Thread: BNP Policy Debate - Immigration

Yes but in the 19th century we had a society with very tight social controls relatively little movement of people close 'monitoring' of individuals by neighbours and for all the borders wer more open very few individuals were in a postion to take advantage of that. immigration was practically nil - we were more a country of emigration.

Anyway, interesting debate - but its late, I have a cold and I am bound for bed!

Originally Posted by flamingreen

Yes but in the 19th century we had a society with very tight social controls relatively little movement of people close 'monitoring' of individuals by neighbours and for all the borders wer more open very few individuals were in a postion to take advantage of that. immigration was practically nil

Nil?! We had immigration from all over the Empire. We had immigration from outside the empire, from all the European countries that kept having revolutions and wars. You are talking about the period in which the East End of London became a Jewish ghetto full of radical socialist refugees whom the authorities were scared about and about whom letter pages in papers were full of complaints about them "coming here to take advantage of the riches of British society, and yet plotting to over throw the government and system that provides them"!

You are talking about the time when Islam became a fascination for English middle class intellectuals, and the first black MP was elected!

Anyway, interesting debate - but its late, I have a cold and I am bound for bed!

Me too.

Ah, I recognise Evan Davis now I googled him. He always struck me as being run of the middle, mainstream economics, maybe a little more sensible than that Asian guy on the Channel 4 news (not Krishnan Guru Murthy; KGM is sound on plenty more things, especially global warming), perhaps like a typical or soft Chicago economist. Maybe that is something to do with BBC "impartiality" though.

Nil?! We had immigration from all over the Empire.

On a miniscule scale. Most of Britain was untouched by immigration. You are correct to point to the relatively large Jewish immigration to London at the latter end of the 19th century, but even that was very minor compared to what we have now and largely restricted toa comminoty on Londons east end .Even as late as the nineteen fifties Jennifer Worth in her very interesting accounts of life as a midwife in the east end, points to the fact that east London was even then almost entirely British and cockney, with as well as the Jewish community a small Somali community inthe docklnads, but small it remained until very recently. There were virtually no black or Asian people until later, (when the GLC started to house Bangladeshis in slum blocks around the Brick lane area) and only small numbers of Chinese.

And this is the big difference, scale, yes, there was some limited immigration but these groups of people were small enough that they either remained as seperate cultures in tiny city enclaves, in London and other ports such as Liverpool and Cardiff, or they integrated so totally that their culture was subsumed beneath the ethnic Britsh culture (e.g. the Huguenots and many non religious Jews). Indeed right up until the second world war the sight of someone obviously a foreigner was enough to make people in rural areas stare as black American GIs found when posted to Britain.

Relative to what we see now immigration was practically nil! You only have to look at old photographs of crowds, schoolchildren etc even in London, and black, brown and oriental faces are conspicuous by their absence. I am not saying there were none, but the numbers were insignificant, even in London. - just take a look at pictures as recently as those of evacuees in WW2. You'll struggle to find a foreign face!

As to your nineteenth century 'black' MP, link please?

Originally Posted by flamingreen

As to your nineteenth century 'black' MP, link please?

You are correct: The guy I was thinking of was not ellected in the nineteenth century, but just into the twentieth, and it was as a councillor and as a Mayor. John Archer was ellected as a councillor in 1906 and 1912, and became the elected Mayor of Battersea in 1913.

Originally Posted by flamingreen

On a miniscule scale. Most of Britain was untouched by immigration. You are correct to point to the relatively large Jewish immigration to London at the latter end of the 19th century, but even that was very minor compared to what we have now and largely restricted toa comminoty on Londons east end .Even as late as the nineteen fifties Jennifer Worth in her very interesting accounts of life as a midwife in the east end, points to the fact that east London was even then almost entirely British and cockney, with as well as the Jewish community a small Somali community inthe docklnads, but small it remained until very recently. There were virtually no black or Asian people until later, (when the GLC started to house Bangladeshis in slum blocks around the Brick lane area) and only small numbers of Chinese.

And this is the big difference, scale, yes, there was some limited immigration but these groups of people were small enough that they either remained as seperate cultures in tiny city enclaves, in London and other ports such as Liverpool and Cardiff, or they integrated so totally that their culture was subsumed beneath the ethnic Britsh culture (e.g. the Huguenots and many non religious Jews). Indeed right up until the second world war the sight of someone obviously a foreigner was enough to make people in rural areas stare as black American GIs found when posted to Britain.

Relative to what we see now immigration was practically nil! You only have to look at old photographs of crowds, schoolchildren etc even in London, and black, brown and oriental faces are conspicuous by their absence. I am not saying there were none, but the numbers were insignificant, even in London. - just take a look at pictures as recently as those of evacuees in WW2. You'll struggle to find a foreign face!

As to your nineteenth century 'black' MP, link please?

My mother says a 'black' kid at her primary school (she would now be classed a Asian) was a curiosity. I suppose ot is like a white man in an Amazon tribe for the first time.

Bobby Robson, when he played for WBA in the late 1950s bought his first house ,just over the Birmingham border, in Handsworth. Around 23 years later, there was a riot. 4 Years after that, there was a riot that led to the racial murder of 2 Asians who kept a Post Office, by black men aggrieved about the Police giving a bloke a producer.

So there it is. Multiculti in action. Fast forward to the Asian/Black street riots 5 years ago.

Isn't it great? Chicken tikka masala is worth it all, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Independent Man

Oh dear, it is obvious that you are not an economist CD! Yes, at first blush your statement seems to make sense, but actually, in general (though with some exceptions), you are wrong.

The idea that we are better off because we can but £3 jeans made in China rather than £10 ones made locally, for instance, is a fallacy based on a too-narrow view: you need to look at the bigger picture.

Yes, we can buy lots of things made more cheaply in China, and thus save money on those individual purchases, but what are the implications? I'll tell you:

i. People are unemployed in this country who would otherwise be in work. As a result government spending on benefits goes up and thus taxes go up and thus we are worse off. The extra tax is much more than the savings made on the goods we buy, and thus overall we are net losers.

ii. In order to fuel (quite literally!) its economic growth, China has tied up lots of exclusive contracts with oil-producing countries, thus increasing the price of oil, and therefore petrol and diesel at the pumps. The extra cost of our fuel is much more than the savings made on the goods we buy, and thus overall we are net losers.

iii. The higher cost of our fuel also results in higher haulage costs, and thus higher prices of all our goods in the shops, even thus manufactured/grown here.

Finally, I should point out (yet again!) that the BNP manifesto and their policies needs to be read in the round - ie. as a whole, rather than picked over individually. They all tie together extremely well. And any higher costs of a few products would more than be made up for by the major tax cuts which the BNP is proposing. So if you look at their policies as a whole they would certainly make Britain - and the British people individually - much better off.

You are right - I am not an economist and am fairly ingnorant on such matters, however you assumed when I asked the question that I thought that what I was suggesting (locally produced, more expensive cars etc) was a bad idea - I was simply asking the question however. In fact I am actually not in favour of cheap imports and would happily pay a bit more for goods generally - we consume far too much **** as it is, and there are already far too many cars on the road. I would actually be quite happy if people had to save for 6 months or a year before buying a new telly or fridge or simply make do with what they have, get it repaired etc, only ate meat once or twice a week, consumed locally grown produce etc but recognise that this is not the society we live in today and that if we returned to such a way of life this may not be very popular with the public at large.