Is Britain the New Afghanistan?

Alphen, Netherlands.  20 August.  Is Britain the new Afghanistan? What has become of my country?  James Foley, an American photo-journalist is beheaded by a sneering Jihadi who speaks with a British accent.  As per usual the apologists appear on British TV and radio to talk about the need for ‘understanding’ and ‘tolerance’.  And, indeed, it is vital at this moment that the millions of moderate British Muslims are not tarred with the broad brush of hatred these people wield.  It is precisely division and mistrust such people seek to sow in British society.  And yet there is clearly a problem.  

When I look back to my salad days the very idea of a British Jihadi would have been unthinkable.  Indeed, even today it is hard for the bulk of the indigenous population to equate such killers with being British.  Instead, most of we Britons sit in sullen, silent anger at how our traditional tolerance has been corrupted and look-on in tired aghast at the utter incompetence  and inability of politically-correct elites to get to grips with what is fast becoming a dangerous Britain. 

Instead of dealing with such issues by properly controlling who can enter and live in Britain and then seeking to build an integrated society government after government has retreated into failure-masking spin and pretence.  The entire population knows that successive British governments has lost all but nominal control over Britain’s borders and yet Londonistan (as the French continue to call London) continues to trot out the same old tired mantras that immigration is under control and that multiculturalism works. 

It is not just a problem with politicians but the entire London Metropolitan elite.  Last week one of the great over-washed masquerading as that towering Victorian journalist Walter Bagehot wrote a piece in The Economist entitled “The Trials of life in Tilbury”.  It was one of the most arrogant and out-of-touch articles I have ever read about the poor, white working class of Tilbury.  These are people who in little more than one generation have had their country taken away from them, their old-fashioned values of tolerance, mutual respect and patriotism trampled on by a sneering and incompetent elite, and the Britain they once-loved and for which many fought and died torn apart. 

And yet, according to ‘Bagehot’, who reduced the whole complex issue to one of stupid, white people they are the ‘left-behinds’ who do not ‘get’ globalisation, the ill-will of whom is generated by “autochthonuous meaness”.  Now, I have four degrees and a reasonable facility with the English language and yet I had to look up ‘autochthonuous’.  For the on-this-particular-planet people out there ‘autochthonuous’ means ‘indigenous’.  In other words the white population of Tilbury are intrinsically and by implication genetically ‘mean’ for being concerned about the impact of hyper-immigration on their town, their country and their lives. 

In fact, it is the natural tolerance of the English that politicians have too often exploited and then used against decent, ordinary people to silence dissent.  Indeed, as politicians have repeatedly failed to get to grips with the dangerous society Britain is fast becoming politicians have too often tried to use law and intimidation to silence anyone who speaks out about what is now self-evidently a clear and present danger.

Too often the political class have simply tried to wish-away the consequences of their irresponsibility.  Do not get me wrong – I am of course not accusing all nor indeed the massive majority of immigrants of seeking to de-stabilise British, or should I say more particularly English society.  Respect and tolerance goes to the very heart of my DNA.  Equally, no longer can London go on trying to pretend that some aspects of the hyper-immigration of the past twenty or thirty years have not spawned what is now a very real and dangerous problem.  Apart from a very few pathetic people it is not the indigenous population that is being radicalised.

Britain cannot go back and there is nothing to be gained from nostalgia.  British society today is what it is and that must be the starting point.  However, the issues raised by ‘British’ Jihadis are fundamental.  As the 2015 General Election approaches the High Priests of Multiculturalism are already re-appearing and they must for once be resisted.  Indeed, for too long been multiculturalism, i.e. the deliberate fostering of parallel, separate lives of different 'communities' on a small island has been Britain's problem not its solution.  It is multiculturalism that has created the dangerous space that has allowed the extremes of separate-ness to lead to the kind of brutal extremism evident in the slaughter of James Foley.

Therefore, no more the kid gloves of political correctness which is destroying British society.  Government needs to fundamentally re-think how it helps to construct a re-integrated society in which all of its members irrespective of race, religion or orientation believe they have a stake.  If London fails social cohesion will progressively fail, the making of foreign and security policy will become impossible and national life itself will be at risk.

“Policy” means properly re-integrating Muslims and indeed all other minorities properly into British society.  By all means be a hyphenated-Briton but to be ‘British’ and have the right to share the benefits of British society must mean to be a part of that society and to share its core values.  The good news is that there are a whole host of hyphenated-Britons out there who can help lead the way towards the most important of social attitudes - respect.  

Re-integration will take a long time but it must start now. And for once Government must not dodge the issue in the face of the inevitable barrage that will come from self-interested, self-appointed, single-interest groups.  This is because the threat posed by ‘British’ Jihadis to British society and indeed the United Kingdom is far greater than a few Scottish fantasists in skirts.  No more pretence, no more appeasement and no more dangerously self-deluding political correctness.

Sadly, the British people as a whole must be under no illusions; even though they despise “British values” these extremists were bred in Britain, their toxic views were allowed to fester in Britain, and sooner rather than later they will seek to return to Britain to cause mayhem.  Politicians caused the mess that is British society today and it is politicians that must help fix it.  If not then Britain will indeed become the new Afghanistan – a threat to itself and to others.

Enough is enough!

Julian Lindley-French