UK: too late to speak the truth about immigration

September 2007, Minette Marrin, Times Online

In our repressive world of thoughtcrime and guiltspeak, it now takes great courage to tell the truth, even when it’s obvious. Fortunately there are a few brave people prepared to do it, and Julie Spence, the chief constable of Cambridgeshire, is one of them. Last week she courageously said the unsayable and pointed out that the large numbers of recent immigrants are causing serious problems in her manor.

Dangerous crime, such as drink driving, human trafficking, credit card fraud and knife crime, has gone up substantially and her officers are now having to deal with people speaking nearly 100 different foreign languages. The cost in translation fees for Cambridgeshire is close to £1m a year ...

What she has made clear is blindingly obvious - a large and sudden influx of immigrants, whatever advantages they might bring, will inevitably come at very great cost, in many different ways. What’s true of Cambridgeshire is true of the country as a whole, and not just in policing. How strange it is, and how late, that it is beginning to be possible to say such a thing without being denounced as a neo-Nazi.

The Labour government, in its 10 years of office, has allowed more than a million new people from all over the world to settle in this country. That is little short of a social revolution ...

If the broken society means anything, it means one in which the civil bonds between individuals, their families, their neighbours and their institutions are seriously damaged. It’s perfectly obvious that multiculturalism was bound to sever the ties that bind; too much diversity means not enough solidarity, and a broken society, as we have seen, and will see more. The babel and bedlam of Damilola Taylor’s estate in Peckham is a terrible example.

Even Trevor Phillips has now spoken of sleepwalking to segregation and even his own outfit, the Commission for Racial Equality (soon to become the Commission for Equality and Human Rights), published a grim and angry report last week about a “fracturing” society, growing ethnic segregation and growing extremism ...

It is “vital”, he said, “to consider the social impact of immigration when making migration decisions.”

Indeed it is vital, and was vital 10 years ago, and 30 years ago, when all governments, especially his, failed to do so. And it’s laughable for him to talk about some damned “forum” on the impact of “migrants”; some proper research should have been devoted to it in 1997 ...

It is shocking that this massive, historic change was forced upon us without consultation and without our consent.

Who wanted it? Who is responsible for it? And why? In casting about for an answer, perhaps it’s worth considering the Mori survey into black and ethnic minority attitudes to voting and to politics at the 2005 general election. Of those who voted, 58% chose Labour, 10% Conservative. I hope that isn’t a thoughtcrime.

Listen and learn all ye critics of Kevin Andrews.