Dette har ført til såkalt ”white flight”, et fenomen som nærmest fungerer som bensin over den demografiske bomben. Samtidig som 710 000 innvandrere kom til Storbritannia i 2007 (574 000 i 2006), valgte mer 200 000 etniske briter å forlate landet. De fleste av de som drar, er høykvalifiserte arbeidere som har større tro på fremtiden i Canada eller USA. Undersøkelser viser at deres motiver for å forlate sitt hjemland har en fellesnevner: hverdagslivet i Storbritannia er mange steder blitt uutholdelig. Lokalsamfunnene fragmenteres av etniske motsetninger og raseres av lovløshet.
Now, at last, after the first major inquiry of its kind in this country, our view has been endorsed by the considered verdict of one of the most heavyweight committees of Parliament, including, as it does, two former Chancellors, a former Governor of the Bank of England, and several distinguished economists as well as captains of industry and finance.
The committee’s findings are devastating. The report takes each of the arguments that the Government has been putting forward for years, and tears them to shreds one by one. It is a watershed in the debate on immigration.
Most pertinently, the Government’s key claim that immigration increases Britain’s overall gross domestic product (GDP) is dismissed as «irrelevant and misleading» – even though, as the report points out, it is a claim that has been «persistently emphasised».
Far from focusing on GDP, the report says, the real issue is whether immigration has boosted income per head of population; and concludes that the effects on per capita income are «very small, whether positive or negative».
So if the Government’s principal argument in favour of unprecedented immigration – namely that it has made us individually richer – is found to be disingenuous, how can it justify the extra 2.5 million immigrants it has permitted to enter Britain on its watch? Particularly in the light of the all-too-evident strains on public services that this influx has caused.
Heller ikke argumentet om at innvandringen sikrer britenes pensjoner holder vann:
How about the Government’s claim that, because we are an ageing population, we need immigrants to provide the wealth that will pay our pensions?
This, too, is dismissed with contempt. It «does not stand up to scrutiny,» says the report, for a reason that should be obvious to the Government: namely that immigrants themselves grow old and draw pensions.
Overhusets rapport er intet mindre enn knusende, hevder Sir Andrew Green, og dens funn bidrar til å kaste tvil over ærligheten ved de motiver som har drevet frem den liberale innvanndringspolitikken, tross velbegrunnede advarsler:
Taking the report as a whole, it is hard to imagine a more comprehensive demolition of the Government’s case for massive levels of immigration – a policy pursued in the face of deep public concern.
Why then has it taken so long to blow these false government claims out of the water?
Part of the answer lies in a widespread reluctance even to discuss immigration.
A recent Newsnight poll of white British adults found that 77 per cent felt that they could not criticise immigration without being labelled racist. Times are now changing, thank goodness, but the multicultural enthusiasts have had it all their own way for far too long.
Why has the Government continued to pursue its immigration policy when it must have known that it was deeply flawed?
Some ministers may have believed their own propaganda on multiculturalism. Others, notably Gordon Brown at the Treasury, were keen to see impressive economic growth figures (yes, Britain’s GDP does improve with increased immigration but, as the committee itself pointed out, not income per head). And, of course, it helps to keep inflation down to have a ready supply of cheap labour from overseas.
Furthermore, the importation of skills covered up the Government’s own failures over the education and training of Britain’s workforce.
One has to ask, too, whether there could be a political aspect. Immigrant communities are predominantly Labour voters. If they had all been budding Conservatives, one wonders whether the situation would have been allowed to continue for so long.
Kommentatoren Simon Heffer i the Daily Telegraph bruker enda hardere skyts, og i dagens avis fremmer han påstanden: ”Labour er ondskapsfulle, ikke inkompetente”; Labour is malignant, not incompetent. Heffer er hard i tonen, men analysen er skarp. Han hevder at labour-regjeringen bevisst har trumfet igjennom et marxistisk-inspirert, ideologisk program, uten hensyn til dets praktiske og etiske konsekvenser.
Despite the sheen of reason that Gordon Brown and, before him, Tony Blair and their chums have sought to put on all they do, this Government has had dark motives from the start.
It has followed policies deliberately that have enabled it to pursue its own political agenda – and this has always been a deeply politically motivated government in the way that Lady Thatcher’s was, and that John Major’s wasn’t – and irrespective of some of the dire consequences that might flow from those policies.
The element of deliberation and deliberateness in what Labour has done makes an accusation of incompetence, or carelessness, seem wide of the mark. Things were meant to be this way.
Labour has pursued policies, be they social or economic, for ideological reasons: and when they fail, as so many have, it has not been because of slipshod administration. It is because that was how things were always going to work out.
I mention this in the specific context of the House of Lords report on the benefits – or lack of them – of mass immigration. The theory applies, however, to much else, immediate or not.
Ambisjonene på vegne av den post-nasjonale, multikulturelle ideologien, har vært koblet med en hensynsløs kynisme, hevder Heffer:
So now, confronted with hard evidence that immigrants add a matter of pence each to our economic growth, while putting impossible strains on housing, transport and social services (and particularly in the south-east of England), Labour has to find excuses.
The results of this only become apparent when the halfwits produced go out and try to run something, such as getting our railways repaired on time, or even Terminal 5.
Mr Brown also had a policy of making fathers redundant in families, by downgrading the state’s respect for marriage, and providing a career structure for single mothers that included state-provided childcare.