QUOTE OF THE MONTH [bonus]

‘Which brings us to the European Union.

The EU tried to use 9/11 for a massive power grab over immigration, the creation of a European public prosecutor, the European arrest warrant, expansion of Europol, the introduction of corpus juris, the abolition of common law rights against the power of the state, and introduction of a new and unheard category of ‘crimes against the Union’.

A beneficial crisis if ever there was one. As one British lib-dim put it “bin Laden has done more for European integration than anyone since Jacques Delors”.

Five years later, and the French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy proposes that all member states’ national governments should surrender to Brussels their few remaining powers to make decisions on asylum seekers.

The EU’s enthusiasm for mass migration is undimmed. In July the Commission announced with some pomp that it had decided to create a “common response” to the “common challenge” on immigration. It said it was committed to ensuring that “the fundamental rights of migrants and refugees are respected and that migrants in host countries are able to benefit from a mutual process of adaptation and integration”.

Bullshit. What about the rights of those of us expected to put up with all this nonsense? In any case, I don’t recall ever being asked if I approved of all this.

Were you?’

Ashley Mote MEP, speaking at a recent conference entitled The Making and Meaning of Britishness, organised by the Right Now magazine.

The full speech is below:

We Want Our Country Back

By Ashley Mote MEP

Independent, South-East England

We want our country back.

But is anybody listening?

Since Blair came to power, more than one million foreigners have come to live in the UK, despite applications for asylum going down.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have been invaded – and we have let it happen.

Britain is now experiencing a form of collective madness. Could we ever have imagined we would hear a minister of the crown – in this case Ruth Kelly – saying in all seriousness that women wearing the veil should be seen more on television, presumably reading the news.

Then, within days, we hear from another member of our dyslexic, dysfunctional, disorganised, disgraceful, nauseating cabinet – Jack Straw, our previously invisible foreign secretary – that Muslim women should take their veils off.

Is it any wonder this country is in such a mess over immigration – multiculturalism – tolerance – national identity and supposed integration? No-one in government is prepared to face up to the facts….no-one since 40-odd years ago, when these problems began.

Great Britain is unrecognisable from 40 years ago. Look at any film made before – say – 1965 and the differences are stark, horrifying, and entirely for the worse.

What started as a trickle of immigrants from the West Indies has become a flood tide from virtually the whole world.

Yes, many thousands of newcomers have contributed to our society – integrated – spawned children born British - become British themselves. Most came here speaking English with at least some idea of the anglo-saxon way of doing things.

But not any more. The EU has seen to that.

You don’t need me to dwell on the consequences. In recent years…

- We have been importing crime, disease and poverty as well as skills and talent.

- More than one in ten criminals in our jails were born elsewhere

- Tens of thousands more in our prisons were born in the UK to migrants (a fact conveniently forgotten by the Home Office when it finally got around to releasing the figures.)

We endure…

- Severe overcrowding in our towns and cities, in our schools and hospitals, on the roads

- Appallingly poor education for tens of thousands of children

- Vicious gangs of youth on the street

- Hospitals logged-jammed with imported long-term illnesses – specially Aids and TB

- Huge additional burdens on public services and the welfare state

- Housing shortages

- Depressed wages at the bottom end of the market

And…

- Our natural resources running out – particularly water and power, and particularly in the south-east.

In a phrase – Britain Is Full

In fact, we were full long ago. Some demographers have suggested the ideal sustainable population of the UK is some 30 million – a figure passed almost 100 years ago.

Just imagine if every other car on the roads suddenly disappeared…every other passer-by wasn’t there.

Alternatively, just imagine the uproar when we all have to queue at standpipes in the road just to get a cup of tea or a shower. Only last week Londoners were advised to move out to reduce demand for resources, they are already so serious.

But we know all that…

My focus today is on the recent devastating problem to emerge from this flood tide of immigration – the link between Islam and terrorism.

I want to look at its impact on the UK. Mr Blair and his wimps won’t face it. David Cameron has been distinctly quiet on it – surprise, surprise! So its up to us, ordinary people who care about preserving all that is best in Britain, to grasp the nettle.

Let’s start with a few facts…and we have to start with Islam

I am not going to generalise about Muslims, of course not. Most are peaceable, hard-working contributors to society. No, I am talking about the fact that – within their midst – there is a hard core of revolutionaries who are anything but peaceable contributors to society.

They have mounted a war against our country. Enemy guerrillas are operating within our gates.

And we are not facing a war against terror. This is a war of religion. We are back to the dark ages. We are being obliged to defend ourselves against alien beliefs and ideas that others want to impose on us. They claim a God-given right to enforce their beliefs on us by mass murder.

Where we use secular government, and freedom of thought, as pillars supporting a peaceable society, Islamists claim law and government are exclusively in the hands of God. More precisely that means fallible human beings who presume to act for God – or Allah, as they prefer.

Such claims are utterly absurd to a rational western mind. Such beliefs cannot reasonably be discussed with anyone.

But, even the threat such fanatics represent is destabilising our society here and in other parts of the world, precisely because they are fanatics and regard death in their cause as glorious.

Just look at their record:

Since the turn of the century they have murdered some 3000 innocent people in New York…200 innocent tourists in Bali…333 children and their teachers in Beslan,…292 people, mainly Africans, in two US embassies…300 French and American peacekeepers in Lebanon…52 innocent travellers in London, 191 in Madrid…and 200 in Bombay.

Then there’s the half a million killed in Darfur, the 4000 Katyusha rockets fired into northern Israel, ritual be-headings of hostages in Iraq, of monks in Thailand and Christian girls in Indonesia.

Muslims stone their own women-folk to death without the slightest pretence of administering what might be regarded as even basic justice.

They hurl the foulest of insults at Jews and vow to wipe Israel off the map, if possible with nuclear weapons.

The list is awesome. Since 9/11, Muslim fanatics have slaughtered over 26,000 people, and wounded over 50,000 more in nearly 6000 separate attacks in more than 50 countries.

Then, when the Pope refers to an old text pointing out the murderous habits of Islam he finds himself vilified to the point that his office issues an apology. Pathetic.

Some may say I’m over-stating the link with terrorism. But am I? It wasn’t a bunch of Scottish rugby players who flew into the twin towers. It wasn’t a Welsh choir who blew up the London tube stations. It wasn’t Irish navvies – nor, for that matter, Spanish farmers - who detonated the train in Madrid.

It wasn’t Hindus or Sikhs, or the Japanese either.

So when the self-appointed, self-important secretary general of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, as these busy-bodies choose to call themselves, Muhammad Abdul Bari next complains about what he calls “Islamophobia”, he needs to remember these incontrovertible facts.

He also needs to explain why he can say in almost the same breath that Britain is the best place to practise the Islamic faith, and then claim that there are potentially two million home-grown Muslim terrorists in the UK.

Inflammatory, yes, but not as inflammatory as his colleague Abu Bashir, who boasts that Allah has decreed Islam as the only religion allowed on earth. Mr Bashir says immigration is a revival of jihad and Muslim power over infidels. “Islam and jihad go together. One is the consequence of the other.”

He also told Al Jazeera television that “there is no democracy in Islam. Democracy must be replaced by allah-cracy. We want an Islamic state where Islamic law is not just in the book but enforced.”

Col. Gaddafi agrees with him. He told the same network that “Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe. There are 50 million Muslims in Europe already. They will turn it into a Muslim continent within three decades.”

Meanwhile, back in London, Dr Syed Aziz Pasha, secretary general of the Union of Muslim Organisations in the UK, has been calling for Islamic law to cover family affairs. Even Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, managed to point out that we have one legal system here and told Dr Pasha “if you want sharia law, live somewhere else.” The Muslim socialist peer Lord Ahmed agreed with him.

All of which makes the calls for moderation from the Muslim Council all the more unbelievable. We have yet to hear the two supporting statements needed to make these appeals credible.

First, that the Muslim community in the UK recognises that the problem is centred on their young impressionable men, and the imams who teach them…and that they will root them out quickly and with vigour. We can’t – they must.

Secondly, that Muslims are here as immigrants, come here to become a part of British society, and not as colonists to impose their way of life on us.

Mr Bari needs to stop encouraging Muslims not to vote in UK elections. He needs to stop claiming that the Muslim Council of Great Britain is their real government. He needs, perhaps, to remember that most Muslims would just like to lead a quiet life in a peaceful environment.

The BBC needs to stop giving air time to Muslim fanatics who rant on for 12 minutes demanding free speech for themselves but not for anyone else, who advocate mass murder and claim a monopoly of so-called religious insight. (Contrast that with the BBC’s omitting to mention in any news broadcast that net immigration had jumped by 50 per cent in the last year.)

When you add such isolationist attitudes to the terrorism issue, there is only one possible conclusion, and we have to say it out loud: Islam is the problem. We have to ask if there can ever be such a person as a British Muslim?

Perhaps we should remind these advocates of death and destruction, and the moderates who protect them, that a truly revolutionary Muslim would be one who sought to change these Islamic attitudes and beliefs. Little hope of that.

If things go on as they are, eventually we will face what effectively will be civil war – at least to the extent that the indigenous population will forcibly try to remove significant elements within the immigrant population

It might start with simple, lawful objectives like trying to remove and repatriate people who have overstayed, committed criminal offences, incited violence and so on. But it could spark a reaction which escalates all too quickly to urban warfare.

So we had better say it now – if you wish to establish Islamic law in the UK, our answer is – No you cannot. Furthermore, you have no place here. You are not welcome. Go and live where your life-style and religious beliefs are accepted.

There are good, long-standing reasons why we should make our reaction plain.

Enoch forecast trouble – others have said much the same.

Winston Churchill said “The influence of Islam ultimately paralyses the social development of those that follow it”.

Mrs Thatcher said – quite recently in Washington: “Stand firm against Islamist fanatics who hate our beliefs, our liberties and our citizens. We must not falter. We must not fail. We also need to renew our resolve that – however bitter or lengthy the struggle - this evil will not prevail”.

They were both right.

The only way a people retain control of their territory is by occupation. Allowing foreigners to take it over is tantamount to treason – which is probably why Blair quietly abolished the death penalty for treason.

Self-preservation is the most fundamental of human instincts. That, and a deep-seated desire to live in a group with common values, and a willingness to fight for its protection. Conflict over territory is nothing new. History suggests it is the norm.

Look a little deeper and you’ll find there is also good genetic justification for the parallel existence of distinct groups – protection of the species, survival of the fittest, hybrid vigour. Particularly in the case of humans, we can also add the development of the intellect.

As a racial type, for instance, we know that the Chinese are cleverer than Africans – indeed cleverer than most of us. HG Wells forecast where that eventually leads.

Which is why man has never tolerated large numbers of outsiders for long. Past experience suggests a state of neutral uncertainty is about the best that might emerge eventually. But not if one group attempts to overwhelm the other – which is what we have now, here in Britain.

The rapid creation of new countries from heterogeneous peoples by legal means is impossible. The communists in Russia discovered that, and right now the European Union is also discovering it.

As ever, it is ordinary people who suffer the upheaval and damaging consequences until these ill-founded experiments fail.

We are not impartial beings. We have strong natural tendencies to protect what is ours. Eventually instincts of survival overcome almost all challenges, however powerful and however apparently lawful.

At present we have left-wing busy-bodies trying to encourage massive migration from poor countries to the wealthy. But these busy-bodies have other, unspoken objectives – a dilution of national identities and the beginnings of a world super-state which the bureaucrats will dominate and from which there will be no escape.

That is why this current battle to preserve our country and our identity is crucial. Our only claim to the British Isles is that we are here. Our forebears settled and developed it. We now control it – at least for the moment – and we must defend it or lose it.

Such nationalism, in the best sense of the word, is not necessarily aggressive towards others. For established communities it should be essentially defensive. (Yes I know Iraq and Afghanistan embarrass that statement, but they are another issue and I don’t have time to deal with it today.)

What I am saying is that the nation is a natural unit for stability, and must be defended with courage and at all costs – whatever they may be.

Imposing our moral or cultural values on others is, or should be, unnecessary. But defending them from attack by hostile groups or individuals is essential.

That is the situation today. Even the same Trevor Philips admitted in July that immigration is changing the nation and is fundamentally different from all previous migrations to these islands.

Yet, never, ever, has any government included such fundamental change as part of its election manifesto. And never yet have we had a serious balanced debate in this country about the desirability or otherwise of immigration. The Refugee Council, the legion of lawyers making a good living from human rights for migrants, and politically correct do-gooders just shout “racist”. Rather than participate, their purpose is to prevent a serious discussion, and most of the time they succeed.

Meanwhile, our children are to be taught about “secure values and beliefs”, according to the new curriculum. Communism was a secure value. Homicidal Islam is a secure belief. Are we really so stupid as to encourage such nonsense in our own kith and kin?

What happened to teaching the differences between right and wrong, I ask?

We may be a free, open and liberal society, but that is no reason to allow our openness to be used to enforce illiberal practices. Quite the reverse. We have an absolute right to expect the active support for our way of life from those who choose to come and live here. We have an absolute right to expect them to defend what attracted them in the first place.

If, as we are told, the Muslim population makes up less than three per cent of the total, there is no way it can be allowed to hold a moral or actual gun to the head of the majority, still less attempt by moral outrage to veto government policy.

Which brings us to the European Union.

The EU tried to use 9/11 for a massive power grab over immigration, the creation of a European public prosecutor, the European arrest warrant, expansion of Europol, the introduction of corpus juris, the abolition of common law rights against the power of the state, and introduction of a new and unheard category of ‘crimes against the Union’.

A beneficial crisis if ever there was one. As one British lib-dim put it “bin Laden has done more for European integration than anyone since Jacques Delors”.

Five years later, and the French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy proposes that all member states’ national governments should surrender to Brussels their few remaining powers to make decisions on asylum seekers.

The EU’s enthusiasm for mass migration is undimmed. In July the Commission announced with some pomp that it had decided to create a “common response” to the “common challenge” on immigration. It said it was committed to ensuring that “the fundamental rights of migrants and refugees are respected and that migrants in host countries are able to benefit from a mutual process of adaptation and integration”.

Bullshit. What about the rights of those of us expected to put up with all this nonsense? In any case, I don’t recall ever being asked if I approved of all this.

Were you?

None of which prevented a recent parliamentary report arguing for “policies of welcome and integration…and secure citizenship, social and political rights for migrants throughout the Union”.

On the other hand, an attempt to persuade the Commission that “the mass regularisation of illegal immigrants is not a solution” and that “relaxing rules on immigration has a knock-on effect” were voted down by the centre right and socialist MEPs.

The EU’s own directive on migration allows all citizens of all member states to live and work anywhere they choose. Since enlargement less than two years ago parts of Eastern Europe have become empty quarters like that of Saudi Arabia – but for different reasons. Everybody has moved west – well, over 1.5 million have so far.

Indeed, the EU actively encouraged it, by – for example – limiting farm subsidies in Poland and rationalising Polish industry – both of which immediately put large numbers of Poles out of work.

Now, barely two years later, adverts in Polish and Lithuanian are appearing in British local papers begging their nationals to return home, the need for workers there has become so urgent. The Polish government is even releasing criminals early from jail because there are so many job vacancies.

Yet here local councils all over the country are struggling to find more money just to cope with housing, education and welfare demands for the latest influx from Eastern Europe. Others are paying migrants to go home.

None of which stopped our new minister for Europe, Geoff Hoon, from suggesting that immigration was a problem solved only at the European level.

Presumably he had not forgotten Bulgaria and Rumania when he said that. Tsar Kiro, leader of the 400,000-strong gypsy community in Bulgaria boasted recently that, once the borders are open next year, the huge Bulgaria problems of crime and corruption will be exported to the EU.

When this boast was put to the Commission by my colleague Robert Kilroy-Silk, the Commission replied that it was ‘monitoring developments’. So that’s all right then.

Robert also asked for the Commission to respond to the Turkish president’s recent claim that Islamic fundamentalism is reaching what he called ‘dramatic proportions’. So far he has not had a reply.

Given what happened after enlargement – when our government under-estimated migrants by some 3000 per cent – what are we to make of present estimates of over half a million Bulgarians and Rumanians planning to come here next year?

With average family earnings there of some £100 a month is it any surprise many thousands have secured passports already, and long queues form every day in the capital Sofia for passports and visas.

In next door Moldova and Macedonia another half a million people have already got Bulgarian passports so that they can migrate too. These ‘portable’ passports are freely available for less than £100, no questions asked. Rumania and Bulgaria might be the countries joining the EU, but Moldova and Macedonia will arrive at the same time via the back door.

And in the teeth of all this evidence, the British government announced earlier this month that it was planning to lift restrictions on numbers allowed in from the new member states.

So what else is the government’s response to all this? Stop wearing the veil!

The words Nero, Rome and burning spring to mind.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, in his quest to become prime minister, quietly disbands his hunt for released prisoners who should have been deported.

He announces, instead, that exit controls will be introduced by 2014…by which time the UK will have sunk under its own weight into the North Sea…and – in any case – the problem is not who leaves but who arrives.

Everywhere you look you see hopelessly inadequate responses by officialdom to real problems.

- Foreign criminals being paid to agree to serve their sentences at home

- Immigration Appeals Tribunals fiddle the books and their decisions.

- Migrants from Eastern Europe claiming child benefits for children they left behind.

- The head of the Church of England is obliged by political correctness pressures to allow Ramadan to be “celebrated” – if that is the right word – in Windsor Castle.

- Wounded soldiers back in British hospitals are attacked by Muslim visitors to the same wards

- Illegal migrants are allowed to work on the land by describing themselves as agricultural students.

- Schools that turned down local children are forced to find places for migrants who’ve just arrived

- Muslim chemists refuse medicine to British patients on religious grounds

- Villains use women’s veils to escape from police

- Imams buy houses while claiming benefit and legal aid

- Unskilled British workers are unable to find work at a fair hourly rate, despite their financial obligations, because the jobs have gone to migrants at rates often well below the minimum wage. (Now why would a Labour government allow that – it makes no sense.)

- British schoolchildren are unable to find work in the summer holidays for much the same reasons.

- Migrants are eligible for tax credits in the UK based on much lower previous earnings in their country of origin. This deprives the British exchequer of revenue properly due.

Then we come to some of the other facts and consequences.

Far more rapid population growth amongst migrants than indigenous people, according to reports from areas with high migrant populations.

According to Business magazine, a real out-of-work population of over five million, more than three times the official figure. This suggests either widespread abuse of the benefits system, massive government incompetence, or official deceit.

Some 12 per cent of children in British primary schools not speaking English as their mother tongue.

So what’s to be done? Some 75 per cent of the British, including those who migrated here originally, want much tougher controls. It will not be easy, but it has to be done. And if not now, when?

But however tough we need and want to be, that can’t happen until we leave the EU.

Then we can follow the example of the Australian government which has told migrants that they should leave if they cannot accept that Australia is a secular state and that all its laws are made by its elected parliament.

The education minister Brendon Nelson told Muslims who will not accept local values that they should “clear off.”. Another minister, Peter Costello, told reporters “Immigrants, not Australians, must adapt. Take it or leave it. This is our country, our land and our lifestyle. Take advantage of one other of our great Australian freedoms – the right to leave”.

I am never going to lead a great political party – but I have a few ideas about how we need to change things – and soon.

Restore our border controls.

No amnesty for illegals. Out. And out now.

Same with convicted criminals. And their families.

Encourage lawful migrants to return home

Overstays deported. New applications from outside the UK

All arrivals without papers or proper documents returned to their last place of safety.

No access to the benefits system. New arrivals must bring assets to support themselves.

Citizenship should be open to applicants who can demonstrate a real knowledge of British history, culture and traditions, and speak the language well.

English is our language. No translations provided by official sources with public money.

Abolish quangos dealing with racial issues.

Repeal the Human Rights Act, which is an EU invention and meaningless, and the Blair government’s statutes which weakened or destroyed our constitutional birthrights.

Abolish employment targets for minorities. Merit should be the reason for offering an applicant a job.

Restore the teaching of British constitutional history in schools.

Restore links with the British Commonwealth and restore the right of kith and kin to return to the UK.

Re-establish the difference between migration and genuine pleas for asylum.

That’s not an exhaustive list, but it is a start.

Such a policy is not isolationism, nor racism – whatever that is. It is realism.

Nor are we alone. We sometimes forget the French feel much the same about the invasion of their country. So do many Dutch, Danes, Swedes and others – even the Germans.

The Swiss control their borders, so do the Japanese, the Australians…and the Saudis, lets not forget!

So should we.

The British are an outward-looking people, happy to befriend our neighbours.

London is one of the great cities of the world, happy to welcome visitors from all parts of the globe.

Britain is a global trading nation, happy to do business with all.

But we are British…and that’s the way it should remain.

That means being masters in our own house.

(ends)