May 11, 2006: The Betrayal of London's East End vs. The Betrayal of Canada
PRESS RELEASE
“Betrayal” and “treason” are strong words often attributed only to those who deliver their countries or important historical figures into the hands of hostile countries or who fail to perform major national (or regional) duties entrusted to them. But as Sir Andrew Green (retired ambassador and Head of Britain's Migration Watch U.K.) points out, the words can be used when referring to the actions of a host of elected and non-elected British officials, multiculturalists, diversity promoters, immigration advocates, and the BBC. Mr. Green states that all of these people clearly failed to stand up for the long-term residents of London's East End. And as he makes clear, these people have done the same thing to the long-term residents of many other areas of Britain.
In a review of “The New East End”, a new book which examines the effect of mass immigration on the people of London's East End, Mr. Green explains how a number of British groups systematically betrayed the interests of their own citizens. When these enraged citizens spoke out about the treatment accorded them, elected officials, immigration advocates, the BBC (supposedly the national broadcaster entrusted with truthfully presenting issues confronting its own citizens), and other media either ignored them, treated them with contempt or acted as if the interests of immigrants took precedence over those of long-term British citizens.
Immigration Watch Canada provides a summary of Mr. Green's review which he titled, “Betrayal of Brick Lane”. Needless to say, it is clear that a number of Canadian elected officials, bureaucrats, immigration advocates and our own national broadcaster are guilty of the same betrayal which Sir Anthony Green and “The New East End” describe.
Here are major points Mr. Green makes in his review:
(1) Naive multiculturalism and mass immigration for 30 years have made the white working class of London's East End pay a heavy price.
(2) The long-term Cockney population has had to compete for scarce resources such as housing, education and benefits with immigrant Bangladeshis. The conflict in London's East End has occurred in many other British cities.
(3) Following up on the influential “Families and Kinship” , a sociological study written in the 1950's about the tight family bonds among the people in London's East End, the Young Foundation (a British think tank on social issues) returned to the East End to re-examine the family bonds there. They came to the conclusion that many of the bonds had been destroyed.
(4) One of the reasons for the destruction had been a change in policy on scarce Council (social) housing in the early 1970's. Traditional housing policy had given housing priority to those on a waiting list, but the new policy gave preference to those in “need”. This had occurred because Bangladeshi immigrants, who were not supposed to be allowed into Britain unless they could demonstrate their relatives would provide housing for them, made use of a legal technicality which gave them resident status after they had been in Britain for a year. To get immediate attention for housing, they moved out of their accomodation with relatives and declared themselves homeless and “in need”. Suddenly, they received the housing that long-term East Enders (who had been waiting in line) believed was rightly theirs. This change enraged the long-term residents and forced many of them to move out of the area.
(5) Long-term East Enders had been traditionally more interested in manual work than in education, but soon found themselves also competing with the Bangladeshis for scarce educational resources. Gradually, as a result of high immigration inflows, Bangladeshis outnumbered children of long-term East Enders in schools. Not wanting their children to be a minority in their own schools, the remaining East Enders put their children in non-ethnic Roman Catholic schools or moved out of the East End.
(6) As a result of their experiences with housing and education, many long-term East Enders felt that a part of their country had been taken away from them and given to people from other countries. They believed they had been isolated from their own roots and felt like strangers in their own country.
(7) Commenting on the mass inflow of hundreds of thousands of immigrants into London and many other parts of the U.K, Mr. Green observes: “No society can integrate immigrants at such a pace. We are simply building up problems for the future. It is the failure of integration that this (book) highlights and it is this failure which holds serious dangers for our society.” Referring to the London bombings, Mr. Green comments: “Perhaps it should not have come as quite such a shock that volunteers could be found to conduct suicide attacks against civilian targets in Britain.”
(8) Mr. Green carefully notes that a recent BBC news item on the book deliberately omitted any use of the word “immigration” and distorted the contents of the book. Mr. Green feels the BBC has failed to deal realistically with the immigration issue in this and many other instances and has effectively betrayed its duty as Britain's public service broadcaster.
(9) It and other institutions have to “make the link between the scale of immigration and our success or otherwise in achieving integration”. In 2004, Britain allowed over 300,000 immigrants. This was 3 times the number the Labour government was admitting at the beginning of its term.
(10) Speaking about the perpetuation of separate ethnic enclaves, Mr Green observes: “Large numbers of second and even third generation immigrants are bringing wives and husbands from their country of origin, rather than choosing partners from their own immigrant communities or the wider population. The effect of allowing immigration for this purpose is to set back integration by a generation. It is time to move on in the longer term interests of society as a whole.”
(11) Mr. Green concludes: “In a recent speech Gordon Brown told us that British Muslims are twice as likely to be jobless, twice as likely to be on low incomes and twice as likely to live in a deprived area. He called for greater focus on tackling these inequalities. Indeed so. But part of that focus must be to avoid an already struggling community being continually increased by immigrants who speak little English, are often poorly educated and ignorant of British culture.The conflict and resentment this breeds is now clearly set out before us.”
Canadians can clearly see that many of the things “The New East End” observes are also occurring in Canada and that the scale of betrayal here is as great or greater than in the U.K.
END OF PRESS RELEASE
NOTE:
Sir Andrew Green's complete essay is available on the Migration Watch U.K. website www.MigrationWatchUK.org or in the “News Articles–British” section of the Immigration Watch Canada web site: www.ImmigrationWatchCanada.org
An excellent American article, “The Rape Of The Working Class”, also on this topic, is available at www.makethemaccountable.com or on the Immigration Watch web site “News Articles–American” section
at www.ImmigrationWatchCanada.org
