𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The British political establishment is utterly shameless. In recent years, both the main political parties have promoted the idea that mass immigration is vital for economic and cultural enrichment. “Diversity is our strength,” the politicians incant as they denounce opponents of their open door approach as bigots and reactionaries.

Yet now, as the Reform party surges in the polls and their own ratings collapse, they have suddenly taken to posing as champions of tighter border controls. Treating the public like fools, they advocate the very policies on immigration and asylum they have long condemned as racist. With deluded self-regard, they seem to expect praise for claiming they will reverse the revolution that they imposed on our society.

So the Tories, having presided over a net annual influx of an incredible 944,000 new arrivals in 2023, unconvincingly boast of their commitment to a tough regime that will end abuses and drastically reduce migrant numbers. Similarly, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has presented herself as the commander of crackdowns and empress of expulsions.

This week in the Commons, she unveiled the Labour’s government’s supposedly rigorous new border policy, which is said to have been inspired by the centre-left Danish government that has brought down asylum claims to their lowest level in 40 years. Among Labour’s proposals are cuts in handouts to asylum seekers, swifter removals, and the abolition of the right to permanent residency.

In her quest to build her image as Britain’s new warrior queen, the Home Secretary was inadvertently helped by the Parliamentary chorus of left-wing outrage. With laughable exaggeration, the socialist radical Zarah Sultana shrieked that the Government’s package was “straight out of the fascist playbook” while Labour’s Nadia Whittome moaned that the scheme “flies in the face of decency and compassion”.

Whittome could not be more wrong. What is truly immoral is an immigration system that allows a floodtide of young men to arrive here illegally and then live for months, even years, at the taxpayers’ expense in expensive hotel accommodation.

It is not the media or the so-called “far right” that is responsible for the divisions that scar our land. It is the politicians, bureaucrats who have opened the floodgates, wilfully dismantled the structures that used to protect us.

They are the ones who have turned the border force into a quasi ferry service across the Channel; who made the British people second class citizens in their own country; who, without any democratic mandate, have ripped apart the bonds of solidarity that once held us together; who have made our judiciary a laughing stock with their endless cynical manipulation of human rights legislation and who have painted the noble ideal of patriotism as a form of oppression.

That attitude was encapsulated by a speech this week from Emily Spurrell, Chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, who warned that St George’s flags “can be used to promote fear and assert dominance,” at a time when the Home Secretary’s plans risked “demonising communities”.

This is the kind of mindset which will make it hard for the Home Secretary to achieve real reform. It could be that she is just indulging in empty political rhetoric to win back disgruntled Labour voters in the party’s traditional working-class heartlands by giving the illusion of action. After all, she is yet another of Labour’s army of Oxbridge lawyers.

But even if she is sincere, she still faces a formidable challenge from the vast, progressive nexus of campaigners, academics, legal professionals, think-tanks, judges and trade unionists who all want to keep – or even loosen further – the present chaotic set-up.

The irony of this vociferous opposition to reform is that the British state has in part deliberately bolstered it, by using taxpayers’ money to bankroll a plethora of pro-immigration organisations, such as Migrant Help, which was paid £47million from public funds last year, the British Refugee Council, recipient of £10.6million from the public purse, and the group Refugee Action, which was handed £5.8million.

In effect, the Government is subsidising the ideological hostility to its own measures. It is that kind of expensive lunacy that has further shattered officialdom’s credibility.