Incomes fall whilst Population rises

In a rare moment of candour, an article on the BBC website today finally acknowledged through quoting the Office for National Statistics (ONS) that population growth (fuelled predominantly by historically unprecedented mass immigration) had contributed to a significant decline in disposable income in the UK. The average figure fell by 1% during the first three months of 2012 compared to the preceding months, with the amount of disposable income reaching its lowest since 2003.

The protracted structural economic crisis doubtless underpins this decline, but this negative economic situation is heavily exacerbated by rapid and unhelpful population growth. On a per capita basis, the report reveals that pre-tax income declined during the period in question by 0.6%. The ONS stated: 

sustained population growth led to incomes being spread across a greater number of people, and therefore further reduced the growth of actual income per head.

To describe a decline in both pre-tax and disposable incomes as “growth” is one of those peculiar particularities of conventional economics, but the wider notion of “growth” as being an essentially good thing, irrespective of what that “growth” actually consists of, is a dogma that needs to be laid to rest if we are to effect true improvements in our standard of living and quality of life in this country. The focus upon an increase in aggregate rather than per capita GDP is, in general, something that can actually lead to a concrete deterioration in both our daily lived experience and indeed in our individual incomes.

Retailers for example, are enthusiastic about a growing population, for this implies more prospective consumers to shop in their outlets; builders too, for this necessitates the construction of ever more homes (the rooms of which seem to grow smaller as average girths grow wider); an increase in the number of passengers on already overcrowded rail services may be seen as positive by various rail companies, but do we as commuters appreciate the consequences of such “growth”: nowhere to sit and often scarcely space to breathe? As the population grows the infrastructure – particularly in densely populated England possessing an average of 407 people per square kilometre according to the 2011 Census – creaks: traffic jams grow longer and more frequent; drought orders are issued sooner and take longer to lift, and we are urged to adopt water meters to conserve a precious “scarce” resource; pressure upon our housing stock grows, as do voices calling for the lifting of planning restrictions designed to protect our countryside.

For the conventional economist, population growth is therefore seen to be a “good thing”, whereas for the mortals who have to live with its consequences, the negative impact of such a demographic surge far outweighs any superficial nominal benefits that may be said to have been accrued. Yet, despite such pressures brought about by the negligent policies of the current government and the wilful design of its predecessor, few are willing to take a critical stance on this issue and call for a solution that would readily improve our lives: a rational demographic policy aimed in the long run (i.e. over the coming century or two) at reducing our national population to sustainable limits of circa 25 to 30 million. However, those who support Population Matters - such as David Attenborough and James Lovelock - are notable exceptions.

The example of the widespread failure of India’s electricity grids over the past two days should serve as a warning as to what could happen to us if we do not constrain our population at a level commensurate with the power and resources that we can practically make available. As our government is also signed up to treaties that insist upon a considerable cut in our aggregate energy consumption, the addition of millions of new citizens implies that we must all make do with far less, in other words, experience a sustained cut in our standard of living for the sake of immigrants from countries which fail to cater to the needs of their citizens. Such a reckless demographic policy must be curtailed, for otherwise, we consign ourselves to an increasingly immiserated and insecure future, in a grossly overpopulated world where demands for food, territory, energy and water become ever more intense. We need to produce more food and energy domestically, so as to enhance our national security, and to improve the lot of our people. Other nations need to turn to the needs of their citizens too, and to institute sensible demographic policies, instead of exporting their population problems to Britain and the other countries of the West.

Africa, and significant swathes of Asia, need to learn how to use the condom and the pill. It is still, just, within their gift, to choose to solve their population crises humanely and rationally, yet if they do not - which currently appears to be the greater likelihood - then the bitter Malthusian lessons of unrestrained reproduction will doubtless have to be learned through great hardship and unnecessary death on a mass scale. We have no reason to be dragged down by such folly, yet our current crop of politicians appear intent upon letting just such an eventuality unfold. Our incomes may be falling now, but if a radical change in the existing political landscape and general approach to policy is not brought about within the next decade, then the risk will be that our current economic woes will seem utterly insignificant. 

Time for a sensible demographic policy: long-term population reduction

Rowan Atkinson on Religion

The picture below has been tweeted this morning, so whether this represents a new release on the part of Rowan Atkinson, or someone has chosen to highlight something that he produced a while ago, I am not sure. However, following his high-profile appearance at the Olympic opening ceremony, it is a canny move for this to be released now when his name (or at least that of Mr Bean) should enjoy such widespread public recognition around the globe. Atkinson is a well-known advocate of free speech and has made a number of criticisms of so-called "hate laws", a stance which can only be commended. As for the sentiments voiced below, I am in complete agreement. Now, which religion could be described as the one that we should most dislike based upon Atkinson's quote? Nominations please!

Michael Portillo's 'Stepping Stones of Islamic Spain'

This afternoon Radio 4 broadcast the first instalment of a two-part documentary by Michael Portillo entitled 'Stepping Stones of Islamic Spain', in which the former MP sought to examine the role of Islam both in Spain's past and present. As in any programme of this nature, the agenda of the media personality as presenter soon became apparent: in this case, to reinforce the current dominant narrative that Al-Andulus was a positive period in Iberian history, whereas what he termed the "so-called Reconquista" was alluded to in the darkest of colours. For some reason, the aggressive military fact of the Arab invasion and subsequent conquest of Visigothic Spain in 711 did not seem to register as such with Portillo, just as today's Islamic mass demographic incursion into his paternal homeland did not appear to be a matter of concern for him.

When he was a child, recollected Portillo, Spain was "absolutely mono-ethnic", whereas now, that is no longer the case, with the greatest inflow of outsiders having occurred during the past decade with a surge in immigration not only from North Africa and the Middle East, but also from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Unlike in the UK however, there is a notable absence of mosques in Spain, despite its large and rapidly growing Muslim population. As in France and Moscow, Muslims have taken to praying in the streets, which is a phenomenon that many Spaniards understandably find objectionable. Although as in Britain Spain has its champions of multiculturalism who function as facilitators of Islamisation, many Spanish politicians, particularly it seems at the municipal level, are unwilling to offer the sorts of incentives in terms of planning permission and financial aid for the construction of mosques found in countries such as the UK, Germany and many other European states. Portillo found this hard to understand, and was astonished that Spain only possesses two purpose-built mosques, both of which are in Madrid: one built in 1988 and another in 1992. The second of these is also the largest, and like many mosques in the UK, has been built using Saudi money, which suggests that the Islamic dogma peddled inside the building is of the Salafi literalist variety.

Portillo suggested that the Spanish approach was more likely to drive Muslims into the hands of "extremists" than that pursued in Britain, which, given that we have an estimated 3,000 potentially violent jihadi militants under surveillance, seems questionable.

Although Portillo interviewed people possessing a range of different perspectives relating to Islam and Spain, his sympathetic treatment of Islam and Muslim immigrants, together with his sanitised romanticisation of Al-Andulus, revealed his prejudices, and suggest that the conclusion we will hear him deliver at the end of the next programme will include calls for the Spanish to embrace their Islamic past and to welcome Muslim immigrants. There seems to be little doubt that any Spaniard with rational objections to this process of settlement will be branded a "xenophobe" and an "extremist". However, what Portillo and other advocates of the idealisation of Al-Andulus fail to highlight is that all of the good things that flowed into Mediaeval Europe from Muslim-governed Spain originated not from within the teachings and example of Mohammed, but either from older texts - such as those of Aristotle - that had formed the bedrock of the philosophy of Classical Antiquity but been destroyed elsewhere by the anti-rational fathers of the early Church, or from the eclectic discoveries of Indian mathematicians, Zoroastrian Persia and those men of a rational bent who found themselves living in Islamically-governed countries (e.g. Averroes, Ibn Khaldun and Avicenna) whom Muslims claim, erroneously, as being exclusively "Islamic". Only an ignoramus would claim that the wealth of mathematical, philosophical, astronomical and other proto-scientific insights yielded by such men were without value, for these have indeed added hugely to the store of human knowledge, and without the application of these findings, later scientific and technological advances would not have been possible. To reject such contributions would be as absurd as the oft-quoted question "What have the Romans ever done for us?" from The Life of Brian.

However, we no longer live in the Mediaeval world, and whereas it is justifiable to enumerate and to welcome the contributions to knowledge listed above, they cannot in any sense be described as Islamic, as none of them originate in the Quran or the Hadith, but rather, from the human quest for knowledge. Today's Muslim immigrants to Spain do not bring the Spanish people lost knowledge from our shared Classical past, or revolutionary rational insights into the workings of the Universe and the foundations of the scientific method, but demands for the construction of mosques, halal slaughter and lesser rights for women. Portillo is therefore falling into a basic category error by equating the emergent rationalism that found a place within Islamically-governed Mediaeval societies, with the religious dogma of Islam itself. Surely, as an educated man, he cannot be so foolish as to be unable to distinguish the sophisticated philosophy of a polymath such as Averroes, from the wilfully ignorant dogma professed by a mass of Muslim immigrants to Spain today?

Visigothic Spain in 700 before the Islamic Invasion

Olympian Dreams and Nightmares

Olympic opening ceremonies are intended to send out clear messages to the world about the host nation, its identity and values. As such, it seems that many around the globe last night, including a significant proportion of our own population, must have been left feeling distinctly confused, disorientated and wondering what had happened to Britain. It was not so much a celebration of national identity, as of a post-national notion of Britain as a hyper-globalised space, in which its people were depicted as being displaced by incomers at an ever-accelerating pace.

Even our bucolic and industrial pasts failed to resist colonisation by the present, with recent non-British arrivals partially usurping the role of the nation's forebears, as jarring and unnatural as if China were to have celebrated its history through having Americans assume the role of peasants and emperors. Danny Boyle presented us with his vision of a Britain that is everywhere and nowhere; Britain as the world in microcosm, in which the English in particular, rapidly run the risk of becoming an ethnic minority in their own land. This central theme of ethnic displacement, or what in the mind of Boyle and others of a multiculturalist bent would be viewed as a positive phenomenon of ethnic transcendence, was present in almost every facet of the opening ceremony. Nowhere was this more starkly represented in concrete demographic fashion than in the composition of the children's choir singing Jerusalem, in which the African element was heavily evident, and in Boyle's selection of a fictitious mixed black and white family (indigenous female, black male) and a young couple (daughter of said couple with a non-indigenous boyfriend) to serve as a physical representation of the nation today.

Was the opening ceremony spectacular? Yes. Was it original? Certainly. Was it the product of a talented director? Obviously, yes. Yet, despite all of these positive qualities and the efforts of the performers, it ultimately constituted a national lament, but a gleeful one that saw its central mission as being to rub our noses in diversity. How many viewers in other nations must have looked on in a state of perplexity, puzzling as to why we should be celebrating national suicide with such an exuberant embrace? Bonkers.

Chechen champions PC regulation of Russian mass media

Russia is often regarded as a country in which concerns relating to political correctness are generally held not to hinder reporting, although naturally, practical apprehensions relating to widespread corruption and the immense power of the country's oligarchs, and those within and allied to Putin's circle, exert a certain chilling effect upon the freedom of the mass media. Nobody, after all, is keen to experience a fatal 'accident' or some other form of unanticipated personal misadventure. Now however, it looks as if these informal restrictions upon reporting are to be supplemented by a new law muzzling writers and broadcasters in their handling of information relating to people's ethnic and racial origins, as well as to their religious affiliations.

As in the UK, where such legislation has been born largely of a slavish apeing of an inappropriate US example combined with reference to the putative welfare and interests of an increasingly influential Muslim minority, Russia seems set to follow a path where the systematic distortion of reporting is held to be both a necessary and desirable tool of ensuring interethnic amity and concord.

According to an article run by Izvestia on 26th July, a former Chechen minister and current Deputy of the Russian Duma Shamsail Saraliev,  is pushing for the introduction of a bill this autumn that will seek to tackle what he believes to be the negative reporting and portrayal of ethnic and national minorities. He states:

In the mass media on a daily basis you will encounter : two Chechens killed a Russian, an Armenian attacked a Russian. Why place the accent upon nationality/ethnicity? This only makes people angry and provokes national/ethnic conflict. There are no bad nationalities/ethnicities.

Saraliev reveals that this proposed approach has been revealed to the resident population of the North Caucacus Federal District using social media and local broadcasters:

We are asking people whether or not it is necessary to place a prohibition on the indication of nationality/ethnicity in articles and reporting.

It is claimed that 82% of the inhabitants of the Caucasus republics support this proposal.

Aleksandr Sokolov Head of Club Multinational Russia thinks that such an approach should be broadened to include regional origin. However, he does think it valid to include reference to ethnicity or religion if conflict has arisen upon either grounds in the case concerned. Then again, in a example familiar to British readers, he had voiced his approval of positive stereotyping of ethnic and tacial minorities, citing the case of American blacks.

A third influential individual - Gadzhimet Safaraliev, Head of the Duma Committee on Nationality Affairs - is working on similar proposals and thinks that a presidential decree will be ready by late in the year. He also thinks that its remit should include cinematography. Safaraliev is a Dagestani.

During the Soviet period, Russia was of course the fountainhead of political correctness, with what could and could not be said or portrayed being tightly controlled. This began to change thanks to Gorbachev's policy of glasnost, and in post-Soviet Russia a significant liberalisation of freedom of speech and expression took place. Now, unfortunately, it would seem that this relatively brief era is coming to an end, with Russia seemingly intent upon adopting some of the misplaced press restrictions adopted in the West.

Ice, Flood, Drought and Inflation

As much of England finally enjoys a taste of summer and a welcome respite from the rain and the cold, NASA satellite data reveal what appears to be unprecedented widespread melting of its ice cap. According to an article appearing on the BBC website today, whereas the most widespread melting previously recorded by satellite took place across 55% of the island's ice cap, on 12th July this year ice melt took place across 97% of its surface area. Melting was even recorded at Summit station, something that has not occurred since 1889.

Elsewhere in the Arctic, satellite data reveals that sea ice cover has been tracking below the record low levels of 2007. As of 23rd July, sea ice extent was tying with that of 2007. The melt season still has some way to go, as the ice reaches its annual minimum in September.

Presumably, the unusual position of the jet stream will have sent abnormally warm air over Greenland, just as it has brought unusual heat and drought to the United States and flooding to Britain and Kyushu. This year we seem to have been experiencing unusual patterns of weather resulting from the jet stream becoming locked into a particular position for extended periods of time. Quite why this has occurred is something of a moot point, with some climatologists suggesting that these atmospheric circulatory patterns are linked to a decline in temperature differentials between a rapidly warming Arctic and the Tropics. On the other hand, a minority hypothesise that these atmospheric patterns are linked to reduced solar activity, but the mechanism underpinning this has not been explained.

Whatever underlies the unusual meteorological events of 2012, these are likely to have a negative impact upon global food prices, owing for example to the collapse in production in the US Corn Belt. Increases in the price of foodstuffs could lead to an increase in social unrest in some countries, as occurred in Egypt in 2010-2011. Closer to home, a leap in food inflation will place increasing pressure on already squeezed budgets. Events in the natural realm thus seem set to compound the problems  of the human world in the months ahead.

Party Update and forthcoming Launch

At the beginning of May it was announced here that the decision had been taken to set up a new political party and that further information would be made available six weeks later. Naturally, rather more than that length of time has subsequently elapsed, so apologies are in order on our part for the delay in writing. However, although a little behind schedule the registration process is now underway and an associated supporting account being set up. Pending approval by the Electoral Commission it is therefore our intention to formally launch in September.

In a recent article by Andrew Brons, he reiterated his belief that a new party would be doomed to near certain failure, and also revealed that the Brent Group is planning to launch a party of its own in the near future. As stated previously and as indicated by the decision of the Brent Group not to become involved in our initiative, our party will be something new and distinct with a different emphasis to that which has gone before. Clearly, something significant within our proposals was fundamentally incompatible with the core beliefs of the Brent Group, but what they may be has not been openly stated. We are therefore driven to conclude that this divide must be expressive of two broad tendencies within the nationalist movement: one, embodied within our position, which stands for a new start and thoroughgoing modernisation of nationalism with a democratic, participatory and personal libertarian emphasis, and another, which sees itself as a ‘successor’ to Griffin’s BNP and perceives little wrong with that party other than its existing leadership and constitution.

That the split above should have occurred and found expression in the coming formation of two parties strikes us as healthy rather than as a cause for lamentation. It is our intent to connect with the electorate through being in tune with their concerns rather than stopping up our ears, closing our eyes and pretending that contemporary realities do not exist, wishing that they would vanish or fall into line with a vision of what should be rather than what is. Either nationalism adapts, or it dies. We opt for adaptation, and encourage those who share our vision to join us. For those who do not, there are plenty of other options.

UKIP emerged out of nothing in just a few years to take a considerable number of seats in the EU elections, thereby demonstrating that it is possible for a new party to make a breakthrough. However, it never managed to progress beyond this limited electoral arena because of its fixation upon a single issue. It had no “parent” party, although it attracted many members and supporters who were disaffected Tories. Our new party, like UKIP, will have no “parent”, although it will attract many members and supporters who are disaffected with the BNP.

If, as Brons asserts, “all breakaway parties fail if they break away when the parent party is still in existence”, this would suggest that what the Brent Group is due to launch will fail, for it sees and portrays itself as the true “breakaway” from the “parent party” named the BNP. We see it as that too. Our party has no parent, other than necessity. We look forward to September with a grounded sense of optimism.

Will it be to your taste?

Wahhabist Terror strikes Tatarstan

Today, unknown assailants have attacked two outspoken critics of Wahhabi/Salafist Islam in Kazan, capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan. Valiulla Yakupov, Tatarstan’s Deputy Mufti, was shot and killed as he left his home, whilst elsewhere in the city the Chief Mufti himself - Ildus Fayzov – was seriously injured as a car bomb tore his vehicle apart. Although nobody has yet claimed responsibility for these attacks, it is a near certainty that they were perpetrated by Salafist militants, angered by the efforts of these two men to combat a growing trend towards Quranic literalism and the call for violent Jihad that has been gaining traction in the republic. It seems symbolic that the attacks took place upon the eve of Ramadan, as if emphasising that the attackers regarded them as false Muslims. 

Valiulla Yakupov

 Izvestia reports that “Spetsnaz are conducting an operation to detain the presumed killers” and reveals some interesting background information on the two victims. Fayzov only took up his position in April 2011, succeeding Gusman Iskhakov who, according to “the unofficial version” was held to be “leading an insufficiently rigorous policy in relation the republic’s radical Islamists”, whereas Fayzov “took a hard-line and principled position on this question.” Fayzov and Yakupov in this respect were cast from the same mould, and shortly before his death, Yakupov told the paper that he was “alarmed at the growing influence of followers of radical currents of Islam amongst the republic’s Muslims.” He believed that these influences were primarily of foreign origin, stating: “Dozens of people go abroad, who then return to the republic and act as influential agents: actually recruiting new people and sending them abroad.”

There thus seems to be a clear motive for the attacks, with the Islamists wishing to use violence to silence those who advocate a peaceful interpretation of Islam, with a view to further radicalising and polarising the situation within Tatarstan. However, although Yakupov and many others have made reference to a very real foreign role in generating this phenomenon, there is also the Caucasus to take into consideration, which has acted as an incubator for Salafist radicalism these past two decades. Self-styled ‘Emir’ Doku Umarov has been attempting to create what he terms a “Caucasian Emirate” and, according to Nezavisimaia gazeta, has also called for “mujahideen” to “resettle in the Volga region so as to call local Muslims to jihad.”  The Chechen Islamist also wishes for Tatarstan to secede from Russia and to become part of a “Greater Caucasian Emirate”. Such people are said to have settled in Tatarstan and are playing an active role in pushing Salafism, with the consequence that experts now believe that no less than 10 of Kazan’s 50 mosques now effectively lie in their hands.

As outlined on this blog last year, officials in Tatarstan have grown increasingly worried about the growth of violent Islamist militancy for quite some time, as reflected in a piece on the republic run by Nezavisimaia gazeta entitled ‘A whole Generation of Extremists’, for it is amongst the younger generation in particular that Salafism is exerting the greatest appeal. This revealed that a considerable number of individuals had visited Pakistan and Afghanistan where they participated in violent jihadist activity before returning home with a view of attacking domestic targets.

Although Tatarstan as of 2010 had a population of 3.8 million, of which only 53.2% were Tatars (traditionally Sunni Muslims), experts consider that there are no less than 3,000 Islamist radicals in the republic, of which approximately 10% are “ready to take up arms and wage jihad, and the remainder to sponsor and help them in any way”. This figure is roughly equivalent to the number of Islamist radicals reputedly being monitored in the UK. For a territory as small as Tatarstan, this figure is quite remarkable, and today’s killings are not the first that have been perpetrated by jihadists on its soil. In November 2010, three Islamist militants believed to have planted a bomb beneath the car belonging to the Director of Tatarstan’s branch of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Centre for Countering Extremism, were tracked down and killed in Nurlat’skii District. In the five-year period leading up to 2011, more than 100 people in Tatarstan had been sentenced for their involvement in terrorist and extremist activity.

Whereas in the past the version of Islam encountered amongst the Tatars has been of a relatively mild variety, the example of the effective displacement of traditional Sufism and other forms of Islam by Salafism in the Caucasus, seems unfortunately to point the way forward for Tatarstan, where young Muslims have increasingly taken to mimicking the fashions of the militants from the Caucasus, so much so, that many young Tatar nationalists have erroneously appropriated this alien cultural form as a signifier of their identity. Although therefore Kazan may lie far away and be practically unknown to most of us, this particular problem, born ultimately of Saudi oil wealth, is one shared with many other countries. Today’s attacks provide a sad and salutary reminder, that the malign influence of Salafist ideology is not yet on the wane, but rather, very much on the offensive and making significant inroads. 

EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström: open the EU to North African immigration

A few weeks ago, Peter Sutherland made it clear to the House of Lords that he believed European countries must be forced to become multicultural through further opening their borders to mass immigration from Africa and Asia. Earlier this week, we had the first release of data from the 2011 census that revealed that the officially recorded population of England and Wales had grown at the fastest rate over any 10-year period since the census began in 1801, with this rise being fuelled predominantly by an historically unprecedented wave of immigration and higher birth rates amongst the immigrant-descended population. Yet, despite economic crisis, permanent mass unemployment, a housing shortage and increasing social Balkanisation, Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs, has reiterated her belief in an interview with Le Monde that “Immigration will be necessary for Europe”. 

In the interview, conducted in Brussels and published on 10 July, Malmström elaborated upon her earlier comments that immigration to the EU constituted “not a threat, but an opportunity” and should be considered as “a factor of growth”. Moreover, she has described the Arab Spring as an “historical opportunity”, but was critical of the manner in which the EU had reacted, believing that popular hostility to being flooded by a human exodus from North Africa had “led to a deterioration of our relations with these countries”. In her evaluation of the outcome of the Arab Spring she naively interprets it as expressive of “reclaiming liberty and the rights of man”. Quite how that squares with the Muslim Brotherhood coming to power in Egypt, Islamists winning elections in Tunisia and dominating post-Qaddhafi Libya, it is difficult to say, for by any rational and objective set of criteria Islamism sets itself in direct opposition to the notion of such rights, for Islam recognises the supremacy of its ‘divine’ Sharia over all manmade law.

Although it may be wise to follow Zhou Enlai’s cryptic comment about the impact of the French Revolution (was he referring to 1789 or to 1968?) by stating that “it is too soon to say” what the eventual outcome of the Arab Spring may be, what seems to have happened thus far is that one form of authoritarianism has been substituted for another. Particularistic national authoritarianisms have been traded for a religious variant, with a limited national colouration and universalist aspirations. Malmström appears incapable of grasping this primary fact, this incomprehension seemingly rooted in her inability to see beyond an economistic reductionism which fails to take into account the centrality of people’s cultural identities, as well as their economic situation. Her thinking, if perhaps not strictly speaking Marxist, is certainly in this respect Marxisant.

This blindness to the salience of culture, and to its deep civilisational underpinnings which find expression in structuring distinctive worldviews and psychologies, thus leads individuals such as Malmström to view human beings as interchangeable economic units, not as distinctive beings imbued with integral identities without which there can be no meaningful sense of self. Although the Mediterranean world may have been unified politically and to a considerable extent culturally during late Antiquity, it no longer is so, and has not been since the arrival of Islam in the Seventh Century. To ignore the fundamental differences that have grown since this time is myopic in the extreme, and whereas recognition of this difference is well understood in the Muslim world, it is systematically denied by those of a PC multiculturalist bent in Europe.With Malmström, the spirit of Euromed is very much alive and kicking. 

Ignorance of the centrality of culture is leading to the adoption of disastrous demographic and economic policies for native Europeans. Le Monde, unsurprisingly gave Malmström a sympathetic platform, formulaically referring in pejorative fashion to “the rise of populist and xenophobic forces” in northern Europe, with the interviewee singling out Geert Wilders for special opprobrium. Malmström peddles the official EU line that is familiar to all in Britain today that mass immigration is “necessary” because of our ageing societies. This assertion is false. We have permanent mass unemployment and it should be our aim to match the unemployed with the vacancies in our economy. Where they lack the requisite skills, they should be trained. Moreover, as Greece knows much to its cost, many immigrants possess no skills, and come in search of only what they can take by way of benefits, wishing to assert their “human rights” without taking on any national responsibilities.

Malmström’s opinions are therefore far from unusual amongst members of the EU’s governing oligarchy, but we should take note of what she says because of her influential position and consequent ability to shape policy. I close therefore with her words on the need for the “new immigration”, the implications of which I ask you to reflect upon:  

Yes, but the reality is there. The role of the Brussels Commission is also to encourage politicians to take this into account. To envisage the problems in the long term, and to rise above national contingencies. Besides, the academic world considers what I say to be perfectly commonplace …

 

Sympathy for the Devil: the BBC's love affair with the 2011 rioters

Regular readers will know that extensive coverage of last summer's riots was provided on this blog as events unfolded, and the intervening months have done little, if anything, to change my opinion that they represented an outburst of opportunistic criminality. Although the motivations of each individual rioter may have differed to some degree, the decision to engage in violent disorder was embedded in a fundamental disconnection from the rest of society, an impulse nurtured by the knowledge that sections of the diversity-compliant mass media would look upon the rioters with indulgence. Who, after all, would be so callous as to view these poor benighted creatures, these 'victims' of a cruel capitalist system and social exclusion, and pronounce guilt upon them?

Those who attacked the police, who set light to properties, destroyed businesses and livelihoods certainly do deserve our attention, and our understanding; they deserve to be recognised as adults imbued with free will; to be recognised as arsonists, life-threatening criminals, thieves and agents of general destruction. What is to be gained, after all, from burning down your own neighbourhood? We are lucky that the rain intervened and brought the riots to an end, for without this, rather sterner measures may have been required to bring the situation under control. The police had an unenviable task.

A great contributory factor to the riots, as mentioned above, was a sense of disconnection from the rest of society. From whence did this spring? Yesterday's census statistics provide a clue, for we now possess a large, rootless resident population that originates from outside of our country, indeed, from outside of our continent, which thus literally possesses no bonds with the rest of society, for it belongs elsewhere and cares not for our welfare. Not all involved in the riots were of such alien extraction and descent of course, but the latter were greatly overrepresented amongst the body of the rioters, which is why the likes of the BBC, The Guardian and the LSE were happy to collaborate on a cri de coeur on behalf of the rioters: The Riots: in their own Words, the first part of which was to be screened tonight. The broadcasting of this programme however, states The Daily Telegraph, has been prevented by a court order.

In a way, it is a pity that this two-part documentary has been cancelled, for although it would have provided an apologist version of events from the criminal perspective, it would have highlighted the exceptional bias in the BBC's editorial position. Given the identities of the collaborating parties in this enterprise, it can be guaranteed that these programmes would have been larded with allegations of 'racism', that naturally would have been deployed to intensify the 'victim' status of the criminals. The documentary is said to be based upon interviews with 270 people involved in the riots, few of whom, presumably with the exception of a few police, were in the eyes of the BBC guilty of anything. For some strange reason, there seems to be something in the BBC's DNA that predisposes it towards sympathy not so much for the underdog, but, metaphorically speaking,for the Devil.

EU Referendum Blog hosts Harrogate Conference

Last weekend Dr Richard North of the EU Referendum blog hosted a conference in Harrogate, bringing together bloggers (many of them ex-UKIP members) from across the country to discuss the democratic deficit in the UK, and how this might be remedied. Their stated aim: to emulate the Chartists by drawing up a charter of six proposed reforms to restore public faith in our democracy, by making it more accountable and responsive to public demands and interests. As such, it possessed laudable goals, and I await with interest further information with respect to the conclusions that the group reaches – for discussions have not yet terminated – and any ensuing practical recommendations. If the latter should prove to be desirable, they, or elements of them, could be incorporated into the new party’s policy.

Many themes relating to the nature of power, democracy and representation were discussed at the conference, including the key notion of the “separation of powers”. However, no firm recommendations have yet been made or clearly formulated, thus it has been stated that the group will aim to meet within the next couple of months with a view to issuing what has been termed the “Harrogate Declaration”, perhaps in September. This will give form to the group’s declared intent. In the interim, articles summarising key aspects of last weekend’s discussions and further developing their themes will appear on members’ blogs, such as EU Referendum, Witterings from Witney and the Boiling Frog amongst others. Those who wish to keep a track of developments would be advised to visit EU Referendum as a first port of call. 

Harrogate Conference Participants

Bradford: fastest growing population in Yorkshire

The 2011 census results show that the population of Yorkshire as a whole grew less quickly than the average across England and Wales between 2001 and 2011, increasing by 6% from 4,977,000 to 5,284,000. However, one city bucked the trend: Bradford. Here, there has been a massive increase in the officially recorded population since 2001, with a rise of 11% to 522,500. The explanation lies not only with ongoing high rates of immigration from Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also with the far higher fertility rate of the resident population originating in these parts of the subcontinent.

The age structure of Bradford’s population is unusual too, insofar as it is considerably younger than either the average for Yorkshire and Humber or for England and Wales, with 7.9% of the population under five years of age, and some 28.8% below 19 (see the table below for further details and comparison with other averages). A report on this evening’s edition of Look North noted that this rapid growth in Bradford’s young population had implications for schooling, as there is a shortage of school places in the city and no spare capacity to accommodate the under fives once they reach school age. Either new schools will have to be built, or these children will be sent to schools in neighbouring parts of Bradford district and beyond, following a path already 'pioneered' by schools such as St Bede's.

The demographic makeup of Bradford is changing, and it is changing quickly. Given the peculiarities of the city’s age structure, these changes will accelerate once schoolchildren leave and marry, and they will do so at an earlier age than the national average, and have larger families than the norm. A clearer picture will be provided by further data that will be released in December.

UPDATE: The data relating to the percentage of Muslims in Bradford's population was released on 11 December 2012 and can be accessed here.

Census indicates surge in Muslim population

Today saw the release of the first data sets from the 2011 census by the Office for National Statistics, and whereas early indications were that the population of England and Wales would have surged by more than three million, the actual figure turned out to be higher than officially expected: an increase of 3.7 million. This was the fastest rate of population increase measured since the first census was taken in 1801, and takes the average population density for England to 407 people per square kilometre. If we exclude the essentially urban microstates of Monaco, the Vatican and Malta, England is now the most densely populated country in Europe, closely followed by the Netherlands at 404 per square kilometre. This increase is alarming, and all three of the parties of government that have presided over this increase must acknowledge responsibility for this unacceptable de facto open borders policy (see a statement by David Willetts in December last year advocating an influx of labour).

The data thus far released deal only with "age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and for Wales". The more interesting data on ethnicity and religion it would seem will not be forthcoming for quite some time. What is clear though is that the vast proportion of the population increase will have been driven by immigration and higher fertility amongst sections of the immigrant-descended population. An alarming indication of what to expect is provided by the identities of the two local authorities with the fastest population growth rates in England: Tower Hamlets and Newham. In 2001, Newham had the second highest proportion of Muslims in the UK at 24.3% of the total, whereas Tower Hamlets, according to 2010 estimates, was 36.4% Muslim. Likewise, Bradford has displayed an increase significantly higher than the national norm. What clearer illustration of demographic Islamisation could be provided?

The census has demonstrated that England has suffered disproportionately from mass immigration, with the increase in its population accounting for 3.56 million of the 3.72 million total. This is not only undesirable, but completely unsustainable and reckless. The natural dynamics of our native population can be seen in the ONS graph below, for if we look at the figures for 1971 to 1981, we see a slight decline. This is the population trajectory towards which we should be aiming, considering the gross overpopulation of our country. Irrespective of the figures contained in the census, there is one overriding certainty: they represent a significant underestimate of the true figure. Many will not have bothered to complete the census return, including obviously those who have arrived here illegally. What their numbers are, we cannot hazard to say with any degree of accuracy, but at a minimum we should reckon upon a million illegal immigrants. According to one report that appeared in The Independent in 2007, senior and reliable sources claimed that the UK population was already between 77 and 80 million. The latter figure certainly tallied with the reckoning of one of the country's large supermarket chains.

Mass immigration has contributed towards an absurd situation in which we are told repeatedly that even at a time of extensive flooding we need to cut down on our domestic water consumption, and that compulsory metering is the answer. Then there is the pressure on our housing stock, for even in Wales for example, a story ran on the BBC website two days ago revealing that planners project that Cardiff's population will rise by a quarter by 2026 and have thus allocated land for the construction of 45,000 new homes. If that is to happen in Wales, what will happen in England? Our countryside, with its distinctive landscape, its farms and wildlife are under threat from our leaders' addiction to population growth. What of the permanent phenomenon of mass unemployment that bedevils our country, and of the underemployment of many graduates? Are these concerns to be ignored as irrelevant and "unscientific", swept aside by an oligrarchic elite that cares not about the welfare of the people it claims to represent? Probably.

England, of course, is not the only country to be buckling under the weight of immigration originating predominantly from outside of Europe, for the arrival of a vast number of illegal immigrants from countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia, is in Greece placing an intense strain upon a state and people already in grave crisis.

As to the reporting of these initial census results, the BBC, as is its wont, is not referring to "immigration", but to "migration"; this difference in linguistic usage being quite intentional, "migration" being employed with a view to making this unprecedented phenomenon appear to be in the natural order of things, and to be legitimate. It is in fact, neither. The most objective reporting of these results by a well-known body is likely to be forthcoming from Migration Watch.The Balkanisation of our country continues apace.

UPDATE: For the 2011 Census results relating to the Muslim population, click here.

England's high-density housing: we deserve better

The Brussels Process: for free speech and civil liberties

As a rule of thumb, anything political with "Brussels" in the title sets alarm bells ringing, and in the culinary world, mention of the word "Brussels" together with "sprouts" can cause near panic in some for entirely different reasons. However, on this occasion, something positive took place in Brussels this week which brought together a group of like-minded people from across Europe, and some from beyond, to initiate what they term the "Brussels Process", which is defined on the Gates of Vienna blog as "a continuing series of events that will strengthen free speech and civil liberties in the West, and provide an alternative to the notorious “Istanbul Process”." The occasion for its launch was provided by the International Conference for Free Speech and Human Rights, initiated by the International Civil Liberties Alliance and hosted at the EU Parliament with the co-sponsorship of two MEPs: Philip Claeys (Vlaams Belang, Belgium) and Magdi Allam (UDC, Italy). The ICLA press release states:

On 9 July, the International Civil Liberties Alliance presented an International Human Rights and Freedom of Speech Conference in the European Parliament in Brussels. Over 100 people from numerous, countries, cultures, and backgrounds took part in this milestone event at which Lars Hedegaard of the Danish Free Press Society received the “Defender of Freedom” award.

The conference was organised in response to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)’s Istanbul Process, which seeks to institute a global blasphemy law that would ban freedom of expression under sharia doctrine worldwide. Many governments are actively aiding the Istanbul Process, rather than opposing it as they should to preserve the liberties of their citizens. The European Union’s offer to host the next meeting of the OIC’s Istanbul Process shows that organization’s willingness to impose severe restrictions on traditional rights and freedoms of citizens within the European Union. The principal purpose of the International Human Rights and Freedom of Speech Conference was to encourage an open and fact-based public debate on these issues, and to provide policy guidance for political leaders, especially those who themselves are raising the alarm over the OIC’s totalitarian sharia doctrines against free expression, civil liberties, women’s rights, homosexual rights and religious freedom.

 The OIC Logo

 The launch of such an initiative can only be applauded, and the list of speakers was impressive. As the Gates of Vienna blog has provided extensive coverage of the content of the speeches, as well as videos and commentary, you should visit that site for further detail. The video below (hat tip to Vlad Tepes), although produced prior to the launch of the Brussels Process, is well worth watching, for in this the speaker outlines the structure, goals and values of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation), which underscores why the objectives of the Brussels Process are so important. Although this video was produced by the American 'Center for Security Policy' which has its own agenda, its content is sound.

 

Below is the full list of speakers at theInternational Conference for Free Speech and Human Rights:

• Mark Steyn (Canada), commenter and author of “America Alone” & “After America”
• Lars Hedegaard (Denmark), book author and President of the International Free Press Society
• Prof. Hans Jansen (Netherlands), retired Professor of Modern Islamic Thought at the University of Utrecht
• Mgr Ch.-C. Boniface, dit Pére Samuel (France), Bishop, Syrian-Catholic Church
• Nidra Poller (France), book author and commenter on challenges from Islam
• Alexandre del Valle, author, co-founder of the “Geopolitical observatory of the Mediterranean Sea”
• Sabatina James (Germany), apostate from Islam and author of three books
• Sam van Rooy (Belgium), editor of two books with essays on the dangers of Islam and of the crisis of the European Union
• Pierre Cassen, editor-in chief of “Riposte Laïque”, author
• Tommy Robinson (UK), joint vice-chairman of the British Freedom Party
• Ingrid Carlqvist (Sweden), President of the Swedish Free Press Society
• Magdi Allam (Italy), MEP, apostate from Islam, convert to Catholicism
• Gavin Boby (UK), Law and Freedom Foundation
• George Igler (UK), Discourse
• Jean Maher, (Egypt) president of l’Organisation franco-égyptienne pour les Droits de l’homme
• Conny Axel Meier German publicist, Chairman of Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa (BPE)
• Christian Jung, (Germany) writer and editor for blu-News
• Ned May, a freelance writer, editor, and computer programmer living in Central Virginia
• Alain Wagner (France), leader of the Stop Sharia campaign
• Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff (Austria), lecturer on Islamic politics and victim of sharia-compliant “hate speech” laws
• Philip Claeys, (Belgium) MEP

'Antifa' Violence erupts in Bristol

In an earlier article outlining the background to the opposition campaign to today's EDL protest in Bristol, it was shown that elements of the anarchist and Trotskyist fringe were intent upon whipping up an atmosphere of hatred in Bristol today and instigating violence. Tweets from This is Bristol's Emily Koch suggest that at the time of writing the police were still seeking to contain violence seemingly emanating from the self-styled 'anti-fascist' opponents of the EDL.

Avon and Somerset Police did their best today to keep the EDL and anti-EDL protesters apart, but the latter appear to have violated the instruction not to assemble at 'The Fountains', resulting in the arrest of previously convicted violent anti-democratic agitator Martin Smith of UAF.

As of 16:10, Temple Way was blocked, and police had closed the Temple Circus Gyratory and groups of protesters were running down Victoria Street. Wheelie bins had been overturned and their contents set alight in the street by 'antifa' elements. Earlier, supporters of Trotyskyist front groups UAF and 'We are Bristol' had traded insults with the EDL, with the two sides throwing stones at each other. Although EDL supporters had been boarding their coaches to return home since 15:30, significant elements within the 'antifa' appear to have been intent upon violent confrontation and sought to prevent EDL coaches from leaving the city. The stone-throwing led to the deployment of riot police in Redcliffe at around 15:45. Once the evening had arrived, a small number of EDL remained in the city drinking, and came under attack as described below:

Ricky Howell it went right off in old market a hour ago, everyone outside long bar got attacked by a load of scruffy fuckers with bricks, bottles and lumps of wood...... loads of edl just stayed in the pub and watched while a hand full of us fought with them and just about held our own!!!!!! not on we should of all stood together, some people got all the gob but no bottle when the shit hits the fan..... you know who you are!! 18 hours ago · 2

It is the anarchist contingent within the anti-EDL coalition that had been most intent upon violence, and which was unwilling to move the location of the counter-protest to the place specified by the police. At this stage, it still has not been revealed who issued the death threats against two members of the EDL in advance of today's protest, which resulted in the issuing of Osman warnings this week, so the threat could have emanated from an element within the violent 'antifa' fringe, rather than from Islamists. Although thankfully there have been no deaths today, there have been a number of injuries. The video below shows mounted police dispersing 'antifa' demonstrators. Such tactics were not required against the EDL. All in all 11 arrests, including Martin Smith of UAF, were made.

The mass media's systematic distortion and manipulation of public perception of the EDL is encapsulated perfectly in The Guardian's report on the Bristol demo from which the following extract is taken:

Riot police made the arrests as up to 300 English Defence League (EDL) demonstrators marched through the city. Some of the demonstrators threw objects and wheelie bins were set on fire.

What impression is conveyed by these two sentences? Who does it imply committed these acts? EDL demonstrators, or their opponents? In all, the BBC reports that 14 arrests were made, but as is standard in reporting on the EDL, no reference was made to who had been arrested, with the implication being that the majority, if not all of those arrested, were EDL supporters. Why did it not mention that Martin Smith of UAF was the first to be arrested? Given his high profile in UAF, surely this was worthy of comment? One claim has circulated that only two of the 14 arrested hailed from the EDL, with the remainder coming from the ranks of their opponents, which given the violence of the latter, seems credible. This claim will either be corroborated or proven false when the identities of those arrested are released, but the experience of previous demonstrations indicates that the bulk of those arrested are likely to be counter-demonstrators.

Further information relating to the essentially peaceful conduct of the EDL demonstrators, in contrast to the unprovoked violent attack upon the police by the self-styled 'anti-fascists', was published in a report by This is Bristol on Monday 16 July. This underscores the point that it is not the EDL - the so-called 'far-right' - that constitute a threat to our liberties and freedom of expression, but the Trotskyist and anarchist hard Left who do not believe in pluralism, and who are eager to resort to violence to close down debate. People need to understand that behind the words calling for alleged 'tolerance' and 'respect' employed by the hard Left, there lurks a nasty and violent totalitarian impulse, and you don't have to scratch too hard for it to reveal itself.

Are anarchists 'green'? Not when it comes to wheelie bins

Video of EDL Bristol Demo

Below is a video of today's EDL march in Bristol, in rather quick time. Although the numbers are not large, they certainly aren't any smaller than in Dewsbury on 30 June. Background information on the demonstration can be accessed here and here. A video of mounted police tackling self-styled 'antifa' demonstrators can be viewed here.

Timelapse: EDL March in Bristol (14 July 2012) from Triggertrap on Vimeo.

Keighley: Muslim Paedophile Grooming Arrests

It seems that the suspicions voiced in yesterday's brief report relating to the arrest of ten men in the Bradford area for unspecified "sexual offences" have proven to be well founded, for the Telegraph and Argus today reveals that the ten have been arrested "as part of an ongoing investigation by West Yorkshire Police, which is believed to be linked to sexual grooming." Eight of the ten are residents of Keighley and "community leaders" (code for Muslim) are said to have been consulted before the arrests took place on Wednesday. Two Muslim Labour councillors - Abid Hussain and Khadim Hussain - are quoted in the article, with Abid stating: "The police have done what they should be doing in arresting these people. It is disappointing. However, I fully support the police and will work with them." It would be helpful if the councillor made clear what he meant by "disappointing", and hopefully it means that he is appalled by the crimes.

The victim of this latest alleged paedophile grooming ring is said to be a 14-year-old girl from Keighley. It could be that this case may relate to one publicised by the Keighley News in 2010, in which an unnamed father expressed his despair at the failure of police and social services to protect his daughter from a Muslim paedophile gang who plied her with cocaine and cannabis, reducing her to a "sombre, scared shell in less than six months." This, unfortunately, is no isolated case, for Keighley is no stranger to this phenomenon, for it paid host to one of the most notorious cases of this type in the early 2000s which involved the abuse of local girls by at least 60 Muslim men. 

EDL Bristol Demo 14 July 2012: Live Coverage

Today’s EDL demo in Bristol has generated a great deal of advance publicity, almost all of it negative given the wide variety of the protest movement’s opponents, and the backing that the latter receive from the mass media, owing to NUJ diktat that makes it obligatory for journalists to report the EDL in a negative light. Whereas the EDL declares itself to oppose Islamist terror, Islamism and Islamisation, its detractors assert that these declared aims are based upon a paranoiac mindset lacking a solid basis in contemporary reality, and are little more than a pretext for giving vent to a form of crude ‘racism’. Recent events however, should help the reader to disentangle claim from counterclaim, and to identify which of the perspectives is more rooted in reality.

This week, two members of the EDL involved in the planning of the Bristol demo have been issued with Osman warnings by Avon and Somerset Police, which means that intelligence has been received relating to credible death threats against them, but the police do not have sufficient evidence to arrest the suspect(s). The background of those who have issued the threats is unclear, but taking into account the violent language and imagery employed by some of the EDL’s Trotskyist and anarchist (the self-styled ‘anti-fascist’) opponents, they rather than Islamists could well be the source. Besides these threats, there have been the recent arrests of six Muslim suspects relating to the alleged Dewsbury Bomb Plot, the object of which was said to be the EDL’s last demonstration in that town on Saturday 30 June. Clearly therefore, for all the mass media’s talk of the EDL being ‘hatemongers’ and violent yobs, these death threats and this intercepted bomb plot highlight a rather different reality, and underscore the validity of the EDL’s stance.

Avon and Somerset Police have taken the rational decision of ensuring that the counter-protest mounted by Trotskyist front group 'We are Bristol' will now be held in a different location and at a different time to the EDL demo, presumably having taken into account the experience of previous such protests when the violent intent and proclivities of many of the counter-demonstrators led to attacks upon the police as well as upon the EDL. 'We are Bristol' will now have to assemble in Castle Park instead. Unsurprisingly, now that the police have wisely removed their opportunity to seek violent confrontation, 'We are Bristol' yesterday released a disgruntled press statement voicing their dissatisfaction with this decision.

It is noteworthy that a statement was yesterday issued by Zaheer Shabir on behalf of Bristol's 'Muslim community' in which he made it clear that despite their dislike of the EDL they did not support the call for a ban on the EDL march and wished to have no involvement with the coounter-protest. Interestingly, he also reveals that he and others had met with both the EDL and UAF/We are Bristol, and that whereas contact with the EDL had opened up "a pathway for further dialogue", the meeting with the latter was not judged to be so constructive:

We . . . [requested] them not to confuse and entice Muslim youth to join their counter protest. They have not proactively engaged with the Muslim community leadership so we are not assured on any matters whatsoever.

At the last couple of EDL demos there has been a notable absence of Muslim counter-protesters, and the number of self-styled 'anti-fascists' has been small. Clearly, Muslims in general have awoken to the fact that the Trotskyist Left has been attempting to manipulate them for their own 'revolutionary' political ends, and have decided that they are no longer going to be duped.

The question that many will be asking today, is what impact will these recent revelations have upon turnout at the EDL’s Bristol demo? Will they serve to galvanise its supporters and increase their numbers, or to deter people from attending? The answer will become apparent as the day progresses, and will unfold below as news becomes available, drawn from a variety of sources including both pro- and anti-EDL sites and comments, as well as official releases by the Avon and Somerset Police. Please return for ‘live’ updates throughout the day. It is likely that the first available video footage will be posted by early evening. 

Updates
Despite the police moving the counter-demonstration to Castle Park, according to a tweet it appears that at least some within the anarchist contingent of 'We are Bristol' are intent upon meeting at 'The Fountains' in Bristol City Centre at 11.00am. 

As the EDL demo is not due to start until 1.00pm and the opposition officially-sanctioned protest started at 11.00am, it is not yet (as of 12.07) clear as to the likely turnout for the EDL. According to some of their opponents, the estimates of the total number of counter-protesters varies wildly, being 30, 150 or 300 according to your taste. As with all demos, it is safe to discount the highest figure given that it is not from a neutral source.

This is Bristol reports that circa 250 counter-demonstrators had gathered in the centre of Bristol, and that a number of them appeared to be heading off to Redcliffe Bridge in an effort to block the EDL march.One tweet reports that Martin Smith of UAF has been arrested.The counter-protesters are claiming some rather high figures for their demo - up to 2,000 people - whilst asserting that the EDL turnout has been very low. As yet, there are no neutral or sympathetic sources providing estimates of the number of EDL supporters, with one hostile tweet claiming that there were 150. From the first of the pictures below, EDL numbers are not currently looking healthy. As of 12:56, one tweet stated that the EDL were claiming that 500 supporters had turned up, whereas in the opinion of the tweeter, the figure was closer to 300. This is Bristol opts for a figure of 500, BBC Points West for 250. If this does prove to be the case, the size of the demo appears to be very much in line with that witnessed in Dewsbury a fortnight ago. Posters welcoming the EDL to Bristol are said to have been seen going up in the city centre.

By 3.30 the protesters were boarding their coaches to head home. However, at 3.35 Emily Koch of This is Bristol posted a tweet stating that rival protesters were not only yelling abuse at each other, but also throwing rocks. A very ugly scene indeed. Riot police had been deployed in Redcliffe by 3.48. A tweet posted at 4.03 claimed that UAF protesters had blocked routes in Bristol in an attempt to stop EDL coaches from leaving the city. It seems that some 'antifa' protesters have clashed with police, upturned wheelie bins and set light to rubbish in the road. More on the unrest can be accessed here.  

Avon and Somerset Police issued a statement in which they expressed satisfaction that the majority of demonstrators "were well behaved, in good spirits and caused no problems to the local community." According to their estimates, the EDL attracted some 300 protesters, whereas the counter-protest numbered approximately 500.


A video of the EDL march can be seen here.

EDL Protesters gather in a dank car park near St Mary Redcliffe

SWP-directed counter-demonstration: 2,000 people?

Bradford Swoop: Ten arrested

The Telegraph and Argus this afternoon reported that police had arrested ten men in a number of raids carried out in Bradford on Wednesday. All are suspected of having committed "serious sexual offences" but the nature of these and the identities of the men have not been revealed. The ten have apparently been released on bail, with the arrests constituting "part of an ongoing operation." Given the location and the scale of the arrests, together with the fact that they are said to relate to "an ongoing operation", this begs the question as to whether they might be linked to some rather high profile arrests and trials that have taken place recently relating to sexual abuse of a particular type.

It has been a busy week for West Yorkshire Police in the city, for by Monday Operation Sabredale had led to the arrest of 38 individuals in a crackdown on gun crime and drug dealing in Bradford. Two shotguns and 90 rounds of ammunition are reported as having been seized, along with £200,000 worth of class A drugs. The operation has targeted three areas in particular: Girlington, Holme Wood and West Bowling, but one of the two firearms was seized in Manningham. There has also been a crackdown on uninsured vehicles for which the city is notorious.

Evidently, West Yorkshire Police seem to be making a real effort to tackle serious crime in Bradford this week, and hopefully their efforts will succeed in making the city a safer place.

Death Threats made against EDL Members

This is Bristol reports that Avon and Somerset Police have issued two EDL members with Osman warnings ahead of the group’s protest in Bristol this Saturday. Such warnings are issued when intelligence is received relating to credible death threats, but the police do not have sufficient evidence to arrest the suspect(s). The names of the two individuals who have been threatened have not been revealed. However, it is probable that one of them is Mickey Bayliss who had a concrete slab thrown through the windscreen of his car recently whilst out campaigning. News of these threats follows the recent arrest of the Dewsbury bomb plotters who had allegedly been planning to attack the EDL’s last demo in Dewsbury on Saturday 30 June. The arrest raises the question as to whether this will increase turnout at the EDL’s 14 July demo, or whether it will deter people from coming out.

Speaking in Brussels on 9 July, Tommy Robinson/Stephen Lennon made it clear that he thought that the discovery of the Dewsbury bomb plot represented a turning point in the country. Although relieved that the plotters had not succeeded in unleashing carnage on the day in question, he voice his opinion that were such an attack to be made upon the EDL, its impact upon national sentiment in England would be very much akin to that experienced by Irish republicans following Bloody Sunday: “I believe England would rise up” he stated. His speech was delivered as part of the Brussels Process sponsored by the International Civil Liberties Alliance at the EU Parliament which has been extensively covered at the Gates of Vienna blog. Comment on the conference will be forthcoming her tomorrow. 

 

Crossing Continents: Greece’s borderline insanity

Today’s episode of Radio 4’s Crossing Continents turned its attention to Greece’s problem with illegal immigration, or rather, in its terms, to the problems faced by illegal immigrants in making their way to Greece, and thence ‘hopefully’ onwards to other states within the EU. The Radio 4 website prefaced the programme with the following:

Writer and broadcaster Maria Margaronis follows the route taken by migrants fleeing war or poverty who are risking their lives to reach the Europe Union. It is estimated that around 75 thousand people are attempting to make the perilous journey each year in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers. They are fleeing from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Somalia or simply in search of a better life where their economic prospects aren't so bleak. Some of them never make it, suffocating in the back of a crowded lorry or drowning in the fast flowing river that marks the border between Turkey and Greece.

It is of course tragic that anyone should suffer in such a fashion, but where the real cruelty lies is in the fact of pretending that these people can be accommodated in Greece or anywhere else in Europe, thereby giving them the false hope that they will be welcomed and that the Greeks, or indeed any other European people, can provide them with what they are looking for: a place to live and wealth. In fact, one such illegal immigrant in a recent article by Der Spiegel also let on to another motivational factor amongst the predominantly male influx from Africa and Asia that the mass media never dares to publicise: European women. The illegal immigrant to Greece in question was a Bangladeshi named Oyud: 

To him, Europe sounded like clean cities, beautiful women and cool cars.

In other words, the illegal immigrant influx comes in search of three primary objects: wealth, territory and women. To the uncouth ragbag of Afghans, Pakistanis, Somalis and North Africans, the ‘soft’ European nations appear an easy and tempting target. These incomers know how to play to the human rights gallery, tugging at the heartstrings of the gullible, whilst themselves possessing no respect for the concept of these rights whatsoever, but all-too eager to utilise them as an expedient means of securing their permanent settlement in Europe. 

Although the phrase ‘fortress Europe’ is often bandied about, what kind of a ‘fortress’ is it that seeks to secure the ingress of millions for the settlement of its lands, and the displacement and replacement of the native European peoples that its critics claim it seeks to protect? Its borders are weak, and their defence is nothing other than nominal. When, for example, the travesty of a border defence force named Frontex intercepts illegal immigrants in Greece, it arrests and then releases them, demanding that they leave the country within thirty days. Where do these people go? Not home, that is for certain. They remain in Greece, or manage to take the next leg of their journey overseas to elsewhere within the EU. This is a farce, albeit one that can only be appreciated by those possessed of the most sardonic humour.

Why is it that these alleged ‘asylum seekers’ do not stop in Turkey? The answer is quite straightforward: Turkey does not recognise the right of asylum, unless it should be for Europeans fleeing neighbouring European states. How very convenient. Crossing Continents made it clear that the Turkish police turn a blind eye to people trafficking, which affords a living to many on the border between Greece and eastern Thrace. It seems, as confirmed by one of the interviews carried out by Margaronis, that the Roma, as illiterate and demi-criminal in Turkey as they are elsewhere, plead necessity in justification of ferrying the illegals across the Evros River, as do many local Turks. Although it was not stated in the programme, it would come as no surprise if many Turks were to savour the pain inflicted by this human flood upon their longstanding Greek foe to the West.

Greece is not a large country, and its native population is modest. Even before its current economic crisis, the volume of immigration that it was subjected to was beyond that which could be comfortably borne, but now in a time of crisis, when such a high proportion of Greeks find themselves unemployed, the value of wages is falling, and the provision of basic medical services collapsing, what had been an increasing irritant and discomfort, has now become intolerable. Critics claim that it is not the fault of the immigrants that Greece finds itself in its current economic crisis. Whilst it is true of course that they did not precipitate the transnational crisis of high finance, their presence offers nothing by way of help in solving Greece’s economic crisis, did nothing to stave it off, and functions as a massive drain on the economy. The illegal immigrant presence is a dead weight upon the Greek people that threatens to drag them and their country down still further. If the influx is not stemmed and reversed, what will become of Greece and the Greeks? Could it become the first European state to collapse and be overrun by non-Europeans? It is such rational concerns, practically ignored and unacknowledged by mainstream Greek politicians, that have found direct electoral expression in the rise of the Golden Dawn.

The rapid increase in the immigrant population of Greece has been startling: in 1991, only 167,000 out of a population of 10,259,900 were classed as 'foreigners'. By 2001, the immigrant figure had risen to 762,000, whereas today, the Research Institute for European and American Studies claims that there are approximately 2.5 million illegal immigrants in Greece, the greater part of them originating in Asia and Africa. Other estimates suggest up to 3 million. Given the size of these estimates relative to Greece's population, can they really be credible?

The raw figures themselves are alarming, but the problem of numbers alone – great as they may be – is compounded both by the cultural incompatibility of the majority of illegal arrivals – who happen to be Muslim – and by the fact that they are overwhelmingly male. This plus economic crisis makes for an explosive situation. Greece can take no more immigrants, just as other member states of the EU can take no more, and a clear message needs to be sent to would-be immigrants in Africa and Asia, that they are neither needed nor welcome in our countries. The globalists of course, and their confederates the EU high commissioners have other ideas, and wish us to take in ever more. If this happens, we run the real risk of eventual societal and economic collapse, and all of the attendant potentially bloody chaos that that would engender. 

I have no liking for the type of politician who is willing to physically strike a political opponent, on television at that, but when the media – whether it be the BBC or the New York Times – make anxious sounds about the rise of the Golden Dawn, they should perhaps look inwards and examine the positions and policies that they happily advocate – those of mass immigration and multiculturalism – and ask themselves whether these make for stable and content societies, or unstable and fractious ones. That narrow transnational stratum that gains immense wealth from the promotion of globalisation, and provides the impetus for the attendant ideology of globalism, cares not about the fates of individuals or nations, and cloaks its selfish intent in the language of a humane universalism, tarnishing all who would stand up for the right of nations to political self-determination as ‘fascists’. Greece, the fountainhead of so much that makes the West distinct, runs not the risk of entering a golden dawn, but of a cold dead night. Will it manage to withstand the trials with which it is now beset, and what example, if any, does it set the rest of Europe today?