Alphen, Netherlands. 16
September. Three issues dominated the
media during my stay in England last week – the break-up of the United Kingdom,
Europe and hyper-immigration. Today the
politics of Britain seems essentially about how long British politicians can
deny the English a say on all three vital issues.
The impact of
hyper-immigration is what strikes the visitor.
Last Thursday I sat on a London Underground train shuddering, juddering
and clattering my way out to Stanmore from London’s Far East. As I cast my eye
around me I was the only indigenous English person in the carriage. In one of those little moments of humanity I
love I struck up a conversation with the lady next to me. She was delightful. Born in Bangladesh she had moved to England
ten years ago and was now working in the City of London as a secretary doing
the ‘grind’ every day.
We talked about immigration. The first thing I had
to say was that I too am an immigrant having made my career for many years in
foreign lands and that I have nothing but respect for good people trying to
make a better life elsewhere. Equally, I
also admitted to her my deep sense of loss.
It is a sense of loss I told her that politicians tell me I should not
have because it is closet racism.
However, I cannot help it – it is loss I deeply feel. The England that I was born into in 1958 is long
gone and I grieve for it. Indeed, sometimes
I feel like a foreigner in a country that had once been my own. And I freely admitted to anger with the left
wing zealots, right wing exploiters and the Euro-fanatics who had taken my
country away from me without my permission.
As I left England news
was announced that a decent family from Pakistan who had come to England to give
their children an Islamic education had been murdered in Leicester in what
police believe could be a revenge killing.
A revenge killing in England?
What is happening to my old country I thought as I silently shook my
head in angered disbelief like so many millions of perfectly tolerant, decent English
people who are open to balanced immigration but simply want England to remain England.
And yet by the end of
the week I began to feel something different – a strange smidgeon of hope. From the professional Eastern European women
who served me in my hotel, to a West Indian lady with whom I had a giggle on the
tube, to the Sikh gentleman who let me off with a smile because I had
inadvertently bought the wrong ticket, to the Muslim police officer who helped
me with my bag, what came across was nice people showing unfailing courtesy to
each other. And, I suppose it is that sense of common decency I take away from this trip – for society to work nice people must be nice
to each other.
Furthermore, what point is
there in nostalgia? Yes, hyper-immigration
has destroyed my England because it has imported not just the best of elsewhere
but the very worst. Moreover,
minority-obsessed politicians close their eyes to the dangerous social
frictions that hyper-immigration has caused or seek an alibi for the mess they
have created by pointing pointlessly to the unproven economic benefits of
immigration whilst ignoring the appalling social and cultural cost England is
paying. Even the most casual of observers
can see England for what it is; a house of cards, vulnerable, on the edge
society the slightest shock to which could bring the whole rickety edifice crashing
down.
And yet out of this
kaleidoscope of identities and cultures I hope a new England can emerge. My generation will not be a part of it as we
are the lost generation, alienated strangers in what had once been our own
country. However, I hope something,
somehow English will emerge – colour-blind, race-blind but I hope neither values
blind nor heritage blind - an England always
open to the best and brightest from all over.
However, a new socially-coherent England will be impossible to realise
if England continues to import the world’s myriad hatreds and intolerances
which has done and is doing so much to destroy the country I once loved.
A London taxi driver
put it most succinctly. Being a taxi
driver he had a view or two about the meaning of life which he thought I needed
to know. “England”, he said “is finished. There are too many foreigners”. He was from Poland.
For the record, the
Scots alone will decide the fate of the UK; there will be no referendum on
Europe; and immigration ‘controls’ are a farce. And of course the English as
usual will be denied their say.
How I weep for thee my
country; how I hope for thee my country.
Julian Lindley-French
