be noted that Mr Cable only condemns English nationalists as being on a par with white supremacists and Islamic fundamentalists - not the Scottish or Welsh nationalists, nor even the Irish nationalists of Sinn Fein/IRA. He singles out the English.

The English Rights Campaign is not an English nationalist blog, in that it does not advocate the breakup of the UK. What it does, is demand that the English are granted equal treatment within the UK, that they should not be treated as second class citizens in their own country, and it further campaigns against the evil of political correctness [which Mr Cable describes as being ‘much maligned’].

However, it is clear that Mr Cable is attacking the views of this blog regarding the rights of the English and definitely attacking the views of this blog regarding political correctness.

Mr Cable’s report is called ‘Multiple Identities: living with the politics of identity’. The report is written as a follow up to a previous report written by Mr Cable for Demos called: ‘The World’s New Fissures: Identities in crisis’ in 1994.

To promote the report, Demos has issued a press release entitled, ‘Abandon Multiculturalism’, and says:

‘Britain must abandon multiculturalism if it wants to build a strong, tolerant and inclusive sense of national identity, a new report argues.’

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the so-called Commission for Racial Equality [CRE], criticised multiculturalism last year. Although it is clear that many who supported Trevor Phillips’s criticisms did not properly read what he was saying and/or did not understand the full implications of it.

Mr Cable also demands that the UK adopt a new racial political creed:

‘We should focus on multiple identities and on individuals rather than on obsolete models of multiculturalism, and that we need to address a series of issues, from immigration and Europe to localism and strengthening of global institutions, in ways which draw the sting from the dangerous, exclusive forms of identity politics which are now presenting a direct challenge to our shared public life.’

Mr Cable’s report does not confine itself to the UK, but comments upon many countries from all around the globe [eg USA, Botswana, Uruguay, France, Sri Lanka, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, India and Iceland]. It makes no mention at all of the unfairness of the Barnett Formula [which guarantees the Scots and Welsh extra subsidies], or the undemocratic outrage of the West Lothian Question [whereby Scots and Welsh MPs vote on English affairs] and the manner in which Labour have rigged the constitution in order to rig the election and hence cling onto office.

Instead, Mr Cable prefers to adopt a sociological approach and theorises as to how the world should be. His analysis is that the world has moved on since the end of the Cold War. That the old Left-Right politics are no longer relevant. Instead, he believes the real political debate is about identities, between those who advocate exclusive group identity, and those who advocate inclusive multiple identity.

Put simply, Mr Cable argues that the concept of exclusive group identity is basically nationalism and a belief in the nation state, whereas inclusive group identity no longer recognises the nation state as the primary source of allegiance or identity. Mr Cable advocates the concept of an inclusive multiple group identity and believes that there is a gap in the UK political spectrum, ‘and the Lib Dems are well placed to fill it’.

Needless to say, Mr Cable believes that there should be yet more government intervention:

‘A more positive approach is to give more thought and attention to how issues of cultural identity should be approached and managed. After all, vast creative energy has been devoted to the issue of how to manage “mixed economies” to secure the optimum mix of markets and government intervention. Much less sustained attention has been devoted to the question of how cultural identity can be reunited with powerful competing claims of local identity, and wider, cross-border or global identities.’

Of course management of the economy is something for which government is responsible, whereas the management of people’s beliefs and sense of cultural identity is less under government control. Indoctrination is the antithesis of a free society.

The “mixed economy” of which Mr Cable speaks was a failure and large parts of the government sector were privatised by the Thatcher government in the 1980s. Those nationalised industries that remain, such as the NHS, remain a failure.

To launch his concept of multiple identity Mr Cable makes the following assertion:

‘There are hardly any countries in the world which could be described as ethnically homogenous in any meaningful sense: possibly Botswana, Iceland and Uruguay might qualify ... A useful starting point for the UK is to debunk the myth that before the arrival of black and Asian migrants in the decades after the Second World War, Britain was a homogenous and harmonious unicultural society. Quite apart from deep historical differences of region, class and religion, there had in fact been previous waves of immigrants...’

Mr Cable then goes on to cite the Huguenots and Irish immigrants among others. Ireland was of course an integral part of the UK, which Mr Cable ignores. The immigration of previous centuries was a minor fraction of what it is today, which Mr Cable also ignores. More immigrants enter the UK in a few months today, than entered in many whole previous centuries put together.

The reference to region, class [a traditional communist obsession] and religion is simply an attempt to exploit any differences within a country as a means of denying the nation ever existed. It is a neo-communist trick and should be ignored.

The fact is that Britain was a homogenous and harmonious country. It may have consisted of a union of more than one country, and there may well have been debates as to the future direction in which the country should go. But that is a part of a healthy democratic debate of a healthy democratic country, and is certainly not a justification to allege that Britain has never been united or a justification for mass immigration and race war politics.

Mr Cable openly acknowledges the scale of immigration:

‘The identifiable, ethnically distinct, non-white, part of the population - now roughly 4.2 million - has doubled between 1981 and 2001 but at 8.5 per cent of the total is not large in relation to other Western countries.’

Other Western countries [eg USA, Canada, Australia] are immigrant countries and promote immigration into their underpopulated territory. Other European countries, such as Holland and France, have their own immigration problems. Britain is traditionally an emigrant country, not an immigrant country. This island is already overpopulated and does not want or need immigration.

Britain is already occupied.

The doubling of the size of immigrant communities as a proportion of the total population every 20 years will inevitably lead to the English becoming a racial minority in England within roughly 50 years. That is an arithmetical fact. Needless to say, Mr Cable does not deal with this at all.

Mr Cable’s view is that:

‘In a more open, integrated world, a liberal approach to the movement of people is both inevitable and to be welcomed. The idea that goods, services, capital, news and information should flow freely across frontiers while people remain sealed in nation states is absurd and untenable.’

People are, of course, not inanimate objects. They have beliefs, customs, needs etc.

Mr Cable misrepresents the current history of immigration:

‘Until the mid-1990s immigration was roughly balanced by emigration of British people, so the question was essentially one of the changing composition of the UK population. But with gross immigration of 200,000 a year or more in recent years and net immigration of over 100,000 there clearly is an immigration issue.’

In fact, this country was an emigrant country, which is how countries such as Australia, USA, Canada and New Zealand were colonised, up until the late 20th century when immigration overtook emigration. The scale of gross immigration is at double the level cited by Mr Cable.

[According to the Office of National Statistics, the total number of people immigrating into the UK with the stated intention of staying for more than 1 year in 2003 was 407,000, excluding British citizens returning from abroad. Then there is illegal immigration. Net immigration in 2003 was 151,000.]

The changing composition of the UK population is a problem in itself, especially since most immigrants settle in England and it is England which is so dramatically affected.

Mr Cable deals with so-called asylum seeking separately and states [italics are English Rights Campaign emphasis]:

‘There are practical problems surrounding the definition of asylum in the case of people fleeing political persecution, of determining asylum claims, and of dealing humanely but firmly with failed claims; but the principle of granting asylum should not be an issue.’

The principle of the concept of asylum seeking is most definitely an issue. The English Rights Campaign has raised the issue before [eg the blog entries dated the 28 June 2005, 16 February 2005 for the item dated the 31 December 2004, and Futurus report in the blog dated the 26 February 2005]. There is no justification at all for a never ending tide of so-called asylum seekers, mostly fit young men, to be paying organised crime rackets to smuggle them across a multitude of countries and even several entire continents before they are then smuggled into England where they then destroy their identity papers and use the magic words: ‘I claim asylum’.

The UK should unilaterally withdraw from the 1951 UN Convention and refuse to accept any further asylum seekers. The continuance of so-called asylum seeking is not only impractical, not least due to the scale of abuse and the complete breakdown of the system, but is also morally indefensible.

Mr Cable has not made out any case for the continuance of so-called asylum seeking at all.

Regarding immigration proper, Mr Cable avers that what is needed is another quango to decide how many immigrants are allowed in:

‘There has to be some form of regular, objective assessment about what the overall level of immigration should be, taking into account the state of the economy and social impacts. The model of the Low Pay Commission, setting a reasonable level for a minimum wage, is a plausible one.’

And that:

‘The temptation to use work permits as a route to a Swiss/German “gastarbeiter” system should be resisted in favour of an American-style Green Card approach which acknowledges from the outset the probability of settlement and incorporates that assumption in the overall limit.’

In fact the overwhelming majority of English people wish to see an end to mass immigration. Mr Cable takes no account of that view. There is no need for another bunch of neo-communist quangocrats to be advocating mass immigration.

But as a means of foisting mass immigration upon the country and in furtherance of his neo-communist desire to destroy the British nation state, he advocates his concept of inclusive multiple group identities. His views of the English and English interests are openly contemptuous:

‘It is, however, perhaps best not to be too romantic about localism which can be parochial, selfish and occasionally - thoroughly nasty. Nothing sets the pulse of many a local community racing faster than the sight of a gypsy caravan... Local identity is part of the multiple identity which will keep a diverse society together.’

And:

‘Minorities make good scapegoats and disadvantaged minorities can in turn align themselves with co-religionists or related ethnic groups overseas rather than their fellow countrymen. It is altogether too facile to attribute breakdowns in ethnic relations, where they occur, let alone terrorism, to poverty and inequality. But in Ulster, in some Muslim groups in Britain and France, and among black minorities in the US and the UK, inequality, real and perceived, is an issue reinforcing other forms of alienation.’

And:

‘We should be equally grown up in accepting that, provided the law is fully respected, and there is no violence or threat of it, some British Muslims will wish to identify with some deeply obnoxious and reactionary regimes and individuals. Where war, or near war, exist, tolerance will be strained, perhaps to breaking point. But it is a tribute to the maturity and stability of Indian democracy that, despite three recent wars and the threat of nuclear confrontation, some Indian Muslims feel able to fly the green flag at Indo-Pakistan cricket matches [while others support India]. Britain could do no worse.’

So much for the war on terror!

Supposed disadvantage, or poverty, or supposed inequality, had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the 7/7 bombings in London. The terrorists who carried out those attacks included people who had been white water rafting in Wales, and who had been globetrotting to Pakistan. Those in poverty cannot afford such jaunts.

Those bombings were the result of a hatred of this country and its people. They were the direct consequence of race war politics and mass immigration which have encouraged and enabled those who do not consider themselves to be British at all, to carry out terrorist attacks against the host population. Those terrorists who were born in this country did not consider themselves to be British. They were Muslim fundamentalists. Needless to say, Mr Cable ignores all this.

The English do not want to live in an England riven by war, or ‘near war’, or terrorism. Nor do they want to be treated as second class citizens in their own country. They want to be able to exercise their rights as any other independent and free people.

Mr Cable does not believe in the nation state. His concept of multiple identities asserts that people’s allegiances are to other entities such as the EU, or regions, or religion. Even regarding the EU he condemns the ‘strong resistance to the historically important task of enlargement to incorporate Muslim Turkey’. He does not even have the gumption to respect public concern over that.

Mr Cable has no concept of patriotism or the importance of it. The lack of it is one factor behind the recent terrorist bombings. Patriotism is a force for good and needs to be nurtured and encouraged.

Mr Cable is quite happy for people to describe themselves as ‘British Jews’ or ‘Scots and British’. But English and British? His report does not mention such a concept. He even makes an erroneous comment about ‘English nationalist parties like UKIP’. In fact UKIP is strongly hostile to an English parliament. It is not an English nationalist party in any sense.

Mr Cable’s report is disgrace. He does not make out the case for asylum seeking at all. He boldly asserts 2 falsehoods [that the British were never unified and that there has always been mass immigration] and then extrapolates a whole line of argument based on those falsehoods.

He compares English nationalists with neo-Nazis, organisations such as Hizb ut Tahrir and the Saviour Sect, and the likes of Omar Bakri, Al-Masari, Abu Qatada et al. It is a grubby smear to cover up the grubby and evil creed of political correctness.

The English are perfectly entitled to demand that their nationhood and nationality is respected, and have every right to object to the manner in which they have been denied that. They have every right to object to the scale of the subsidies which they are having to pay to Wales and Scotland, and the rigged constitution which allows Welsh and Scottish MPs to continue to vote on English affairs.

The English are perfectly entitled to be consulted about these matters, and are perfectly entitled to their own parliament.

Mr Cable can keep his grubby little smears to himself.

IMMIGRATION

Labour has got itself into a muddle over the issue of forced marriages.

Having originally signalled [and spun] that they were minded to make forced marriages illegal, they are now backpedalling. Instead, they have launched a 3 month consultation exercise. The consultation document is entitled: ‘Forced Marriage - a wrong not a right’.

Baroness Scotland, a Labour nouveau toff and Home Office Minister, said:

‘We will not introduce a new offence unless we are sure that it is the right way forward and that any risks can be properly and effectively managed’.

She described the problem as ‘a very sensitive issue with no clear or easy answers’.

The consultation document states that the new offence would ‘disproportionately impact upon black and minority ethnic communities and might be misinterpreted as an attack on those communities’.

However, Ann Cryer, the Labour MP for Keighley and who dealt with 240 women who were involved in forced marriages last year, said:

‘We have reached the point at which I don’t know why we are tolerating it. If these were white girls being whisked off, we wouldn’t stand for it.’

It is arranged marriages that are the problem. There is no religion or custom which dictates that immigrant communities living in Britain must arrange marriages for their children with others overseas. This is merely a habit.

The problem with trying to target forced marriages is that it puts the onus on the victim to complain about their family and new spouse when the result could well be physical violence.

The practice of honour killings has now been introduced to the UK.

The government should no longer allow arranged marriages to enable immigration into the UK. Those who gain a foreign spouse via an arranged marriage should live overseas. That would remove the incentive for such marriages to be a means of immigration into the UK.

Those who wish to arrange marriages for their children, can arrange such marriages with others from the immigrant communities already here.

To allow the continuation of arranged marriages as a means of enabling further immigration, not only facilitates forced marriages and the accompanying misery and violence, but also prevents the immigrant communities from integrating.

NATIONHOOD AND NATIONALITY

Sir Gulam Noon, a leading British Muslim and Labour donor, has recently told those Muslims who refuse to embrace British traditions to: ‘go back to whatever you regard as your home country and leave us in peace’.

Sir Gulam, further pointed out that:

‘We are relative newcomers to a community with a long tradition of liberal democracy. If immigrants do not like that, the answer is simple. Get out.’

Sir Gulam added:

‘I dearly want to see Muslims in my chosen country thriving as part of an integrated, intelligent, vibrant society. That means affirming our nationality as British but our religion as Muslim. It also means escaping our ghettos and assimilating fully into society.’

The Tory MP, Gerald Howarth, made similar comments a month ago. In reference to the 3,000 odd Muslims who, according to the former police chief Lord Stevens, had undergone terrorist training, Mr Howarth said:

‘We can’t compromise with these people. Those who are brought up in this country - born, bred and educated in Britain, but despise everything we stand for, despise our values, loathe our country and do not show it any allegiance - I’m sure we are better off without them. Go and find somewhere else to live. I stand by that.

Quite clearly, we have got to try to work with this disaffected youth, but the ones for whom there is no compromise - if that’s their attitude, perhaps they should go and find another country where they would feel more at home.’

Mr Howarth’s comments provoked protests from all the usual quarters, although Sir Gulam Noon’s comments did not. One cannot imagine why.

The problem is far worse than has been previously recognised. The Home Office’s own figures reveal that 26% of British Muslims feel no loyalty to Britain; 13% defend terrorism; and 1% are either involved in or support terrorist activity here and abroad.

Given that the Muslim population is at least 1.6million, then 1% is 16,000.

It should not be the case that those who advocate, support, participate in and excuse terrorism have the option to leave, and that if they do not, then the English will just have to be killed and bombed regardless.

This is our country and we have nowhere else to go.

Those from the immigrant communities who continue to advocate, support, participate in and excuse terrorism should be deported whether they like it or not.

THE NEED FOR AN ENGLISH PARLIAMENT

Lord Kinnock, ex-EU president [and still in receipt of an EU income], nouveau toff and now chairman of the British Council, has claimed that there is a danger of ‘enmity’ between the different parts of the Britain.

He said:

‘What continues to concern me is not decentralisation of effective administrative and executive power but the fear, and the fear still exists, of the fragmentation of the United Kingdom and the possibility of enmity growing out of it.

Unless there is a general pattern of decentralisation throughout the whole of the United Kingdom, the possibility of tensions, misunderstandings, even antagonisms between the different parts of the United Kingdom, continues.’

Lord Kinnock was speaking at the Scotland’s ‘Festival of Politics’ at the Scottish parliament.

Lord Kinnock has already stated that he will campaign for a ‘No’ vote in the event of a second referendum for more devolution in Wales.

Presently, Peter Hain is opposed to another referendum, even though the White Paper, Better Governance for Wales, includes proposals for one.

A Government of Wales [Amendment] Bill is due to be introduced in parliament later this year. It will propose the fast-tracking of Welsh legislation through Westminster, but does not propose the introduction of law-making powers for the Welsh Assembly.

The Tory Shadow Welsh Secretary, Bill Wiggin, agreed with Lord Kinnock and warned that there were major concerns about the delivery of those public services for which the Welsh parliament is responsible.

But Plaid Cymru’s Shadow Social Justice Minister, Leanne Wood, condemned Lord Kinnock for being an ‘unreconstructed anti-devolutionist’. She said that:

‘We deserve equality with England and Scotland. Equality will not create enmity but the current unequal devolution settlement could. It is giving Wales a second class institution that creates resentment not the devolution process itself.

We want a parliament for Wales that can deliver real change for its people, not a talking shop Assembly which serves nobody except New Labour.’

This is all very well, but the English do not have a parliament of any description, whereas the Scottish parliament has substantial autonomy. Leanne Wood seems not to appreciate this fact when she starts calling for ‘equality with England and Scotland’.

The only point of view that Lord Kinnock can see is his own. It is not for him to decide whether or not the English have their own parliament. He is Welsh. He takes no consideration at all of this in his comments.

The manner in which the English are being denied their own parliament and are being exploited as a milch cow by Labour, is much more likely to cause enmity than a second devolution referendum in Wales.

This all demonstrates that the current constitutional settlement between Scotland, Wales and England is untenable. The English need their own referendum to determine their own future.

THE EU

Never ones to miss a chance at bureaucratic empire building, the EU has decided yet again to meddle with the rules for immigration of individual member states. In particular, the EU is keen to place restrictions on countries’ abilities to deport illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers.

Calling for common rules for the deportation of illegal immigrants, EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini said that the EU needed ‘coherent, efficient and credible’ common EU-standards immigration and asylum rules.

If accepted, the proposals would:

- Limit the temporary custody of illegal immigrants to 6 months

- Give a third-country national facing deportation the right to appeal

- Prevent the return of anyone, including terror suspects, to countries where they might face torture

- Allow individual member states to ban people, deported for security reasons, from re-entering any of the 25 EU states for a minimum of 5 years [after which time, presumably, it is OK for them to come back and carry on from where they left off].

Since the first 3 items listed above, in addition to our own existing impediments to the deportation of illegal immigrants, would make deportation highly unlikely, the rule about those deported ‘for security reasons’ not being allowed to re-enter any EU country is worthless.

Our own procedures for processing the claims of so-called asylum seekers is taking far longer than 6 months, which means that the restriction on length of detention will effectively allow anyone to enter this country freely.

The commission further advocated the principle of voluntary return by establishing a general rule that a ‘period for departure’ should normally be granted, only after which a removal order should be issued and executed. This of course assumes that the illegal immigrant is still conveniently residing at the same address and has not absconded.

Mr Frattini said that measures were ‘balanced’ and guaranteed illegal immigrants legal entity, while at the same time counteracting ‘popular scepticism’. The commissioner also suggested that immigrants swear an oath ‘of faithfulness’ to European values:

‘One can get every immigrant to somehow declare they will respect national law, EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights...I personally feel it is something worth exploring at European level.’

Needless to say, a coalition of the usual pro-mass immigration groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have attacked the notion that illegal immigrants should be detained and deported:

‘Detention of irregular migrants should not be a systematic part of any common asylum policy in Europe: alternatives to detention should always be the absolute exception and last resort, and persons belonging to vulnerable categories should never be detained.’

The control of the UK’s borders is a matter for the UK government and no one else. Any proposals to reintroduce the concept of immigration control to the UK should most definitely not be ‘balanced’ as between the rights of illegal immigrants and the national interest. The national interest comes first.

Illegal immigrants have no right to enter our country.

THE LOONY LEFT

A teenage thug, who had been ordered to stop wearing hooded tops and baseball caps [which he had used to hide his identity on his crime sprees], has had the ban overturned. His lawyers successfully argued that his human right to ‘personal development’ was being breached.

The order had been included in an Anti-Social Behaviour Order.

The teenager who had caused a crime wave in Portsmouth will presumably now feel free to express himself and develop his criminal lifestyle.