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Britain: Mass Immigration Leaves Towns and Cities 'Unrecognizable'
by Soeren Kern
March 7, 2014 at 5:00 am
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"The free market to which our EU
partners are fundamentally committed has turned out to have rather different
and serious implications in the UK. The fundamental mistake was to expand the
EU to include 100 million people with a standard of living of about one
quarter of ours." — Migration Watch UK.
Net immigration to the United Kingdom surged to 212,000 in the year ending
September 2013, a significant increase from 154,000 in the previous year,
according to the latest official statistics.The new immigration data cast considerable doubt on a pledge by Prime Minister David Cameron to get net migration—the difference between the number of people entering Britain and those leaving—down to the "tens of thousands" before the general election in May 2015. According to the latest Migration Statistics Quarterly Report (MSQR), published by the Office for National Statistics on February 27, some 532,000 people migrated to the UK in the year ending in September, up from the 497,000 people who arrived during the previous year, while 320,000 left the country, down from the 343,000 the previous year. The number of EU citizens arriving in the UK rose to 209,000, up from 149,000 the previous year, while immigration of non-EU citizens was 244,000, down from 269,000 the previous year. Most of the immigrants to the UK from the EU were from economically troubled countries, including Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain. Most of those arriving from non-EU countries were immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The latest immigration data has been met with criticism from across the political spectrum. The Labour Party's shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the government's targets were "in tatters" and its policy was "a mess." She added: "David Cameron promised, 'No ifs, no buts,' to cut net migration to the tens of thousands, yet these figures show net migration has gone up and is now more than twice that figure. Only five months ago, [Home Secretary] Theresa May said that the government had been 'so successful' they should 'get out there and shout about it.' There will be no shouting from ministers today."
Speaking at the UKIP's spring conference on February 28, Farage said that parts of Britain have become "unrecognizable" due to the impact of mass immigration over the past decade. "In scores of our cities and market towns, this country, in a short space of time, has, frankly, become unrecognizable. Whether it is the impact on local schools and hospitals, whether it is the fact that in many parts of England you don't hear English spoken any more, this is not the kind of community we want to leave to our children and grandchildren." Farage also said he believes the largest-ever "migratory wave" to Britain is still to come and that the three main political parties in the country are doing nothing to prevent it. According to Farage, Britain has been "betrayed" by "a political class that has sold out to Brussels," resulting in the loss of control over the UK's borders. A growing number of British voters seem to agree with Farage that immigration is one of the biggest problems facing their society, according to a flurry of surveys and research reports about the current state of affairs in Britain. A report entitled, "State of the Nation: Where is Bittersweet Britain Heading?" shows that one in three Britons believes that tension between immigrants and people born in Britain is the primary cause of conflict in the country, and well over half regard it as one of the top three causes. The report also shows that a high proportion of British voters are pessimistic about the British economy (50%), and three-fourths believe there is a severe housing shortage, due in large measure to uncontrolled immigration. More than half (56%) say the current economic crisis will leave Britain weaker for years to come and nearly half (46%) say Britain is heading in the wrong direction. The findings mirror the results of the British Social Attitudes Survey, an official study conducted annually, which polls Britons on their attitudes about a number of social issues. The 2012 edition of the survey—which was focused on the impact of immigration—found that Britons are far more strongly opposed to immigration, particularly from Muslim countries, than they have been at any time in recent memory. The document states that 75% of Britons would like to see a reduction in immigration, and that 51% would like to see a large reduction. Moreover, 52% of respondents believe that immigration has a negative economic impact, and 48% believe that it has a negative cultural impact. The latest immigration are sure to fuel the debate over Britain's future relationship with the European Union. (Cameron has pledged to hold a referendum over the issue in 2017 if the Conservatives retain power.) According to MigrationWatch UK, an independent think tank that focuses on immigration and asylum issues, the latest immigration figures "are clearly bad news for the government." In a press release, MigrationWatch wrote: "It is indeed hard to deny the growing tension between the very strong public desire to control and reduce immigration and our continued membership of the EU. The free movement to which our EU partners are fundamentally committed has turned out to have rather different and serious implications for the UK. The fundamental mistake was to expand the EU to include 100 million people with a standard of living of about one quarter of ours." Anti-EU and anti-immigrant sentiment among British voters has contributed to UKIP's surge in opinion polls ahead of European elections set for May 22. Support for UKIP has risen from around 3% in 2010 to about 13% in the latest surveys. This puts UKIP in third place behind the Labour Party (38%) and the ruling Conservatives (33%) but ahead of the coalition-government's junior partner, the Liberal Democrats (10%). UKIP—which is campaigning on a platform to end "open-door immigration" and to withdraw from the EU—already has 13 elected representatives in the European Parliament, but has never won a seat in the British parliament. Farage is hoping that strong poll results in the EU elections in May will give his party the momentum it needs to become a major force in British politics. In many ways, this is already happening. In recognition of the UKIP's growing popularity, the British media regulator Ofcom introduced new rules on March 3 that will require commercial broadcasters such as ITV and Channel 5 to show at least two parliamentary election broadcasts by the UKIP in the run up to the European elections. Ofcom said that UKIP should now be recognized as a "major party" along with Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, as it has "significant aggregate support across England, Wales and Scotland." Farage sums it up this way: "These elections, in many ways, will be an opportunity for us to tell the political class where to go." Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
Related Topics: United
Kingdom | Soeren Kern
Money, Politics and Israel's Defense
by Shoshana Bryen
March 7, 2014 at 4:30 am
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Missile defense buys time and the
Administration should appreciate -- and fund -- that.
When the President is leaning hard on
Israel to be forthcoming and flexible on issues of its own short and
long-term security, the signal that missile defenses are expendable sends the
wrong signal to both friends and adversaries.
Does the president really believe
that Hamas, the Palestinian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood -- supported,
oddly, by Iran -- would throw in the revolutionary towel if Israel makes a
deal with Mahmoud Abbas for the West Bank?
Early Wednesday, the IDF intercepted a shipment of Syrian-made
M-302 rockets with a range of up to 200 kilometers (125 miles). The
missiles, which apparently went through Iraqi airspace to Iran and then by
ship to the Red Sea, were likely headed to Sudan. From there, they would have
gone by truck through the (mostly unguarded) Sinai to Gaza, from which they
would have been capable of reaching nearly all of Israel.
The Obama administration's recently released budget request details a cut in funding to the "Israeli Cooperative," as the jointly developed Arrow and David's Sling programs are known, from $106.1 million in fiscal 2012 to $99.9 million in fiscal 2013. And since Congress more than doubled the administration's request last year to $235.7 million, President Obama's budget would more than halve the cooperative's funding. Moreover, this marks the third consecutive year (emphasis added) that the administration has requested less funding and it will not be the last, according to its own budget projections. And, indeed, the 2013 request (for 2014 spending) was $96 million, to which Congress added $174 million. The 2014 request (for 2015 spending) is $96.8 million for the "Israeli Cooperative." Although the bipartisan effort in Congress keeps the money at a relatively even level, this is a terrible way for the Obama Administration to do business:
The legitimate question for Israel would be making sure that their core security needs are still met as a framework for negotiations led to an actual peace deal. [American interlocutors] have come up with a plan for how you would deal with the Jordan Valley, how you would deal with potential threats to Israel that are unprecedented in detail, unprecedented in scope. It might seem ungracious to point out that the highest echelon of Israel's defense and political establishment reject the fundamental American premise: that a multinational force, rather than the IDF, in the Jordan Valley will protect Israel. Furthermore, the plan is time-defined. With the disintegration of state boundaries around Israel and the rise of ungoverned or under-governed spaces that spawn jihadist groups of varying allegiance, size, and lethality, what happens when the end point is reached but the threats remain either within the West Bank or beyond? The President was not unmindful of the larger problems: You have the chaos that's been swirling around the Middle East...Syria...Lebanon...Gaza. And understandably, a lot of people (in Israel) ask themselves, 'Can we afford to have that potential chaos on our borders, so close to our cities? ...There would still be huge questions about what happens in Gaza, but I actually think Hamas would be greatly damaged by the prospect of real peace. Does the president really believe that Hamas, the Palestinian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood – supported, oddly, by Iran – would throw in the revolutionary towel if Israel makes a deal with Mahmoud Abbas for the West Bank? "Oh, okay," Ismail Haniyah, Hamas's boss in Gaza might say, "Abbas got a rump state for which he had to pay with a fixed Israeli border, no right of return and recognition of Israel as a Jewish State (Kerry parameters). I guess there's nothing for us to do but give up our Charter, our arms, and plans for the elimination of the Zionist entity, not to mention Fatah, and do the same. Never mind the Brotherhood, and never mind Iran." Not likely. What worries Hamas in Gaza is the elimination of its sources of weapons supply; the possibility that Egypt will enforce the closure of the smuggling tunnels from Sinai; Israel's ability to intercept weapons shipments (not all, not all the time, but a lot of them); and the fact that Israel's entire defense calculus shifted the moment Iron Dome proved its worth. Israel no longer has to respond to every hostile act by Hamas. It takes the hair-trigger off the situation when the Israeli government can tell the public, "We can defend you from rockets; we ARE defending you; and we will determine how best to do that." What is true for Gaza is true for Syria, Lebanon, and even for Iran. It should be a high priority for the Administration to ensure that Israel does not feel the need to engage in hostilities with the neighbors based on the agitation of an anxious populace. Missile defense buys time through reassurance for sound strategic reasoning, and the Administration should appreciate – and fund – that. Even The Washington Post has come to understand that the President's management of foreign policy is, based more on how he thinks the world should operate than on reality. It was a world in which "the tide of war is receding" and the United States could, without much risk, radically reduce the size of its armed forces. Other leaders, in this vision, would behave rationally and in the interest of their people and the world. Invasions, brute force, great-power games and shifting alliances - these were things of the past. … [Some leaders] will not be deterred by the disapproval of their peers, the weight of world opinion or even disinvestment by Silicon Valley companies. They are concerned primarily with maintaining their holds on power. As long as that is true in Iran, Syria, Russia, Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, Israel will have to rely on its military and intelligence capabilities to defend its people. President Obama has a well-known bias against missile defenses – our own and everyone else's. So perhaps the President is just having and eating his cake: while he knows Congress will change it, HIS budget doesn't support missile defense. While it is a poor choice on the part of the Administration to game that money, the so-far stalwart support of a Congress that understands that both Israel's security and our own require missiles defense is welcome.
Related Topics: Israel
| Shoshana Bryen
Nigeria's New "Middle Belt"
by Alan Craig
March 7, 2014 at 4:00 am
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During a priority-setting session,
"equal opportunity for all tribes or groups," "job
creation," "better education," and "recognition of
excellence" were rated significantly higher than "defeat of Boko
Haram," perhaps because that is seen primarily as the job of the
military.
The security situation across northern Nigeria is unstable-to-terrible.
The Islamists of the Boko Haram group have threatened to eradicate
Christianity through a campaign of violence
against Christians and churches, and have killed 2,000 people
including moderate Muslims in four years.Further, the next federal elections are planned for just twelve months' time; during the last ballot in 2011 the re-election of Christian presidential candidate, Goodluck Jonathan, resulted in the death of 800 Christians and other minorities and the destruction of up to 300 churches at the hand of rioting Muslim protestors in the twelve northern Sharia states. Nonetheless, Dr. Bala Takaya, vice-president of Nigeria's Middle Belt Forum, former head of the Department of Political Science at Jos University and alumnus of the London School of Economics, is hopeful. Speaking to the media outside the second Stefanos Foundation conference for the country's northern ethnic minorities -- an initiative of Gatestone Institute held in Abuja recently -- he claimed that the northern minorities are becoming stronger and more united. "We have come of age," he said. Inside, he had reminded the gathering how for a hundred years the minorities in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria had been oppressed and held back both by the Fulani Islamic elite and, until independence in 1960, by the British colonial masters. But now better education, increasing consciousness and hard-won political experience has resulted in the grass-roots growth of a "Middle Belt" identity separate from the dominant Fulani-Hausa Muslim culture. "The yoke is broken. The shackles are being thrown off. The time is now," he told delegates. In line with the governance structure imposed by colonial administrators, Nigeria -- at 170 million, Africa's most populated country -- is frequently recognized as two separate regions with a common border and a joint federal government: and the larger but more dispersed mainly-Muslim North, and the geographically smaller but more intensely populated Christian-majority South. Ethnically the North is dominated by Hausa tribal language and culture, while the South is identified with the main Yoruba and Igbo tribes.
Nowhere is tribal attachment stronger than in the polyglot southern areas of Northern Nigeria – the "Middle Belt" of the country which was first tentatively claimed as a separate collective entity as long ago as the 1930s. Comprising mainly Christian and Traditional African (British administrators called them "Pagan") tribes, 'Middle Belters' -- who are found indigenous in even the most northerly Sharia states of Borno, Yobe and Kebbi -- have increasingly asserted their ethnic distinctiveness, and rejected northern Fulani/Hausa hegemony with its second class dhimmi status for non-Muslims. "(We have) historically found solidarity and expression in feelings of alienation and deprivation based on [our] crude and systematic subordination, oppression, suppression and exploitation," explained a Middle Belt Forum leaflet some years ago. MBF counters the oppression today by "promoting freedom..., respect for human rights, human dignity and the sanctity of human lives". But ethnic diversity can be a weakness: tribes frequently have a history of local disagreement and even fighting among them. Unity may be strength but cooperation is not necessarily easy. This is why, according to many delegates, the Gatestone-Stefanos conferences have been important, unique and timely. The events are the first grass-roots initiative for local people rather than state politicians, although some key public figures have attended too. The aim is to find common interest and facilitate local collaboration between minority groups in fifteen of the nineteen northern states. The emphasis is on training: appointing local coordinators, drawing up action plans, planning networking opportunities and setting time-lines. Despite the tension, the conferences have been calm and focused. During a priority-setting session, "equal opportunity for all tribes and groups," "job creation," "better education," and "recognition of excellence" were rated significantly higher than "defeat of Boko Haram," perhaps because that is seen primarily as the job of the military. Although the events were about asserting minorities' human rights in the Muslim north, the mood was conciliatory; the organizers anticipate that some marginalized Muslim tribes will join the initiative too in due course. National unity and "One Nigeria" were, informally, the conference strapline; peace-making and nation-building at the local level were the task in hand. "Middle Belt is in the middle of the country," said Dr. Takaya. "We are the glue that holds north and south Nigeria together."
Related Topics: Nigeria
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Craig
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