Of course the criteria are wrong to the point of wickedness. But while Priti Patel makes an unlikely Barbara Castle, there are echos today of Castle’s words:
“What kind of internationalism says that we must give priority to a Frenchman over an Indian, a German over an Australian, an Italian over a Malaysian? This isn’t the language of internationalism. It is Euro-jingoism.”
Let us see Patel make good on her commitment to a renewed engagement with the world. For example, the “no recourse to public funds” rule has been, and remains, central to the Windrush scandal. But it does not apply if you come from the European Economic Area. Every country in the EEA is overwhelmingly white, and many of them are more or less entirely so.
Like the EU’s leaving of black people to drown in the Mediterranean as they attempt to flee from the slave markets that have been restored by our intervention in Libya, since Black Lives Matter, then this matters.
Are there votes in this? There are if you give people the vote. Boris Johnson ought to emulate Disraeli’s brilliant doubling of the electorate, the effects of which can still be felt and always will be. He should legislate so that parliamentary candidates would have to be British citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, but there would be no nationality requirement for voting, or indeed for standing in local elections.
Why would people not vote for the party that had given them the vote, rather than for the party that had never done so? That worked for Disraeli, and we still feel the effects. It could work for Johnson, with effects no less longlasting.
Keir Starmer’s own seat of Holborn and St Pancras could fall. Nine years ago, at the last census, Camden was 19 per cent Other White, 4.9 per cent Black African, four per cent Other Asian, 2.9 per cent Chinese, 2.3 per cent Other, 1.7 per cent Other Black, and 1.6 per cent Arab. Next year, it will be shown to be more diverse again. In the 2020s, the ageing Afro-Caribbean and South Asian grandees who back Starmer are irrelevant to BAME London and to BAME Britain.
Countries join and leave the Commonwealth quite frequently. None of them has any more, in the sense of any more recent, connection to Britain that any member of the EEA has. By any measure, many have less. Some fairly recent additions to the Commonwealth have no more connection to Britain than anywhere else on earth has.
The present system enfranchises Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, but not Americans or Israelis. Is that what those who write above the line in the Daily Telegraph want? It says that Ghanaians are more “like us” than Germans are, and that Swazis are more “like us” than Swedes are. Is that what those who write below the line in the Daily Mail want? Is that what Priti Patel wants?
We strictly control immigration in order to protect our hard-won jobs, workers’ rights, and public services. That is what it means to protect our culture. But within that, we do not differentiate on grounds of nationality. Within that, we welcome the world. Now, sort out the criteria. They are wrong to the point of wickedness.
“What kind of internationalism says that we must give priority to a Frenchman over an Indian, a German over an Australian, an Italian over a Malaysian? This isn’t the language of internationalism. It is Euro-jingoism.”
Let us see Patel make good on her commitment to a renewed engagement with the world. For example, the “no recourse to public funds” rule has been, and remains, central to the Windrush scandal. But it does not apply if you come from the European Economic Area. Every country in the EEA is overwhelmingly white, and many of them are more or less entirely so.
Like the EU’s leaving of black people to drown in the Mediterranean as they attempt to flee from the slave markets that have been restored by our intervention in Libya, since Black Lives Matter, then this matters.
Are there votes in this? There are if you give people the vote. Boris Johnson ought to emulate Disraeli’s brilliant doubling of the electorate, the effects of which can still be felt and always will be. He should legislate so that parliamentary candidates would have to be British citizens in Great Britain, or British or Irish citizens in Northern Ireland, but there would be no nationality requirement for voting, or indeed for standing in local elections.
Why would people not vote for the party that had given them the vote, rather than for the party that had never done so? That worked for Disraeli, and we still feel the effects. It could work for Johnson, with effects no less longlasting.
Keir Starmer’s own seat of Holborn and St Pancras could fall. Nine years ago, at the last census, Camden was 19 per cent Other White, 4.9 per cent Black African, four per cent Other Asian, 2.9 per cent Chinese, 2.3 per cent Other, 1.7 per cent Other Black, and 1.6 per cent Arab. Next year, it will be shown to be more diverse again. In the 2020s, the ageing Afro-Caribbean and South Asian grandees who back Starmer are irrelevant to BAME London and to BAME Britain.
Countries join and leave the Commonwealth quite frequently. None of them has any more, in the sense of any more recent, connection to Britain that any member of the EEA has. By any measure, many have less. Some fairly recent additions to the Commonwealth have no more connection to Britain than anywhere else on earth has.
The present system enfranchises Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, but not Americans or Israelis. Is that what those who write above the line in the Daily Telegraph want? It says that Ghanaians are more “like us” than Germans are, and that Swazis are more “like us” than Swedes are. Is that what those who write below the line in the Daily Mail want? Is that what Priti Patel wants?
We strictly control immigration in order to protect our hard-won jobs, workers’ rights, and public services. That is what it means to protect our culture. But within that, we do not differentiate on grounds of nationality. Within that, we welcome the world. Now, sort out the criteria. They are wrong to the point of wickedness.
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