“Those who God wishes to destroy he first makes mad” is incorrectly attributed to Euripides but has been used by many writers in the past. I quote it now because for me it just about sums up the lunacy of the actions of successive British governments, beginning with Blair in 1997, with regard to mass immigration. What, other than insanity, can be behind the active destruction of British culture and the British way of life that will be the inevitable consequence of uncontrolled mass immigration where the much-vaunted multiculturalism idolised by the Left has demonstrably failed?
The point has been made by me to anyone who’ll listen, and by the leading lights of Reform UK (Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Ben Habib, et al), that mass immigration is having a devastating effect on the country in terms of the huge and unsustainable pressures exerted on the Health Service, on Schools, on Housing, on Transport, etc., but not much has been said about its effect on British culture and the British way of life. It’s about time this existential threat is brought out of the shadows into the light and fully debated.
Over hundreds of years, Britain has rightly been a welcoming haven to many persecuted peoples. Oft quoted are the Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in 16th century France, European Jews fleeing the horrors of Nazism in the 1930’s, Ugandan Asians heartlessly deported by Idi Amin in the 1960’s, and, more recently, Hong Kongers escaping the authoritarian grip of Beijing and Ukrainians fleeing death and destruction. What do these disparate groups have in common? Most obviously an imperative to escape persecution and, in some cases, the certainty of violent death. Literally, a life and death choice, but in addition they were all willing to become active participants in and contributors to British society and culture, starting by learning the English language. Being “assimilated” into the host culture doesn’t mean, for example, giving up cherished religious practices or social customs, but it does mean learning about the country that has provided safety and tolerance, being willing to play a full part in the established society and not undermine it through isolationism. Is this too much to ask?
Unfortunately, what we now have is the absolute anathema of the ghettoisation of neighbourhoods in a number of towns and cities where there has been no attempt to learn, understand and accommodate British culture, and where, indeed, there has been no attempt to even learn the language. This sad and wholly unacceptable state of affairs was recently made plain by the shocking scenes in the Midlands where rival gangs from different ethnic communities have fought running battles on the streets in furtherance of their imported animosities.
Free speech is one of the keystones of our democracy and must be defended wherever and whenever it is challenged. The absolute priority for free speech was the principal reason why the statutory and common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 and in Scotland in 2021. Without these changes in the law great intellectuals such as Professor Richard Dawkins who wrote the acclaimed (and much criticised) “The God Delusion” would have been open to prosecution by religious zealots, however unlikely that might be in practice. However, a very strict and uncompromising de facto blasphemy law exists in Britain today with regard to Islam. The laws of the United Kingdom should apply equally to all citizens. Why is this exceptionalism not being addressed?
*Quos Deus vult perdere. prius dementat (literally: Those who God wishes to destroy he first deprives of reason).