𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

In his typically penetrating style, George Orwell wrote that “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” His words are a perfect description of the current flood of verbiage about immigration from the ruling elite, which has elevated deceit and dishonesty into a central theme of governance.

Our politicians are gripped by a kind of institutional schizophrenia, as they oscillate between their ideological belief in open borders and their cynical impulse to pay lip service to robust British public opinion. So they wrap themselves in the Union Jack and boast of new crackdowns on the numbers of new arrivals, yet they simultaneously proclaim that “diversity is our strength,” and extol the vibrancy of multicultural Britain.

The same incoherent failure is reflected in the unfulfilled pledge to “smash the gangs.” The British government has failed to take the tough, realistic steps that would really hinder their operations such as opening a centre outside Europe to process asylum claims or leaving the outdated European Convention on Human Rights, which would drastically reduce the scope for judicial activism by left-wing lawyers.

Nothing symbolizes more graphically the present useless strategy than the sight of well-equipped boats from the Border Agency acting as a quasi-ferry service for the illegal migrants. The Agency might regard their approach as compassionate, but in reality it is collusion with criminality. Such feebleness bolsters the arrogance of the gangsters who are more confident than ever, as shown by the increasing size of their vessels. On Tuesday, a colossal dinghy 49 feet long reached the English coast, with no fewer than 230 illegal migrants on board, easily a record.

Sadly there is no sign that Andy Burnham brings any original or creative thought to the issue of immigration. Indeed, for someone reputed to be a great communicator, he proved astonishingly tone deaf when asked about his government’s plans for further taxpayer-funded accommodation for asylum-seekers.

These plans, which include the provision of new homes and centres in rural parts of England, have provoked widespread opposition. In the Norfolk village of Thetford, 15 people were arrested last week during protests outside several properties which were said to be designated asylum homes. There has been even greater uproar over the proposal to construct a camp for 1,200 asylum seekers near the idyllic Oxfordshire village of Piddington, whose population is just 400.

In the light of public concerns, Burnham promised to look at the scheme again, but then, sounding like a patronising official from the wartime Ministry of Information, he said that all areas of “the country will have to play their part.” It was as if he was trying to invoke the spirit of the Blitz by urging us to come together on the defence of our nation.

But his attempt at emotional blackmail was hopelessly ill-judged. It has been estimated that over 80% of Channel migrants are young men of military-service age from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Yet, without any proper checks, most are allowed to settle here. Some of them are bound to be extremists, terrorists or Islamic hardliners. Others will be domestic abusers, wife-beaters or perverts. All of those who arrive by the illegal Channel route are by definition criminal.

It is outrageous of the Prime Minister to tell us that we have to “do our bit.” Effectively we are being asked to prop up a gigantic criminal racket. We did not ask these young men to come here, nor does our society need to import their homelands’ misogynistic, sectarian, theocratic cultures which are such a threat to our traditions of liberty.

Like the plans for asylum accommodation, the politicians imposed mass immigration on Britain without any mandate. No major party ever stood on a platform of open borders. No one ever voted for this cultural and social revolution. It is sickening of Burnham to expect us to cheer on this destructive project.