When bishops and archbishops speak about migration it always hits the headlines—and never ends well.
In 2016, Justin Welby got into trouble when he said that it was quite reasonable to ‘fear’ the consequences of mass migration.
There is a tendency to say ‘those people are racist’, which is just outrageous, absolutely outrageous.
But in 2023, he got into trouble in the opposite direction, when he said that Government plan to crack down on illegal immigration were ‘morally unacceptable and politically impractical.’ Different comment; same result. (Incidentally, it is fascinating to note the quite radical change in his position on this in a ‘liberal’ direction over the same time period of his change in his views on same-sex marriage.)
Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, has dived into the issue, as has Steven Croft, bishop of Oxford, with criticisms of Nigel Farage’s plans to deport illegal migrants.
In an interview with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Stephen called Farage’s approach a ‘isolationist, knee-jerk response’ which ‘will not solve the problem’. The first part of the interview focused on child poverty, but it then moved to the question of migration, and the Reform policy, and Cottrell seemed happy to talk about it.
And this, I think, it where the problems began.
The gospel is not political, in the sense that it is not merely about changes or challenges to politics or policy—but it has clear political implications. So it should not surprise us when Christian leaders comment on political issues. But when they do, I look for three things: that they are well informed; that they are theologically grounded; and that they are pastorally helpful. I am not sure that Stephen Cottrell’s comments met any of these tests.
Migration is a massive issue in Britain, and has been for many years. Legal migration has been at very high levels for at least the last 20 years, reaching the unprecedented record of over 900,000 in 2023. One in six people in England and Wales was not born here, and as migrants tend to be younger and have more children, the impact on schools is massive. 40% of primary age children have at least one foreign-born parent; for 20%, English is not their first language. (Note that these statistics are easily accessible from official sources, but they are rarely aired in the debate—or when they are, those who mention them are often criticised as being ‘right wing’. It is odd to think that the citing of facts should have a political identity.)
You cannot have that level of change in a country without it having an impact. And successive governments have failed to address the issues it raises. It has been claimed that this has been necessary because of a skills gap—but that gap has been created by a failure of policy. 26% of NHS doctors are trained abroad, because the government has, for years, set a cap on university places for medicine which is too low to meet the training needs of the NHS.
From my experience as a governor of the secondary school that our children attended, it seems to me that our schools’ education policy appears to be ‘Do whatever you want’ rather than ‘Train to do the jobs that need doing’. This is both a serious issue in terms of policy—but it is also something into which Christian theology speaks, because it makes assumptions about what education is for, and what it means to be a mature adult in the world, that is, it makes large assumptions about anthropology, what is means to be human.
The main values in education appears to be ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’ in the context of a competitive jobs market—and so universities are under pressure to calculate the monetary value of their degrees in terms of career earnings. These things assume that humans are autonomous units of consumption in a competitive world, rather than people in community, made by God with gifts and abilities to be used in the service of others. And a key missing piece here is the Christian idea of ‘vocation’, that the gifts and abilities we have might be used to develop skills which will serve others and contribute to social well-being.
This might sound like a deviation from the question of migration—but it cannot be detached from it, since ‘skills shortages’ or ‘job vacancies’ are both the reason given for justifying migration in the debate, and also offer the formal basis for criteria in assessing qualifications for legal migration.
The question of legal and ‘planned’ migration is the backdrop to the two other forms of migration—asylum seekers, and illegal migrants. To comment on any of these three issues, we need both to disentangle from the others, but also be aware of the impact each issue has on the other. People whose lives have been changed by ‘planned’ migration—and resent it—are going to respond to illegal migration in the light of that.
And illegal migration appears to be out of control. It has ballooned since 2020, so that there were as many illegal migrants in the last year (44,000) as there were total migrants in each year in the 1990s. For a political leader like Nigel Farage to say something drastic needs to be done can hardly be ‘knee jerk’.
And as the population has grown by 20% through legal migration, we have not built 20% more homes, we have not built 20% more hospitals, and we have not built 20% more schools. The policy has been uncoordinated and ill thought through.
And is it really moral to draw skilled and motivated workers from poorer countries that need them more? If Christian leaders have not considered this complexity of issues, commenting on specific political is walking into a minefield.
If Stephen’s analysis was thin, so was his theology. He reached for Jesus’ command ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, but we need to ask the same question Jesus was asked: who is my neighbour? How do we love our neighbour in our own street who is struggling to afford a home, and whose wages are depressed, because of the changes that mass migration has brought? This is not a question of narrow nationalism, and is not a ‘zero sum game’ in relation to the needs of others.
But it does require us to think about the role of government, and what is ‘the problem’ that Stephen thinks needs to be solved. Yes, there is a global crisis about migration, and our government needs to work with others to address that. But the first responsibility of any government is the security, safety, and welfare of its own citizens.
The vast majority of those crossing the channel by boats young men, motivated by the economic opportunities in the West, who have enough energy and resources to make the journey. And migrants are disproportionately represented in crime figures. You cannot love your neighbour without facing these challenging realities.
Underlying this (though it is not often made explicit) is the question: what does it mean for us to love those who live in other countries who do not enjoy the levels of material prosperity that we do? In answering that, we need to face at least three realities.
The first is that the assumption that what those in the developing world need more than anything else is more money and more things is to buy into the materialist and consumerist mindset of our culture. Visiting many of these places can offer a salutary lesson: many of them have great riches of culture, community, and tradition which makes the UK look distinctly impoverished.
The second is: to assume what others need is what we have, is a return to colonialism, and an impoverished version at that. There is, embedded in this, an inherent belief that Western lifestyles are not only what everyone wants but what everyone needs.
The third is a failure to think about what an economically unequal world actually needs. If we do have a desire to see wealth equality across different parts of the world, and we want that out of a love for our neighbour, rather than a mere imposition of our own values on them (and we think that this is economically and environmentally sustainable), how might that be attained? The evidence is that it is actually undermined by our sucking out of the talented, trained, and energetic from those countries—and it is helped by good trade relations. One of the things which is an embarrassment to tradition Christian ethics is that the thing which has reduced poverty in the developing world more than any other has not been development aid, but free-market economics and global trade networks.
What Stephen Cottrell appears to be confusing is the love that we might have for an individual from another country and culture, whom we meet as a neighbour as this person has already migrated here, and the love for the millions of others who have remained in their own country. The two issues are quite separate, and to suggest that ‘love for neighbour’ leads to a ‘liberal’ migration policy is to confuse these two issues, and to fail to engage with the real issues around global migration.
It is perfectly possible to commend love for our migrant neighbour whilst still arguing for a more restricted migration policy. I wonder why we have not heard that from any Christian leaders so far.
This lack of clear thinking here is illustrated by the actual causes of migration. Ten years ago, Fraser Nelson predicted that migration is going to become a big and long term issue for the West because of what is driving it—and his comments have been confirmed by events since then. The surprising thing is that the growth in migration is a result of the reduction in global poverty:
When a poor country becomes richer, its emigration rate rises until it becomes as wealthy as Albania or Armenia are today. This process usually takes decades, and only afterwards does wealth subdue emigration. War is a catalyst. If conflict strikes, and the country isn’t quite as poor as it once was, more of those affected now have the means to cross the world. The digital age means they also have the information.
What is remarkable, then, is that successive governments have so signally failed to respond to this challenge, and it is unsurprising that Nigel Farage’s comments suggesting radical action is needed have actually been welcomed by many.
The theological poverty of the responses of so many Christian leaders is illustrated in two comments I received from friends in previous discussion of these issues. One observed:
Compassion is the natural and human reaction, but fetishizing it as the ‘only legitimate response’ is unhelpful. The kneejerk of compassion is a very dangerous guide for policy in such cases, as it can easily encourage well-meaning approaches that exacerbate our problems. The most important response right now is one that avoids sentimentalism’s rush of mentally obfuscating feeling and devotes itself to the difficult task of level-headed deliberation about prudential and effective policy…
So much of the Christian reflection I have encountered on this subject has been remarkably poor, with lots of sentimentalism and virtue signaling, but remarkably little prudence and sensible deliberation. Facile WWJD style arguments almost invariably rely upon romanticized projections of our values onto Jesus, drawing upon highly selective prooftexting, rather than arising from rigorous exploration of relevant theological principles or from recognition of the difference between the good—the values that should inform our practice—and the right—the actual actions that we should prudentially take in light of the good.
And, in relation to the change in Justin Welby’s position I noted at the top, another comments on why this position is popular amongst some Christian leaders:
Liberal immigration policy plays a really important role in a certain kind of progressive Christian ethic—it’s the last ethical position out there which is somewhat based on distinctively Christian doctrine/concerns (Galatians 3:28, the recognition that Christianity is in better shape in the Global South), but which also matches liberal opinion. Pretty much everywhere else, it’s hard to draw a line from Christian doctrine (as traditionally held) to liberal opinion (c.f., sexuality, environmental sustainability etc). But with immigration it’s much easier to make this connection. So, if you want to associate Christianity with liberal opinion, you end up playing to your strengths and talking a lot about immigration.
It is hard to see what the basis of this is, though, after the contortions of the sexuality debate. How do we know that one border policy is less godly than another? If Leviticus is irrelevant in the bedroom, it’s irrelevant at the border.
This leads neatly into my final question: are these kinds of comments pastorally helpful? One answer would be to look at the public comments made on YouTube or the newspaper reports—and this would suggest a resounding ‘no’! Perhaps a better test would be look at the views of members of the Church of England. A recent survey suggested that 38% would vote Reform—so Stephen’s comments are completely out of step with the members of the church he leads.
This is part of a long-standing issue—that the bishops of the Church of England seem disconnected from the views of those in the pews. More than 60% of Anglicans voted for Brexit, whilst a single bishop out of the 104 did (and he quickly stepped back from episcopal ministry).
Now, it is perfectly possible that, as teachers of the Church, on this (and other political questions), the bishops are better informed, and theologically thought-through than the average Anglican, and that they a really showing the way forward, and so the problem here is that those in the pews need to listen and learn.
But that seems to me to be very unlikely. For one, the lack of good theological and political thinking found in these comments does not support that idea. For another, on such a complex and finally balanced political issue as Brexit (as well as on migration) it seems implausible to me that Christian theology will provide such a simple and cut-and-dried answer which goes in one political direction only.
I make all these observations as someone deeply shaped by migration myself—both in my own story and in my ministry.
I am the son of a migrant; my mother came to the UK after the Second World War, and experienced the prejudice and discrimination that many Irish did then.
When I worked in industrial business in Slough, I (alone amongst the managers at the business) chose to live in the mixed-race area of the town. And I was a member of a multi-cultural church in that area.
I am now a minister at a church which has welcomed asylum seekers from Iran, central America, and Hong Kong, so we have our services in four different languages. And I share my home with a migrant from Asia.
Loving your migrant neighbour does not mean avoiding asking hard questions on the issue—and loving our indigenous neighbour means we have to.
I would love to see our bishops doing both.
Buy me a Coffee
I enjoyed the article, but where do the figures on how many Anglicans voted for Brexit, and would vote for Reform, come from? No one asked me.
These figures are correct (it was actually 66%), I recall seeing them at the time. Mark Rylands was the only bishop in the C of E to support Brexit, he was quickly shunned and gave up that role.
I’m not denying they’re correct, I was wondering about the source.
It took me less than ten seconds to find it – and I’m a computer illiterate!
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/09/20/how-anglicans-tipped-the-brexit-vote/
Good for you.
And thanks for the link.
One issue which causes the ordinary person most anxiety but which is absent in this article – and always absent in any discussion of this topic by a senior churchman – is the reality of Islamist jihad and its impact on the host society. This is not a secret – it is within the published manifesto of the Muslim brotherhood and preached regularly in mosques – but there is a collective decision by opinion leaders and politicians in the West to turn a blind eye to this. One could be forgiven for believing that this is deliberate because it serves a darker ambition which is to subvert and undermine western civilisation and, in particular, the Judeo- Christian ethic in which it is based.
Thanks. I think you are right…but this is already quite a long piece, and I think that is a quite distinct issue…
The subject for another post, I think.
We would all like to think this matter will go away quietly, But it won’t.
Some anxious voices think Europe is inching toward some kind of civil war. Nobody wants that. But the balkanisation is already advanced in many places. Muslim immigration to the west has been nothing short of disastrous. But even talking about will soon be outlawed.
James, you are one of those who will ‘get it’ when I suggest that Muslim immigration here has had some kind of turbo boost that is not explicable by earthly mechanisms and is spiritual in origin. (One can give other examples of this boost in human history.) Is this of Satan or of God? I am not sure that this is either/or, for I believe that Islam represents impending divine judgement on certain major sins of secular humanism that have exploded since World War 2, namely sins behind family breakdown. That being so, it is futile to stand in the way of Islam unless those sins are also tackled. (Jeremiah said the same about the approaching Babylonians and was not popular for it.) Christians can and should preach to both Muslims and secular people, but we are warned that many are called but few are chosen so that won’t make much difference. We need an end to the secular tax-and-welfare system in order to force people to take more responsibility for themselves.
I’d add that such a judgement would be hardest on feminists. Deservedly so?
The question for all is Why is the Creator allowing the rise of Islam here? Muslims and liberal Christians will have their own views, but evangelicals have the mind of Christ…
Muslims of course equally believe they are created by the Creator, they believe in the God of Abraham like Christians and Jews. They just don’t believe in the Trinity and that Christ is also God.
Muslims high birthrate globally is a factor
The personality they assign to the Creator is very different from that in the Bible, and they believe He made a covenant with Ishmael rather than Isaac.
God allows a lot of things. I dont see why a possible rise in Islam particularly should be viewed as ‘judgement’ on the UK or any other country.
Every nation that has wrecked its familiy stability has fallen within a generation or two, often when pressed by an adversary. You can take both a secular explanation and a divine one – they are not in conflict. But what is YOUR answer to why Jesus Christ, who holds all authority in heaven and on earth, is permitting Islam to rise in this land given that it denies his divinity and atoning death on the cross?
Jesus Christ doesn’t directly intervene in earthly affairs, the fact is Muslims have the highest birthrate of any religious group, Christian, Hindu, Muslim or Jew or Buddhist or Sikh and the religious tend to have more children than the non religious as well. Add in the level of Muslim immigration to the UK in recent decades as well, especially from ex British colonies like Pakistan.
Thankyou – there are so many angles to this question, and one which concerns me for my grandchildren is the effect of immigration on the religious mix of the UK. The combination of a high Muslim birth rate, and a high annual number of Muslim immigrants, will push the Muslim population of the UK over 10m by 2050. The last general election saw the first MPs elected on a Muslim ticket, and the government is exploring a definition of ‘Islamophobia’ – a term popularised in order to set Islam above challenge and criticism in Western countries.
When Islam ends up in a majority, or with significant political power within a country, it rarely ends well for Christians. 14 of the 20 worst countries for Christian persecution are Islamic states https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/ . If we sleepwalk into increased Islamic influence on government, culture and society by welcoming unsustainable numbers of Muslim immigrants – legal and illegal – who we can’t integrate, and therefore form their own subcultures, then we are storing up trouble for the future of the gospel in this country.
Agreed. This is why Christians should support in prayer and with monetary gifts, if possible, Christian organisations working in the U.K. and in the Muslim world, to ensure that Muslims are given the opportunity to know and follow Jesus, such as Open Doors, Reach Across, Tear Fund etc. Our Churches should all support these organisations, too and others with the same aims, by educating their congregations on the work that is being done, not only to bring relief to persecuted Christians but also to spread the Gospel in the Muslim world, whether abroad or in the “subcultures” in the U.K.
Yes, it’s interesting to think that immigration used to be thought of as an opportunity for ‘mission on our doorstep’ amongst many evangelicals. Increasingly it is seen as a threat to the survival of that mission. I speak as a leader in a local church with surrounding homes occupied, upto 20 years ago, by a majority who were White British. Since a large mosque was built the homes are now occupied by a majority who are devout Muslims usually of Indian/Pakistani heritage. The challenge to mission is enormous.
And Christian refugees fleeing persecution? As Leviticus 19:34 states ‘The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’
Now immigration needs to be controlled (and net immigration is now falling due to the tighter visa wage requirements the last Sunak government brought in) but welcoming genuine refugees is entirely in accordance with scripture
Absolutely, and what a tragedy if refugees fleeing Islamic persecution come to the UK and find themselves facing exactly the same thing here.
Leviticus also tells us the the resident alien must submit to the law of Israel. Fancy enforcing that?
Immigrants and refugees have to abide by the law of the land too just as anyone else in the nation does. If they don’t, they can be prosecuted
In Israel that meant worshipping Yahweh and adopting the culture and values of Torah. Fancy imposing that?
In Israel, which bases itself solely on the Old Testament it largely does.
Chris was a refugee too of course
In Israel, which bases itself solely on the Old Testament it largely does.
Christ was a refugee too of course
Jesus migrated, but I don’t think there is any sense in which he was a refugee. He was taken to the massive Jewish community in Egypt, probably to relatives.
The Balkanisation of British cities by Muslim immigration means we are sleepwalking into some kind of civil war, much as that kind of language will be denounced by Cottrell et co.
But on every question – Mermaids and transgenderism in Chelmsford, his appointment of Perumbalath, SSM advocacy etc – Cottrell has been proved wrong.
(On the second of your questions, I believe that you are incorrect and a severe injustice was done, Channel 4 News without the slightest authority, smelling bishop-blood in an undiscriminating general way [any bishop will do – and we have a ‘BIG’ story for you tonight], simply ignoring findings already made by more -not less- stringent criteria, simply because they were not juicy enough and presumably by their logic therefore not true enough, which findings were backed by the detailed circumstantial evidence of the protagonist, also pretending cultural differences in norms are unreal when they are well known to be myriad, and forcing a family towards penury.) Your other points on the Abp’s record remain true.
Christopher: I am open to persuasion and illumination on Perumbalath because there seems to be a veil of silence drawn around this. Are you saying he was railroaded out of his job? Archbishop Cottrell must have forced his resignation. But I do not know what to make of Bishop Bev and her mysterious allegation against Perumbalath. Now she has resigned after 540 days on gardening leave, without explaining anything. She doesn’t look like she was a good choice for preferment.
(Please use both names. Thanks)
The aforementioned personal account gave the relevant details. It may, however, have disappeared off the internet. One social change that happened in the interim was the extension of what counts (in the received narrative) as sexual assault. This was coupled with the other innovation of making an equation between victims/survivors and claimed victims/survivors. As one example of succumbing to the received narrative (cf. the persecution of Blackavar in Watership Down) take the recent retraction by Abp Carey whose initial stance that Revd Chris Brain’s actions were as bad as they were painted while collectively the actions of his acolytes were worse than they are now being whitewashed to be – seems to me entirely correct. But because the latter were female (is that the reason? because, if so, it is not a reason) the idea was that subtle coercion is a thing and because it is indeed a thing it should be *assumed* to have been at work from beginning to end in the case of every single acolyte, even when that angle has not necessarily always been investigated. These two cases are instances of an entirely fashionable (rather than justifiable) *assumption* that in such cases males are fully guilty and females are fully innocent. Which is just as bad an assumption, of course, as its opposite which would never remotely be assumed.
Ironically, of course, the women involved would probably have been feminists, and nevertheless are relying on the narrative that they were weak, susceptible, gullible and compliant females.
I caused offence on one blog by pointing out that, unless it was rape by physical force, some aspiring actresses wanted a career in film more than they didn’t want sex with Harvey Weinstein; and that the fact this would be realised was partly why they delayed accusing him. (Never did I deny that he acted wrongly toward them.) They did no favours to those women whom he *did* rape.
Correct, and also a consent-is-the-only-important-thing culture means that actually some females who threw themselves at the likes of the Operation Yewtree accused put both parties in conformity with that consent-only line (but not with anything good, wholesome or moral). So the accurate line should be (and currently a very inaccurate one is being pursued): male accused acted as bad as they are painted, and female exonerated acted not infrequently worse than they are painted. Compound this with a large time lag and also with there being no other witnesses (and with the reality of different moods and/or monthly cycles and/or degrees of inebriation; the reality that one cannot by definition know whether anything first entered on will later be regretted; and the reality that if it is amoral it probably *will be regretted and will come back and haunt one, catch up with one, and ignite a desire for ‘revenge’) and it is clear that the more a females-can-do-no-wrong culture is in the ascendancy, the more females will amorally take advantage of it. Just as males could and did when they were in the ascendancy.
So – the present case surrounding the northern province is interesting as yet another example of the church capitulating even to the most senseless and cynical secular trends. The result being that triviality and gossip win, while maturity and kingdom advance are nowhere. I do not see that particular part of the story as being one where Abp Cottrell is at all culpable, though he has at other times been especially culpable of short-term cultural capitulation in the least justifiable circumstances.
Christopher,
I am none the wiser as to what you are getting at. What did the personal account say? I have asked repeatedly what did Beverley Mason mean by accusing Perumbalath of “sexual harassment” and nobody has ever explained. I thought sexual harassment meant unwanted sexualised words and gestures to another person falling short of physical contact. Do you know what Beverley Mason meant? Because she has never explained – and sidelining her into 540 days of “study leave” suggests she was seen as a problem and had to be shunted aside.
It could suggest all kinds of things, depending on what possibilities one was able to see – but see what S Cottrell said at the latest Synod – it was not according to his will nor requirement that Bp Warrington did as she did.
Bp Liverpool gave a long account full of precise detail about how he was uncomfortable with the way a wife of a friend (both were his friends) was apparently acting like they were becoming too close; but at any rate he encountered them before, during and after this only (a) publicly and (b) en famille. It had already been made clear that the embrace felt by one culture to be too close and by another to be normal was firstly public and secondly unremarked at the time. Hence my remarks about the recent unofficial redefinition (in order to ensnare) of what counts as being sexual harassment. At the same time, (subjectively) too-close embraces were also highlighted of another clergyman.
The most economical explanation, correct or incorrect, seemed to be that the woman felt rebuffed (which would obviously have been out of order, he being married) and took revenge. Her allegation was physically graphic but an embracer cannot always be as fully aware as that of precisely where they have touched a clothed person.
It is a precise and detailed case, only tangentially relevant, and is very hard to discuss without the primary document[s]. What I have said contains my main points. & I do not see Abp Cottrell being to blame in the cases of either of the two bishops.
My understanding from what was written in various places is that both the bishop and the other lady spoke about embraces, and that in each case the embraces were both public and not highlighted as remarkable by anyone present. Far from being worth 540 days, that would not be worth 1. But in a safeguarding environment where everyone is petrified of misstepping even though the main cases are well in the past and structures largely prevent their repetition (and even godly old grandmothers have to do DBS checks), these things are going to happen.
None not present can comment with much authority.
No Tory or Labour manifesto has ever spoken of immigration, yet it has happened at a rate historically unprecedented – and not from a broadly similar culture, i.e. Europe with the same deep influences of ancient Greece and institutional Christianity, but from very different cultures. A small rate of immigration allows the good points in alien cultures to gradually permeate ours, but the recent tidal wave of immigrants have actively been encouraged NOT to integrate under the doctrine of multiculturalism. When British people feel their home culture – which is the deepest thing that most of them have – changing on the timescale of their own lifetimes, which massive immigration is leading to, they are going to be deeply upset. On top of that, one of the entrant minorities has scriptures that command forcible takeover wherever possible if their message is not accepted voluntarily. And to cap it all, we have a Welfare State today into which immigrants have not paid but from which they benefit while we who have paid have to wait to access the NHS, social housing etc, while laws against peacable expressions of frustration online and on street are deployed selectively (‘two tier’) against us. All of this is why people are peeved. They are particularly peeved at being called Far Right or Racist by the elite merely for airing these grievances. (A good reply is that people resort to insults when they run out of arguments.)
I don’t think many British are racist, but they are ‘culturist’ in believing that some cultures are better to live in than others. (Migrants agree – that is why they come here from the Third World!) And of course culture and skin tone are correlated in Britain today, which is why the intellectually bankrupt and lazy call us racist. I am not saying that any culture is perfect, or that if you love one culture then you must hate all others. But if multiculturalism grants Sikhs a homeland in the Punjab, Hindus a homeland in India, etc, then why must England be the locus of an experiment for all cultures rather than a homeland for English culture (and there *is* an English identity) together with those who wish to adopt it?
Usually, big questions polarise the two large political parties, giving people a choice at the ballot box. That almost didn’t happen over Brexit and it has not happened over immigration, which is why people are starting to resort to the streets. I regard ReformUK and the next general election as the last chance for the problem to be dealt with peaceably. (I am not quite as pessimistic as Prof David Betz in his recent interview on Andrew Gold’s ‘Heretics’ YouTube channel, although Keir Starmer would be wise to change some of his policies sooner, and I believe that Nigel Farage is at risk of assassination with dire consequences for the King’s peace.) Otherwise the *genuine* Far Right – an ugly bunch – is going to grow here as it never has done before. Let it be said that Mosley’s blackshirts, although noisy, were never more numerous than a fringe movement at which most people tittered; and postwar dedicated communism was also always a tiny minority; it takes a lot for the English to ‘do’ extremism.
After the English Civil War in the 1640s there was peace on the streets for nearly 200 years until the issues of parliamentary reform, so as to enfranchise the burgeoning new industrial cities, and the Corn Laws which were keeping bread prices high, were addressed. Parliament did the right thing then, albeit by the skin of its teeth, and public peace was preserved for nearly another 200 years. Will parliament get it right this time?
What to do? Nobody crossing the English Channel is coming here from a country that is persecuting them, and they are almost all fit young men whereas genuine refugees tend to be women and children. They are queue-jumpers and chancers. I would simply say that all such will have no access to State benefits or the NHS from 6 months after the next general election, but will be offered a free flight to a country of their choice and perhaps several thousand pounds. During those 6 months they should apply to the country whose passport they threw into the Channel for a replacement. They will self-deport. As for the far larger number of migrants who come here legally – Dominic Cummings has described this as a Ponzi scheme driven quietly by the Treasury to pay for the pensions of the next generation – it has to stop. Of course I would not deprive them of benefits, but if they commit certain serious crimes then I’d deport them back. If any international conventions prevent these actions then we should withdraw from them. I’d also look at the scriptures of incoming religions with an eye to recategorising them as seditious political movements. Finally, the education system and civil service needs cleansing of the elite view. I am willing to pay senior people to do nothing for the rest of their lives in order that they go quietly and be replaced by persons holding a view more representative of the general population.
As for the bishops, many have proved themselves moral cowards and hypocrites in their attitude to safeguarding, and as parasites on the body of Christ in view of their views on LGBT in the church. To this is now being added that they are traitors to the people of this country. Most bishops take their attitudes from the secular elite, not from the biblical analogy with immigrants to ancient Israel, who were required to commit to Israelite culture (which at that time and place meant converting to the Jewish religion and keeping the Laws of Moses). Fortunately they can simply be ignored. It is better than they deserve.
Trouble is the ABY is committing the same mistakes as Welby did.
There are watertight reasons to detain and deport illegal immigrants. This is of course legitimate political debate. Cottrell once again shows how out of touch he is with the people of the United Kingdom.
Not in York though which is very strong Labour, albeit the wider northern province maybe
I’ve seen this from another point of view, having lived in Romania for 5 years. There, many of the villages almost empty of younger people, along with a big exodus from the towns, when they go to the west to earn more money. Even with a degree and professional qualification, when we were there such people were having to work 2 or 3 jobs in order to make enough just to live on. None of them wanted to stay in the west. All the people we spoke to wanted to make enough money to send some home to their families, and to buy themselves a home in Romania.
It seems to me to be semi-colonialist to say that people ‘should’ stay at home and build up their own countries. Who are we to tell other people what to do? Would we do that, in their shoes? Many of them do in fact return home permanently eventually and start a business there.
Migration, like the poor, is always with us. Our job is to manage it much more effectively.
Migration *from* those rural areas of eastern Europe has been a cultural, economic, and resource disaster for them.
The same is actually true of Greece, and in some areas of Italy (from where I write this).
You have elided ‘Anglicans’ and ‘people in the pews’. People who respond to questionaires by saying they are ‘Anglican’ have frequently returned different responses on various issues to those who actually attend church regularly. I suspect a good number of those taking part in recent demonstrations would casually regard themselves as ‘Anglican’ whilst never attending church. If you accepted the same elision with regards to gay relationships I guess you would not be happy with the result.
Yes, I agree. But I think the info about Brexit was representative. See the link above. I will check!
The more trad people would be more likely to support Brexit, but it is also most probably the more trad people that would be more likely to attend church rather than just being nominal. That is just an impression and the statistics will be what shows whether it is right.
Two things about the migration issues
1) There are people who get all indignant that migrants end up with us in the UK after passing through many ‘safe’ countries since leaving their original oppressive ‘bad’ home country. Supposedly once they’ve escaped the initial problem they have no need to go further, so they shouldn’t….
I’d submit that under the superficial plausibility this is deep selfish evil. Because what happens if this is put into practice and migrants not allowed to go beyond the first ‘safe’ country they enter?
Simply, that first ‘safe’ refuge will face unbearable pressures – and the more so because in many cases (particularly when the ‘bad’ states are Muslim) the ‘bad states’ are a considerable ‘bloc’ which will feed many refugees from many countries into the first ‘safe’ states bordering the bloc. Those border states may collapse under the pressures and likely end up becoming ‘bad’ states themselves.
If we accept that the origin states are bad and need to be escaped from, we should also accept the need to support the escapers ourselves and not expect only the border ‘safe states’ to bear the burden…. Otherwise we are deeply hypocritical…..
2) In many cases the thing that makes a state ‘bad’ in this context is that it is has an oppressive state religion (or in some cases like N Korea a godless philosophy functioning socially as an oppressive religion). Islam presents quite a few such states, India has developed a nationalistic Hinduism which persecutes other faiths with the state turning a blind eye to even lethal persecution, and so on. A good way to resist this would be to set a better example – yet in effect we set the worst example by having a formal state religion which in its scriptures rejects being a ‘state religion’. True over centuries the original oppressiveness has been eroded – but the UK still has an ‘established religion’ with the monarch as earthly supreme governor; rather than properly reject the bad principle the CofE still tries to hang onto the rags of it. That needs to change to set a clear example to other countries and to not confuse state-and-religion issues….. Christians need to support such a change.
What rubbish, for starters the C of E is more liberal than most denominations and religions. Second nor is it imposed upon people like Islam is in some African and Middle Eastern nations. Third, the C of E was set up to be the established church, that is literally the whole point of it
Simon
1) As originally set up or ‘established’ the CofE was an imposed and a persecuting religious body pretty exactly like Islam – whence Henry VIII’s CofE having a group of Anabaptists executed, and later a Stuart king imprisoning Bunyan, and lots of other legal constraints upon dissent even after the eventual Toleration Act unnder William and Mary.
2) Yes that original oppressiveness has been eroded but with the CofE dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ as they say, desperately hanging onto the rags of the original status and now having the brass neck to put themselves forward as a defender of religious liberty in reverse of the original stance.
3) And even then the ‘liberalism’ is not in service of sound Christian doctrine but rather in order to hang on to what’s left of the original privilege, giving way to and agreeing with a ‘world’ they are rightly no longer allowed to persecute. And the ongoing formal ‘established’ status is just enough to confuse issues in our dealings with Islam and other still coercive religions in the world, the worst of both worlds with a rather tenuous status yet looking all too much like the other coercive religions.
Not to mention the persecution of Roman Catholics throughout the UK, up to the 1830s.
I’m afraid my sympathy for persecuted Catholics is tempered by the fact that in the 4th century CE they (and the Orthodox from whom they eventually split in the 11th century) were the first ‘established’ church as the Roman imperial church, and involved in holy wars and persecutions from their beginnings.
If you read the NT carefully you will realise that Jesus and his apostles made a break from the kind of kingdom Israel represented to set up instead a “kingdom not of this world”, not superficially ‘Christianising’ secular states but setting up a peaceable international counterculture – the Church – based on voluntary faith rather than military or other worldly power. The Roman Imperial Church betrayed the original ideal, as do other national churches derived from it – including of course the CofE.
Unfortunately if Christian churches run in that way, it gets a bit difficult to criticise other religions like Islam for behaving similarly….
Well if you believe that be a Baptist, as you are, where you can be as countercultural as you like and leave we committed Anglicans to our established C of E. And of course if we have no established Christian church reflecting our Christian heritage in this nation, that opens a gap for Islam to fill and take over. For in many parts of the Middle East and North Africa, Islam is the official state religion
Of course you also fail to mention Jesus anointed St Peter to be the rock on which his church would be built and on which all churches of apostolic succession are descended
Simon, I have asked you a number of times: please use your full name.
Will you also be asking Gill and James to do the same? I also have never been to a blog which requires a full name to be given in public, it is personal data
Reply to Simon’s comments
The relevance of ‘establishment’ to migration is in two key areas – on the one hand many migrants have fled an oppressive ‘established’ religion in their homeland. On the other hand, many migrants are themselves doing the ‘established religion’ thing and intend to impose their beliefs in the new country they have fled to. Ironically some may be doing both – the famous ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ fled an establishment that persecuted them in England to set up their own kind of established religion across the pond, still causing trouble to this day via the likes of Trump.
But according to the NT (and particularly Jesus, Paul, and Peter in his first epistle), Christianity was set up not to be an ‘established’ religion but to be a ‘kingdom not of this world’, a holy nation operating as a ‘diaspora’ of the born again, citizens of heaven who are ‘resident aliens’ on earth even in their this-worldly native land. IF we obey Jesus (and too many including the CofE don’t), Christian migrants will not be aiming to impose their beliefs via some coercive takeover.
Yes and if we abandon a Christian denomination as our established faith then as you say militant Muslims will try and make their own faith the national faith in England instead.
Jesus anointed St Peter to be first Pope and be the rock on which his church was built. Churches of apostolic succession including the C of E follow that belief. You as a purely evangelical Baptist don’t but that is why you aren’t in a Catholic but reformed church like the C of E
In which case why aren’t you in the Catholic church Simon?
As I support women priests and bishops for starters and believe in the King being my supreme governor not the Pope
Simon
You say
“Yes and if we abandon a Christian denomination as our established faith then as you say militant Muslims will try and make their own faith the national faith in England instead”.
It is – or should be – one of our biggest pieces of evidence against Islam that Jesus and the Apostles in the NT teach a very different way of doing things, not seeking to impose Christianity as a national religion but preaching voluntary non-coercive faith. A point on which Catholics and Orthodox have been disobeying Scripture from sometime in the 4th century onwards, and the CofE has disobeyed Scripture from its foundation. And Islam has gone against God on this from its earliest days when Muhammad used force to ‘establish’ his religion. Of course this evidence is not available to any version of Christianity which seeks to be established in defiance of the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles in the NT; on the contrary such churches take a stance which encourages Islam in its desire to be ‘established’.
As I’ve previously pointed out, a so-called or supposed ‘apostolic succession’ which contradicts apostolic teaching in scripture is worthless and self-contradictory. I don’t need an artificial ‘apostolic succession’ to simply follow the NT teachings of Jesus, Paul, John and Peter.
When one recognizes that the Anglican (and in the US Episcopal) church leadership have been among the most reliable contrary indicators known to man for at least thirty years, one can confidently answer the question posed in the title of this article without reading it.
Glad I saved you time!
I suppose an issue here is that, while it is of course possible to “commend love for our migrant neighbour whilst still arguing for a more restricted migration policy”, Nigel Farage and the Reform party appear at times open to critique with regard to commending love for our migrant neighbours. A political party that wishes to restrict migration policy is not compelled to put front and centre of their conference individuals such as Lucy Connolly, who notably called for people to “set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the b******s” and subsequently pled guilty to the offence of inciting racial hatred [The legal details of the case can be found here https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Lucy-Connolly-v-The-King.pdf%5D.
If the critical goal is to avoid the knee-jerk application of compassion, how might such an approach be better grounded in the Scriptures? I appreciate that theological grounding and pastoral helpfulness have proven a high bar for some church leaders to meet; how might they do better?
I think they might do better by reading more widely, reflecting more deeply, and working harder at this.
I personally find it stunning. The office of ABY is supported to the tune of millions of pounds per year. How can he not have recruited a good in-depth theological team to address this?
Your earlier point re Leviticus is spot on.
We are expected to interpret the signs of the times (Matt 16:3). The mass influx of aliens into Europe and Britain is one such sign, comparable to the influx of ‘barbarians’ that led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
In Revelation 18 we read that Babylon the Great, which I take to be globalised western civilisation, is ripe for judgement because it ‘has become an abode of demons, … a prison of every unclean and hated bird’. The birds here symbolise nations (as in Dan 4:12), unclean because they worship demons. Instead of making nests in the branches of the kingdom of God (Matt 13:32), they bring uncleanness into a society that, having been transformed by the gospel, has since turned against it.
Top of the illegal immigration table are migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, Sudan and Syria, all Muslim-majority countries except for Eritrea which is 50:50. Islam is a source of instability in all these places, but surely it is with other Muslim countries that Muslim ‘refugees’ should be seeking refuge/asylum/a better life.
For an extraordinarily perceptive analysis of what has been going I would recommend Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (Subtitle: Can Europe be the same with different people in it?). Published 16 years ago, it could have been written yesterday, and in its own ‘secular’ way it is very prophetic.
To an extent but we had a duty to house migrants who helped western forces and fled the Taliban
To an overwhelming extent. Yes, if they were interpreters or otherwise put their lives on the line helping British forces, we had a duty to give them refuge, as everyone recognised. That ill-conceived war was now a long time ago and in relation to the total numbers of immigrants, their number was trivial.
The matter of Lucy Connolly is about free speech and 2-tier policing. Nobody thinks well of what she retweeted.
” no one thinks well…”
“who notably called for people to “set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the b******s”
Tad understated? Free speech or inciting violence?
She took it down in minutes and how about arresting some of the people seen inciting violence in the clips included in this video?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WToXpKCMFao
She didn’t “call[] for people”, she said that she didn’t care if it happened and that she wanted them deported. That’s a political view – and a relevant one. Lots of people say you mustn’t deport rapists in case they might be mistreated. That argument won’t work on someone who expresses an indifference to their being burnt alive.
That’s correct. Chris Illingworth has distorted her words. They weren’t right or good but they weren’t an incitement to violence.
Her imprisonment was a travesty of justice.
Thanks for the clarification.
Ive looked up the Judgement.
Her exact words were:
““Mass deportation now. Set fire to all the fucking hotels full of
the bastards for all I care. While you’re at it, take the treacherous
government and politicians with them. I feel physically sick
knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that
makes me racist, so be it.””
Whatever the court’s verdict I don’t think it one can contain this within merely “a political view” , ” the bastards” as ( especially in the context at the time). Whether she meant it literally it was in an incendiary social context.
Yes she withdrew it… the evidence is worth reading…. she *may* have been reacting emotionally to the murders but I think more is revealed in the other evidence.
Should she have been imprisoned? That’s a separate thing.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Lucy-Connolly-v-The-King-1.pdf
Re: your statement: “One of the things which is an embarrassment to tradition Christian ethics is that the thing which has reduced poverty in the developing world more than any other has not been development aid, but free-market economics and global trade networks.”
According to economists Jason Hickel and Ha-Joon Chang, 1) Since 1980 almost all of the gains against poverty happened in one place, China, which did not participate in the structural readjustments required by the World Bank and the IMF. 2) When absolute numbers are used rather than proportions, the poverty headcount remains about one billion, exactly the same as when measurements began in 1981. 3) The common poverty measure of living on approximately one dollar per day or even $1.25 is far too low. A more realistic measure of four dollars would show a poverty headcount of 4.3 billion. Chang notes that during the protectionist era (1955-1982) developing countries grew on average double the rate they have done since the Thatcher/Reagan era of massive trade liberalization. Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans. The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. Jason Hickel, The Great Divide.
Thanks for that challenge. I will look at it again!
OK, well it seems as though they have some valuable points, but I am not sure that they are completely persuasive. Investments in education and infrastructure also make a difference. But I think a surf of the internet still supports the mainline picture:
Since the early 1980s, when free-market reforms and global trade expansion accelerated (e.g. through the WTO, regional trade agreements, liberalisation of many economies):
The proportion of people living in extreme poverty (under $2.15/day, World Bank definition) has fallen dramatically:
1981: ~42% of the global population
2019: ~8–9%
In absolute numbers, over 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty in this period.
Much of this decline is concentrated in East and South Asia, especially China, Vietnam, India, where economies integrated into global trade networks and liberalised domestic markets.
As I say, this is something of an embarrassment to Christian like me who otherwise believe that free trade is a bad thing ethically.
Perhaps your opinion of free trade should be revised? I am happy to debate this.
Thank you Ian. A helpful framework to assess a thorny subject.
I’ve been trying to fathom some of the statistics under the heading “Massive Change”. Fact checked the first paragraph. But would question the nuance of the 900,000 in context. That this represents 95% of all net migration in 2023 of which approximately half is student visas which presumably have a short term impact.
Illegal immigration comprising something like 3% of total immigration.
But the figure that left me scratching my head was the “this 20% “ growth in population. You say that there has t been a 20% increase in public services, and I understand the point. But over what period? A speculative calculation suggests that this figure must be this century (ie over 25 years) because by deduction a 20% increase to 64.2 million in 2024 must be from 57.67 million which was last at that level in 1999/2000.
It may be for effect but your unusual use of hyperbole (“massive”, “ballooning”) left me wondering if you had actually authored it because you are usually quite careful about evidence and facts.
I also struggled to verify the claim that “migrants are disproportionately represented in crime figures”.
Finally, to consider leadership as being just about being in step with members, in a church context, is also equivocal at best.
I have pastoral conversations to have locally on this very issue. And as I say, it’s a helpful framework and raises important perspectives.
It did not come over however as your most balanced and well sourced piece.
Happy to be directed/corrected as appropriate.
Thanks Doug.
Over the last 20 years, net migration has added 20% to the population total. That is the same as the ‘1 in 6 not born in the UK’ figure.
The 900,000 in one year is *net*. So it includes students arriving and leaving. One of the issues of detail is whether those who come on student visas leave again or end up staying. I think the figures on that are not hard to come by. Chat GPT tells me from Government figures:
In 2023, 56% of students who completed their studies were granted further leave to remain in the UK—typically via the Graduate Route (about 32%) or other work routes (18%)
GOV.UK
.
Conversely, before 2021, around 80–85% left at the end of their student visas. By 2023, that figure had dropped to 44%, indicating more students are remaining beyond their studies.
For me, a consideration I think we should adopt is to attempt to weigh up the net benefit/detriment to both our country and to the immigrants’ previous home.
My biggest concern for the UK is the huge male/female imbalance amongst the 40,000 or illegal migrants each year. The politicians and media appear to have largely overlooked this factor. It’s estimated that about 87% are male. That’s about 30,000 surplus males joining the male/female relationship market each year, in a country with a birth rate of about 300,000 men and 300,000 women. Clearly, if this continues long term then an extra 10% or so of our men will be unable to marry, and more women will be tempted to abuse their power in relationships, confident of their ability to shop around if their wants are not met.
The likely consequences for male mental health, addiction and crime are substantial.
And how will this impact on the countries these men leave behind? Clearly their societies and their economies will suffer due to a dearth of young men with the level of motivation that encouraged them to emigrate.
Issues of this sort surely outweigh the economic considerations, and have turned me of late towards a less tolerant view of illegal migration.
That is a fascinating observation. Thanks.
China is already deep into this population crisis, the result of Communist totalitarianism opposing the law of God.
‘and more women will be tempted to abuse their power in relationships, confident of their ability to shop around if their wants are not met.’
what an odd comment.
Please could you elaborate? Spend time in any secular environment with a large male/female imbalance and some people inclined towards unfaithfulness, and you’ll see what I mean.
wouldnt the same be true if the imbalance favoured men? And arent men the ones who are the main culprits when it comes to adultery in marriage?
Yes to the first point, and yes to the second where there’s an even balance. My comment of 12th September was deliberately gender neutral.
“One in six people in England and Wales was not born here, and as migrants tend to be younger and have more children, the impact on schools is massive. 40% of primary age children have at least one foreign-born parent; for 20%, English is not their first language. (Note that these statistics are easily accessible from official sources, but they are rarely aired in the debate—or when they are, those who mention them are often criticised as being ‘right wing’. It is odd to think that the citing of facts should have a political identity.)”
Ok, but how many of these people were born in … well, Scotland for example? The problem with statistics like this is that they cover so many different people from so many different backgrounds. I live in France, and my own children, because I didn’t have French nationality at the time they were born, can be classed as “issus de l’immigration” … and yet they can trace their French ancestry on their father’s side back to the 16th century. Are they “migrants”? I have rarely met French people who even consider that I am.
For that matter, how many people have left England and Wales during the time in question? I know I did! It doesn’t seem to give a balanced picture to talk about the number of people coming in without comparing them to the number leaving.
The number of British citizens living abroad is currently around 5.5 million. But that number has remained stable over the last 20 years; it has remained at between 5 and 5.5 million all that time.
So it has not contributed to any change.
That is not the case for net migration; it has been massive in recent years, and has changed the face of many of our cities. I am happy to debate the pros and cons of that—but what we cannot avoid is that this has introduced massive changed which few want to talk about and no-one has planned for.
“migrants are disproportionately represented in crime figures.”
I would like a reference for this. Is this for all migrants, including legal migrants? Or just for “illegal migrants and asylum seekers?
Is there some inevitable bias in the reporting of crimes on the basis of migration status? Perhaps migrants find it harder to get away with crime, for instance, not being part of a community.
To take the specific, topical case of the sexual abuse of children, this is terrifyingly common. Here is the NSPCC report:
https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/snddiv5e/statistics-briefing-csa-child-sexual-abuse-2025.pdf
If 5% of children have experienced sexual abuse, and this was carried out by someone known to them, this is not all down to migrants.
I read something recently (sorry, no reference) about crime in Turkey. It has 3 million Syrian refugees within its borders and people were complaining about the amount of crime being committed by them. However, the actual figure for crimes for Syrian refugees in a year was less than 300 per 100,000 refugees. The corresponding figure for Turks was over 800 crimes per 100,000. If a news outlet chooses to concentrate on crimes by refugees, that creates a false picture.
Your question is pertinent.
I’m tired of lazy stereotypes about foreigners, that are based on crime statistics which haven’t been controlled for other factors, such as relative poverty.
Similarly, any antisocial behaviour among black youth is repeatedly blamed on ‘absent black fathers’ with no reference to poverty.
Of course, when highlighting the impact of fatherlessness on the behaviour of white working class youth, suddenly poverty becomes the major factor to address: https://x.com/miriam_cates/status/1962043852841173078?s=46&t=BJbVZ5yVEB-H6EPBIe1q1g
That black/white discrepancy is senseless and/or dishonest.
Fatherlessness is a factor of utterly massive importance, and far more important than poverty per se (which of course has massively reduced recently). It is not as though corner shop owners and their communities, previously penurious, have not frequently become rich through good money management and close families. Many different scenarii point to the same conclusion. Poverty is not an immovable feast (Tebbit) but fatherlessness -particularly as a cultural trend- is deep rooted and cataclysmic. And most of all unnecessary. Therefore shameful.
David Shepherd deals in deflection when he writes:
“I’m tired of lazy stereotypes about foreigners, that are based on crime statistics which haven’t been controlled for other factors, such as relative poverty.
Similarly, any antisocial behaviour among black youth is repeatedly blamed on ‘absent black fathers’ with no reference to poverty.”
This is quite mistaken and fails to see that continuing poverty is CAUSED by fatherlessness and all the attendant vices that hold people back from acquiring wealth and employable skills (education). The crime statistics and family factors are very well known. Compared to the rest of Britain (and excluding the small Chinese community), British Indians are easily the wealthiest demographic but also with the lowest level of illegitimacy and solo parent families, and a low imprisonment rate. They have the best A level results and regularly go into the professions. Family integrity is the foundation, as every Indian family knows.
By contrast, British Westindians have very high levels of solo parent families (nearly all female led) and low school achievement. It is incontestable that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty, school failure and boys getting into crime.
The white underclass are doing even worse.
Where I agree is that poverty is a symptom and fatherlessness a cause.
It’s not a deflection.
The linked article that so readily emphasised poverty as a major factor, when highlighting the impact of fatherlessness on the behaviour of white working class youth. In contrast, annd unsurprisingly, the impact of poverty is not controlled for when right-wing media cite higher crime rates among foreign-born people.
Concerning your assertion that “fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty”, while some poverty is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness, there is no evidence that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty.
For example, while the single-parent rate among British Asians is 5.7%, in Catholic countries like the Philippines and Paraguay, the single-parent rate is even lower (-5%) and yet there is far higher poverty and far lower rates of educational achievement.
Your notion that “fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty” does not bear serious scrutiny.
David Shepherd gets it wrong again.
1. Fatherlessness *definitely leads to poverty in Britain because the mother is living on a minimal income (state benefits) and the child is likely to seriously underperform at school and get into trouble, often with the law, because gangs and older males become the default role models of the fatherless boys. I have seen this, both in the black gangs in Britain and Maori motorcycle gangs in New Zealand, made up overwhelmingly from fatherless boys.
This is the case whether the boys are black or white. It is a basic fact of growing up: boys NEED fathers to structure their lives.
Further, how many girls who are born of single mothers become single mothers themselves? The number is very high. And so the vicious cycle perpetuates itself.
2. Statistics from violent third world countries like Philippines or Paraguay are irrelevant. Having a father married to the mother and living in an intact household (something the majority of black children in the UK don’t have now) doesn’t guarantee you won’t be poor *for the present* – but it does give you a powerful counterweight in avoiding school failure and getting into delinquency and crime – and these things definitely lead to poverty. The question is: can you EXIT poverty in your generation? And hundreds of thousands of poor Indians in Britain have done just that, through intact families, hard work at school, learning thrift and acquiring a home.
I’m amazed that David doesn’t seem to recognise this basic fact of human behaviour.
James Thompson,
You wrote: “Fatherlessness *definitely leads to poverty in Britain because the mother is living on a minimal income (state benefits) and the child is likely to seriously underperform at school and get into trouble.”
Straw man. I didn’t deny the impact of fatherlessness on poverty. In fact, I wrote: “while some poverty is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness, there is no evidence that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty.”
If you’re going to debate me, try to avoid ‘rookie’ logical fallacies like that.
Most single mothers in the UK will be working actually, some might even be high earning doctors or lawyers or businesswomen. Even if the mother has full custody of the child or mostly custody of the child and the father has little contact. Now even then ideally a child would be brought up by 2 parents and learn from them both and be educated and disciplined by both but being a single mother does not need to mean the child of that mother is in poverty
David Shepherd, if you’re going to opine on poverty and other social negatives in Britain, please check out some up to date statistics, and avoid the rookie fallacy of talking about basket case countries like Paraguay. It is a simple fact that the majority of West Indian children (51%+) in Britain are growing up in fatherless homes (the statistics in America are evrn worse, at over 57%), while 76% of those in prison and 90% of homeless persons are from fatherless homes. And 44% of children in fatherless homes are living in poverty, significantly higher than families with two parents. Fatherlessness, of course, isn’t the only factor, because poverty is common among families of Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds as well. But in these cases, poverty is usually correlated with large families, high levels of disability and adults in the work force, and low levels of English and educational achievement. The difference between British Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis is quite stark. Muslim South Asians in Britain are likely to remain in relative poverty and living on benefits as long as they continue to live by Muslim South Asian cultural values – all provided by the British taxpayer who pays for their social security, housing benefits and NHS. Not a bad life, really, compared to subsisting in Pakistan or Bangladesh and they can even go there on holiday.
“Avoid the rookie fallacy of talking about basket case countries like Paraguay”
If you’re going to accuse me of a logical fallacy, then do try refer to one, instead of inventing the “talking-about-basket-case-countries-like-Paraguay” fallacy. 🙂
For you to dismiss hard evidence of juvenile delinquency from the Philippines and Paraguay, only to cite your example of Māori gangs is just cherry-picking, as is the rest of your biased response.
“all provided by the British taxpayer who pays for their social security, housing benefits and NHS.”
What martyrs…some of whom think that descendants of those who were colonised can be guilt-tripped into forgetting the imperial plunder that underwent centuries of British intergenerational money-laundering.
Vain hope.
David Shepherd again falls into logical error because of his inability go make a proper comparison of like with like. Paraguay and the Philippines are completely unlike Britain: they are third world developing countries with vast numbers living in subsistence poverty and making their living from agriculture and fishing. Peasant societies are always poor. When a Filipina girl wants to better herself, she becomes a nurse and emigrates to America or Israel. The well paid jobs don’t deally exist in the Philippines and certainly not in Paraguay. Britain is an advanced developed country, one of the wealthiest per capita in the world. Social mobility exists here but only if you’re educated and have it together. Poverty in Britain is endemic among those with poor education, poor English and living on benefits – notably Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, as well as single parent black families living on benefits.
I mentioned New Zealand which I know well because it is also a highly developed nation, albeit one that has declined relatively in the last generation, causing many NZers to move to Australia for work. Also in the past generation, fatherlessness has becone endemic among Maori, while Maori children have the poorest school results in the nation. The best education results are found among children of recent Chinese and Indian immigrants. David needs to ensure he is comparing like with like, and not make rookie errors of confusing Britain with third world Paraguay.
You spend so much time banging on about logical errors, but don’t know what they are.
Here’s a list of those you’ve thus far committed in our exchanges:
1. “fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty” (Faulty generalisation fallacy: as I explained, “while some poverty is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness, there is no evidence that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty”.)
2. “David Shepherd gets it wrong again. 1. Fatherlessness *definitely leads to poverty in Britain”. (Straw man fallacy: since I wrote: “some poverty is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness”).
3. “David Shepherd again falls into logical error because of his inability go make a proper comparison of like with like…” (Straw man fallacy: you’ve altered your argument with an “advanced developed country” qualification to your original statement that I challenged (“fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty”).
4. “Paraguay and the Philippines are completely unlike Britain: they are third world developing countries” Red herring: even if I accepted your “advanced developed country” after-thought, Sweden (GDP – $610 billion) has the highest single-parent rate in Europe (34%). Your unqualified generalisation is still faulty.
In trying to disprove my rebuttal of your sweeping generalisation (“fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty”), you’ve committed, at least, four logical fallacies.
My rebuttal of your sweeping generalisation still stands.
PS: Category mistake: developing countries are those that have not achieved a significant degree of industrialization relative to their populations. In fact, Philippines has a GDP of $497.5 billion (15% of that is from manufacturing). That GDP is slightly behind Norway and ahead of Denmark, Czech Republic and Portugal. Paraguay has a far more modest GDP of $44.5 billion, but 11% of that is from manufacturing.
Your ‘developed country’ afterthought is still a red herring that doesn’t undermine my rebuttal of your sweeping generalisation.
Dsvid Shepherd also seriously misread me when I stated that with reference to British Westindian “fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty, school failure and boys getting into crime”. I was talking about a TRIO of social evils and finding the COMMON factor in fatherlessness. Perhaps David doesn’t want to talk about why British Westindian children significantly underperform in school (but still just ahead of white underclass boys) or why so many of them get involved in crime, but if he thinks these evils have little or nothing to do with indolent or nonexistent fatherhood, I have a bridge to sell him in Brooklyn. 76% of prison inmates and 90% of homeless people are from fatherless families. Does David have any idea what a psychic wound it is to be deserted by your father and live your childhood in poverty? I do.
The obvious point I was making was that school failure and getting into crime will exacerbate poverty in the next generation.
In 2022 40% of children in Britain in solo parent homes were living below the official poverty line, defined as 60% of the median income. About 51% of British Westindian children are in such homes. It is blindingly obvious that a mother living on benefits or subsisting on part time work is going to be significantly poorer than two people with 1.5 or 2 incomes in one household, and that is the reality for the majority of British Westindian children.
(I have no idea what David was trying to say in drawing comparisons between the Philippines and Portugal in GDP. The Philippines has eleven times the population of Portugal with the same GDP, so it is obviously vastly poorer.)
James Thompson,
You originally wrote: “By contrast, British Westindians have very high levels of solo parent families (nearly all female led) and low school achievement. It is incontestable that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty, school failure and boys getting into crime.”
I replied: “Concerning your assertion that “fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty”, while some poverty is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness, there is no evidence that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty.”
You introduced the Straw man fallacy of adding an “advanced developed country” qualification, but without defining the latter in terms of overall GDP or GDP per capita.
As I wrote before: “ developing countries are those that have not achieved a significant degree of industrialization relative to their populations”. Overal GDP measures that and especially the contribution to that from manufacturing. GDP per capita doesn’t measure that.
That said, I’ve also given you the example of Sweden: an advanced developed country, which has a far higher single-parent family rate. You haven’t responded to that example.
You wrote: “The obvious point I was making was that school failure and getting into crime will exacerbate poverty in the next generation.”
Well, even if that was point you were trying to make, it wasn’t obvious because your bias so focused your comments on non-white races, with a mere passing mention of what you describe as “white underclass [sic] boys”.
That biased emphasis betrays prejudice.
David,
You are still failing to read correctly. I mentioned a TRIO of social evils that are caused by fatherlessness: poverty, school failure, and crime.
I meant fatherlessness is the COMMON FACTOR.
Christopher Shell understood me, you clearly didn’t.
You also missed everything I said about school failure and crime.
Why? I don’t believe you don’t care about British Westindian school failure and high levels of violent crime and robbery among British Westindian males.
Why do you think these crimes levels are so disproportionately high?
Do you suspect it might have something to do with fatherlessness – as it clearly does among the white underclass?
(Note: ‘underclass’ is not a word polite people like but sociologists use it all the time, at least privately, and it isn’t a euphemism but a socio-economic fact.)
I also assumed (wrongly as it turned out) that when I mentioned Britain, readers would understand that any meaningful comparison would be with an equally advanced and developed country – that is, readers would know how to compare like with like. You clearly missed this point as well, by bringing in the wholly different lands of Paraguay and the Philippines. Obliviously poverty in Paraguay is very different from poverty in Britain and I will not waste any more time on deflections. It is tedious explaining simple points.
I do not know much about Sweden except that it has until recently been a wealthy country with high social security spending. The number of children born of wedlock there is much higher than you mentioned – it is actually about 55% – but the number of children living in single-parent households is ‘only’ 16%. In other words, many Swedes are cohabiting and having children but the parents are not marrying. So most Swedish under 18s are not really fatherless.
I do know that Sweden has always been a relatively peaceful society but the massive outbreak of shootings and bombings in Malmo and other cities is largely due to gang warfare among Kosovan, Syrian and other immigrants. This is why the Swedish Democrats have been in the ascendancy.
James,
Er, no. I’m not failing to read correctly. In fact, you wrote: “I meant fatherlessness is the COMMON FACTOR”.
That may have been what you meant, but ‘common’ and ‘main’ are not synonyms. Even if you think they are and the renowned Christopher Shell agrees with you, I’m perfectly entitled to understand those words to mean different things.
Since I’ve had to explain this, there is considerable irony in your later remark (“it is tedious explaining simple points”)
Certainly, I care about poverty, school failure and crime affecting UK children. However, my concern extends to all races in the UK, not just British children of Caribbean descent.
You wrote: “Why do you think these crimes levels are so disproportionately high? Do you suspect it might have something to do with fatherlessness – as it clearly does among the white underclass?”
In so doing, after numerous exchanges, you’ve returned to your straw man of implying that I’ve rejected any link between fatherlessness and what you call “a trio of social evils”. I haven’t, but you’re welcome to continue trying to prove otherwise.
For emphasis, I’ll repeat (for the third time) my short-hand reply: “while some poverty is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness, there is no evidence that fatherlessness is the main factor in poverty.”
I have no reason to ignore your faux pas of writing ‘main’, when you meant ‘common’ (or should I write ‘COMMON’ to mirror your own emphasis?).
Still, since you think that I’ve missed the other two social evils, I will even amend my reply by stating: “while some poverty, school failure and crime is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness, there is no evidence that fatherlessness is the main factorpoverty, school failure and crime.”
Since my statement that “some poverty, school failure and crime is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness” holds true for developed and developing countries, your charge of false equivalence (between UK and Philippines or Paraguay) is just a repeated red herring.
To prove me wrong, you’d need to prove that my statement (““some poverty, school failure and crime is caused and perpetuated by fatherlessness”) is untrue. So, go ahead and try.
You wrote: “The number of children born of wedlock there is much higher than you mentioned – it is actually about 55%”
Another straw man, I didn’t mention the number of children born in that way. I did mention the single-parent family rate, which is quite different.
Indeed. Funny how you never see anyone protesting outside the homes of British people who have been accused of various crimes, only outside ‘foreigners’ homes, whether hotels or houses. It’s blatant racism and the rejection of ‘otherness’.
And some of these protesters think theyre Christians. Laughable.
Things are only controversial when there are two sides. Everyone objects to British people committing serious crimes. So there’s no controversy. So there’s no protests. But justice is seen to be done.
In contrast to the Pakistani rape gangs where there have been thirty years of coverup. Where the current minister of Safeguarding has admitted to being aware of police being perpetrators while trying to block an inquiry. And a Labour council leader has resigned for calling the victims “white trash” and one of the runners for Labour deputy leader calls it a dog whistle. There’s a disagreement. Thus there’s a controversy. So there are protests.
Or in Ballymena where a schoolgirl alleged that three boys raped her. Now, if they were British boys they would have gone to trial and entered the justice system. But they were Romanian boys so one of them was able to flee the country before being arrested. So there’s a disagreement. So there’s a controversy. So there’s protests.
Or in the Epping Hotel where the government argues (through their King’s Counsel) that the sexual assaults are a “perceived nuisance” (and there has already been at least one conviction) and the girls “we are all obliged to put up with a degree of perceived nuisance”. And that “the relevant public interests in play are not equal” with the desires of the asylum seekers trumping the desires of the natives. And people disagree with that. Thus there’s a controversy. Thus there are protests.
But where there is no controversy – such as when a British person rapes somebody which everyone condemns without reservation there won’t be any protests. The question for a Christian is whether we think God views the victims as “white trash” who should “put up with a degree of perceived nuisance”?
(And, of course, many Christians have spent the last forty years claiming the in the numerous places where God punishes rapists, he actually didn’t have a problem with the sex crime, but the “inhospitality”. A twisting of the scriptures that allowed our parish vicars (who speak University and who speak Establishment unlike the victims and the families of the victims) to stay silent and comfortable as mass evil was happening within their midst.)
Interesting that a Sikh woman has just been raped by white men claiming that they were raping her because of her ‘race’. The media has been suspiciously quiet about this. Whereas if it were several men of Asian heritage raping a white woman …
Yes, Penelope. That’s only too true.
Those who are now ranting over so-called ‘two-tier justice’ certainly didn’t take to the streets to protest against the sentencing reductions for ‘The Whole Truth Five’, who all came from privileged backgrounds.
The following legal blog post exposes some of the key fallacies that undergird the accusation of two-tier justice: https://centralchambers.co.uk/sentencing-guideline-2025-two-tier-justice-myth/
Or more accurately: “…who all came from privileged backgrounds”.
On housing it is worth pointing out another cause for the lack of housing. Circa 1970 the average occupancy of a dwelling was something like 2.9 persons. In 2020 it was less than 2.4 persons. You need more than 20% more dwellings to accommodate the same population.
Migrant cultures tend to lilve in multi-generational households, so they make a more efficient use of the housing stock.
This is very true, and I often repeat it. There is actually no housing crisis. The anti-family sexual revolution is a crisis. If they misdiagnose, they will not solve.
Though using your logic, gay marriage should be welcomed as 2 single people living separately but then living together would help solve any housing issues. And of course God told humans to leave their parents when marrying, thus adding to the housing problem. I suppose he was wrong too.
If those were the only two dimensions to the picture, you would be right. Not only are there hundreds of other dimensions, but also you know it. And thirdly you have left them out – which is selectivity.
That black/white discrepancy is senseless and/or dishonest.
Fatherlessness is a factor of utterly massive importance, and far more important than poverty per se (which of course has massively reduced recently). It is not as though corner shop owners and their communities, previously penurious, have not frequently become rich through good money management and close families. Many different scenarii point to the same conclusion. Poverty is not an immovable feast (Tebbit) but fatherlessness -particularly as a cultural trend- is deep rooted and cataclysmic. And most of all unnecessary. Therefore shameful. Sometimes the fault of dad, sometimes of mum, sometimes of both. Always criminally disregarding not only of children but of their own children. And of their own souls.
I do not think that many ‘gay-marriage’ scenarii involve two separately-living people then living together anyway. Often they do not do the first. Often they do not do the second.
RIP Charlie Kirk. I had never heard of this man before yesterday, but truly a man of God, with a quite exceptional ability to speak biblical wisdom to a young and largely sceptical generation. Watch him being interviewed on all the hot topics of the day at the Oxford Union:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlh_GfHmwts
RIP indeed. But he was not a man of God.
Rather a racist, misogynistic, bigoted thug who looked quite smart and respectable.
And, yet again we have demonstrated so clearly the toxic nature of discussion in our age. Tragic.
Yes, I believe calling for the death penalty for President Biden is both toxic and tragic. It is certainly not an act of a godly man.
As David Betz and Michael Rainsborough put it today, (dailysceptic.org/2025/09/16/how-the-left-programmed-young-people-to-hate/)
‘The harvest is plain to see — in the mayhem and murder on a Utah campus, in the digital mobs that revel and rage across social media, and in a public discourse poisoned by denunciation, where opponents are cast as existential threats — Nazis, fascists, and every other heresy of the age — solely for the crime of disagreement. In such a climate, the very possibility of civil discourse dissolves, leaving only the grammar of hatred.’
Historically, the greater concern about mass immigration has not been the economic impact, but instead, relative inability to assimilate non-white races.
E. J. B. Rose defined assimilation in this way: “This term implies that the group has adapted itself so completely to the host society and has been so completely accepted that it has merged into the whole and lost its separate identity.”
In 1947, even as the Attlee administration pursued full employment, Britain had no problem with the mass immigration of Italian and German POWs. Neither did the country have an issue with 30,000 Poles, Balts, and Ukrainians — “many of whom” it was pointed out, “will have fought on the other side in the war”.
Instead, they had a problem with a relatively small influx of St. Helenians, who were “British
subjects who spoke English”.
In an internal memo, to allay fears, A.E. John noted that “if the St. Helenians were “only slightly coloured, and ‘civilized’ in their habits, and if they could be housed with the EVWs (European Volunteer Workers) and the Poles, the objections of certain CAECs (County Agricultural Executive Committees) might be lessened”.
In his doctoral thesis on post-war migrant workers, Joseph Behar wrote:
“Interestingly, it was thought more important to separate both the St. Helenians and the EVWs
from the British populace in the countryside, than it was to separate them from each other.
Both were considered foreign (though for different reasons) and therefore to be lumped together in hostel accommodations.
The main difference was that in time the Polish servicemen and EVWs could be assimilated
into the British nation through intermarriage and the adoption of British customs and language. The St. Helenians, legally
British though they were, could never really be assimilated into the British nation.
The NUAW also expressed opposition to the scheme on the
basis of race.” Yet despite all of these objections, arrangements were discussed through the spring of 1948. In the interval the arrival of the Empire Windrush raised the question of race even more prominently. The arrival of the Windrush prompted some officials to suggest the need for a more restrictive colonial migration policy.” (https://utoronto.scholaris.ca/bitstreams/744f900d-00b9-4f3b-acac-c4bedb974060/download)
Race has always been a significant impetus behind anti-immigration policies and that can be seen in the 1971 Immigration Act, which introduced a new status of patriality as a proxy for race.
The Act limited right of abode to those people that met the patriality criteria, viz.
1. Born in the UK, or
2. Had a parent or grandparent who was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies (CUKC) by birth, adoption, naturalisation, or registration in the UK or its islands.
3. Had been ordinarily resident in the UK for five years or more without immigration restrictions.
4. Were a female Commonwealth citizen married to a man with the right of abode.
The second criterion not only favoured the immigration of white Commonwealth citizens (who were more likely to have British-born ancestor), but also evolved into the key requirement for obtaining an ancestry visa.
It’s wilful naïveté to assert that support for anti-immigration policy has nothing to do with race.
We can’t ignore history and pretend that we were born yesterday.
Are you sure? Up to World War 2 at least, the British took the same attitude as the Romans – that culture is what mattered, not race. The ancient Romans freely bestowed the privilege of citizenship on many Iberians, Africans and Syrians. In the later 19th century Frederick Douglass, who escaped from slavery in the Deep South of the USA, reported in a speech on the eve of his return to the USA’s northern states that he had experienced no racial discrimination during his extended tour of Britain and Ireland. During World War 2 the locals in Bamber Bridge, near Preston, sided with black American troops billeted there against their racist white officers. (Look up the ‘battle of Bamber Bridge’ on Wikipedia.)
Resentment against black immigrants that led to the 1958 Notting Hill race riots was based more on the fact that they were seen as competing with whites for jobs. The real white resentment was against government immigration policy rather than those arriving legally – as today. I would wish to see Blair and Starmer, at least, held accountable. All lawfully, of course, once the Human Rights legislation has been undone.
Correction: If you’re asking whether I’m sure that the notion of anti-immigration sentiment having nothing to do with race is false, then my answer is yes.
It’s ALL about race, specifically the colour of one’s skin.
If you’re asking whether I’m sure that the notion of anti-immigration sentiment having nothing to do with race is false, then my answer is race.
I’d suggest that you read Behar’s doctoral thesis, which provided documentary evidence.
St. Helenians arrived here legally and, despite having more in common with British culture than Polish servicemen and EVWs, it was their race that was cited in internal memos as the greatest concern:
“ Clearly the initial objections made by the Ministry of Agriculture hinged upon the colour of the St. Helenians, and the difficulties that might arise from local resistance to their presence. The fact that they were British subjects and that they spoke English and in many other ways shared a British culture, seemed to be less important. This
attitude contrasts with objections made against EVWs and Polish servicemen, which tended to hinge upon their inability to speak English, and their alien culture
This is not the account of the St Helenians themselves, which (alone) I would consider valuable evidence.
So, you consider that St. Helenians documenting their perception of race-based disparities in their treatment to be more compelling than a raft of internal government memos that provide hard evidence of a race-based disparity in the treatment of St. Helenian immigrants.
Since when did subjective perceptions of racism trump objective evidence of it?
Since time immemorial our courts have prioritised firsthand accounts to secondhand. Or do you consider the St Helenians too stupid to know when they are discriminated against? (Isn’t there a word for that?)
Straw man. The paper provides documentary evidence showing that, due to race-based criteria, government officials opted to implement immigration policy in a way that resulted in disparate treatment of St. Helenians.
That evidence doesn’t somehow become unreliable in comparison to the first-hand accounts of perceived discrimination provided by St. Helenians.
I’d suggest you review my previous exchanges with others on this blog before you attempt such a poor attempt at reductio ad absurdum.
You are one side of this discussion, not judge as well.
No, I’m not judge as well, but I am challenging you to bring more credible evidence to your side of this discussion.
And I am challenging you to bring FIRST-hand accounts of racial discrimination.
You clearly haven’t read the paper. Otherwise, you would have seen references to the internal memos in which government officials specified disparate treatment of St. Helenians on the basis of race.
Your attempt to ‘gaslight’ by disregarding their own admission in the cited memos and insisting on first-hand statements from St. Helenians themselves is now becoming ridiculous,
And capitalisation won’t make your ‘gaslighting’ any less ridiculous.
Judging the quality of my responses is exactly what you denied doing – trying to act as judge as well as one side of a debate. Just make your case.
Previously, you wrote: “You are one side of this discussion, not judge as well.”
‘Judge’ is ‘of this discussion’ is not synonymous with ‘judging the quality of my responses’.
Those who engage in a discussion will always judge the quality of each other’s responses.
In Parliamentary debates, MPs (even from the same party) do that all the time without being accused of setting themselves up as judges of the entire debate. I’m not sure why you think this is so different.
We need a ‘like’ (and ‘unlike’) feature on here – many of the comments make my mouse finger twitch!
It is only when you hear people’s own words that you can truly begin to understand what is going on for them. In Iran, Christians are persecuted – and to convert to Christianity from Islam carries the death penalty. I know this because of my friendship with an Iranian asylum-seeker who was forced to leave his wife and children and flee for his life. After he left, as “punishment” his children were forbidden to go to school. His wife is spat at in the street, and local shopkeepers refuse to serve her. It made me reflect what we truly give up for Christ! I lost touch with him, and I don’t know where he is now but I still think of him and pray for him and his family – that they will one day be reunited in safety.
99.82% of the adult population didnt feel strongly enough about immigration to make the effort to travel to London for the recent demonstration. That speaks volumes, thankfully.
Not everybody who is concerned about uncontrolled immigration, rape gangs, militant alien religions, subsidy of illegals in 4-star hotels, loss of free speech and two-tier policing wishes to support Tommy Robinson. If you want a better indicator than the numbers in London today, look at the lampposts in your local town.
Small boat arrivals here account for about 5% of all immigrants. So the vast majority come here via legal routes, ie controlled. Ironically since Brexit there has been a substantial increase in non-EU immigrants. It is up to the Government as to how many come here under the rules, as they set the rules. If the rules need changing, as Labour seem to be trying to do, then so be it. But let’s not pretend immigration here is uncontrolled.
I would suggest most Muslims living here want to do so peacefully, and are not ‘militant’. Unless you have evidence showing otherwise. Clearly there should not be 2-tier policing and if there have been cover-ups over rapes etc that is a disgrace and shouldnt have happened. People should be treated the same under the law, but sadly sometimes that is not the case for various reasons.
I personally dont agree with putting illegal asylum seekers in hotels, though it’s debateable whether they really are 4-star as you and I would categorise them. I say that because the authorities know little to nothing about their backgrounds, and so should be living in secure accommodation until their applications are accepted or rejected. UK students and military personnel are often housed in rather basic accommodation, so I see no reason why similar could not be used. If you are really escaping from persecution or war, then you should be content with such accommodation on a temporary basis.
Peter,
You deny that immigration here is uncontrolled, because 95% of immigration is legal. I accept this figure of 95%, but my assertion is not about whether the government CAN control immigration, but whether it is actually doing so – and it isn’t. Labour are now changing the rules only because the population are starting to take to the streets having been given no choice at elections over immigration for decades.
“I would suggest most Muslims living here want to do so peacefully, and are not ‘militant’. Unless you have evidence showing otherwise.”
The proportion who live here peaceably is not the point. A few percent of several million people is a lot. Recently retired MI6 leaders regularly state that most of their domestic effort goes to foiling such plots. Google if you wish. Meanwhile the Prevent initiative has, absurdly, been subverted to focus on those expressing concern about this fact, rather than those on whom MI6 focus.
Moreover, the Quran has two irreconcilable strands in it: the peaceable and the bellicose. Anyone can flip from one to the other at any time.
“If you are really escaping from persecution or war, then you should be content with such accommodation on a temporary basis.”
They are coming from France, for heaven’s sake.
yes but who wants to live in France lol.
Full of foreigners just like England is nowadays, eh?
I suggest you look again at the mythical 4 star hotels and, perhaps, at their adaptations to accommodate refugees.
The Humber View Hotel in North Ferriby, Yorskshire which accommodated them for some years was 4-star, and that took me 10 seconds to find on Google. (Perhaps it is as mythical as Adam and Eve.) The historic hotel in the centre of a town within 20 miles of me which accommodated them was, I admit, merely three and a half stars.
And you ignored the adaptations …
I don’t think anybody ever believed that these people could ring room service at 3am to order steak and champagne.
A more accurate comparison would be with the way hotels were run during Covid lockdowns – as government-subsidised refuges for the homeless. Some 4-star hotels accepted the government’s offer and provided three square meals a day (from a reduced menu) in a well-appointed restaurant plus accommodation in spacious and warm en-suite rooms in city centres with the right to come and go as you pleased. Read “The Prince Rupert Hotel for the Homeless” by Christina Lamb for how it worked out.
The main reason so-called illegal immigration has grown is Brexit. But it’s become the elephant in the room and Labour, instead of challenging Reform rhetoric are becoming Reform lite
And why do you think Labour are changing policy? It is due to people making very clear to their MPs that they will not vote Labour if the prevailing poilicies continue. Pesky thing, democracy.
The main reason ilegtal immigration has grown, like the reasons much crime grows, is lack of deterrence. They know they will get away with it.
The main reason is still Brexit because the agreements to return immigrants no longer exist.
Look up the Dublin Regulation.
How ,many were we returning to France before 2020?