Brown's Immigration Speech: Hearing, not Listening

As has become customary Labour practice, selections from Gordon Brown’s speech on immigration today have been fed to the press in advance. As the BBC notes, this is his third such speech since becoming Prime Minister. Its content is wearisomely, depressingly familiar. He says that he must “listen” to and “engage” with public concerns on immigration, yet he knows not the meaning of the word “listen”; he does not “listen”, he merely hears. “Engage”? What does this word mean? It means ignoring what he hears; what we see, feel and think. What we know counts for nothing. It means telling us again, and again and again, that we are wrong.

Tellingly, he says: “How we conduct this debate is as important as the debate itself.”

My answer to this is no, it is not. It is not the manner in which it is conducted, but the substance itself – the issue of mass immigration - that is of such importance. Moreover, it is the question of the deliberate engineering of this human tide, and the annulment of national sovereignty that needs to be addressed and answered. These matters are portrayed as being of no importance by the likes of Brown, Cameron and Clegg, yet they are the very bedrock of our liberties and national democracy. These, it has been their intent to remove, and mass immigration, combined with absorption into the EU, have been their means of achieving this. Our sovereignty and national being have been stripped away, leaving what?

If you gradually replace the contents of a bottle of wine with water, does it remain a bottle of wine? It does not. If you replace the native British with myriad ethnic groups from around the world, does Britain remain Britain? No. It has become a Balkanised colony.

It is Brown’s belief, shared by all but a handful of Westminster politicians, that mass immigration is a good thing. Good for whom? Cui bono? Not us. Not the ordinary people of Britain.

When they, the advocates of this unbidden policy, cannot convince us, they hate us, and bring to bear a battery of fearful abuse: “extremist”, “racist”, “xenophobe” and “fascist”. Yet we are none of these. We are men and women of an independent cast of mind, who cannot and will not yield to the lies that we are fed from on high. We demand nothing more, than a return to a state of normalcy in our daily lives; a state in which we are free to speak our minds without fear of sanction or violence, in which we are sovereign; where our birthright is upheld. Today, sadly, this is not the case. Brown’s speech, and the cross-party consensus that it embodies, should be seen as nothing more than a cynical ploy to gull the electorate, an anodyne administered to a confused dying patient – the British people – to keep them quiet as they pass out of this world.

The BBC’s report on his speech is reproduced below:

PM urges united immigration front
Gordon Brown is to urge all parties to show a "united front" against those opposing immigration out of prejudice.

In a speech in London, the PM will say it is right for politicians to talk about the issue and address people's concerns about immigration levels.

But he will say debate must be measured and talk that immigration is "out of control" plays into extremists' hands.

The speech comes as a number of leading politicians challenged the main parties to toughen pledges on immigration.

The parliamentarians, including Labour MP Frank Field, have written an open letter challenging all the main parties to toughen their manifesto pledges.
The British National Party (BNP), which wants a stop to all immigration, except in exceptional cases, and to deport all illegal immigrants, won its first seats in the European Parliament last year.

Some Labour and Tory politicians blamed the BNP's breakthrough on the failure of their parties to address concerns about the impact of immigration on jobs, housing and social services.

'Right to talk'

Labour says the points-based system governing the amount of people that can come to work in the UK based on different criteria - introduced in 2008 - is fair, flexible and has contributed to a fall in immigration.

But the Tories say the current system is not working and have urged an annual cap to be set on immigration to reflect the UK's economic needs.

“ How we conduct this debate is an important as the debate itself ”

Gordon Brown on immigration

Conservative leader David Cameron has said net immigration levels - the difference between those coming into the UK and those leaving - have been too high in the past 10 years and need to be reduced.

In his second major speech on immigration in the past six months, Mr Brown will say people have a right to talk about the issue.

"As politicians in the mainstream of British politics, we have a duty to listen and engage with them - because if we don't people will listen to whoever does," he is expected to say.

"When we talk of fairness, it is right to talk of immigration and address people's worries and concerns.

"The question of who comes to Britain, and what they have to do to earn that privilege - it is something that should be the subject of open and responsible debate.

"But how we conduct this debate is an important as the debate itself."

'Standing together'
Mr Brown will say there is a consensus among mainstream parties in favour of immigration as a positive force in British society and a necessary contributor to economic growth.

"So I call on all those in the mainstream of our politics to stand together in the coming weeks and present a united front against those who don't value the diverse and outward-looking Britain that we stand for."

In November, Mr Brown announced plans for a points-based test for permanent residence and citizenship and more recently pledged to tighten the rules on student visas.

The Lib Dems have said immigrants should be encouraged to go to parts of the UK with specific skills shortages and which have the "will and resources" to accommodate them.

They have also called for improved border controls and for exit checks at all ports to be reinstated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/8595973.stm