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Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Sarah Kay ✊ In 1985, at the height of the Cold War, British singer Sting wrote a protest song against mutual nuclear deterrence. 

Calling upon reason, which was scarce at the time, he pleaded to understand that no one is above another – that we all fear death, violence, that we all want the same thing for our children. We all, supposedly, do. We all, supposedly, work toward a society in which they would grow up free and happy.

The Belfast pogroms have tested that theory in two different ways. The non-issue of asylum has been fascinating the United Kingdom, and Ireland, in the most negative way possible. A population ranking under 2%, asylum-seekers have become targets of the most violent of acts, including burning people alive. The Belfast attacker was a 30 year old from Sudan. This was a call to review immigration and our role toward those under international protection. It’s in the name: asylum is not regulated domestically as much as it is the product of a post-war treaty that was meant to address the consequences of the 1936 Nüremberg laws – statelessnesss - and provide for the millions of displaced in Europe: refuge, the right to seek safety and protection.

The current genocide in Sudan should horrify us all. A consequence of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the 2003 genocide in Darfur, Sudan is suffering unprecedented levels of conflict-related sexual violence. In 2024, Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, commented that:

(The RSF) have killed thousands, seemingly without remorse. They have manufactured a climate of sheer terror, forcing millions to flee. They have let the people who could not - or would not - escape, suffer, destroying medical services and blocking humanitarian aid. 

Ignoring that Sudanese people should indeed be under international protection is dehumanisation on a state scale.

But there are other genocides – in Palestine, in Congo, in Armenia – where the horror continues to unfold; sometimes live streamed into our phones, sometimes spoken about at the tail end of news reports. In 2025, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights announced:

In other areas under M23 control in South Kivu, such as Minova, M23 has occupied schools and hospitals, forced IDPs out of camps and subjected the civilian population to forced conscription and forced labour. Additionally, DRC officials report that at least 165 women were raped by male inmates during the prison break by more than 4,000 inmates from Goma’s Muzenze prison on 27 January, as M23 began its assault on the town.

 As Sting then said, “there’s no such thing as a winnable war, it’s a lie we don’t believe anymore.”

But migration isn’t only about seeking asylum; it is the oldest, and most important, human behaviour. Since the beginning of human civilisation, we have migrated: to find food, to find land, to find water. We have migrated, even more importantly, to find shelter. Through this migration, Darwin’s theory of evolution brought us here, to the point where Jim Crow laws on segregation, a source of nostalgy in many European countries, can become a biological issue. Migration isn’t and will never be a crime, because we have all migrated one way or another in our lives: we studied abroad; we did a work away visa; we visited a friend and overstayed our welcome; we decided to check out a new city because Belfast felt too small. All of this is migration. Moving back with your parents in Dundalk because you couldn’t find a job in the city is a micro form of migration; you wouldn’t have it removed from you. Migration is not the issue; racism is. Only one category of people is allowed to migrate and doing so on the assumption that their chosen form of immigration is the only valid one. Ending immigration has never helped any public deficit or crumbling institutions, in fact, it’s been demonstrated time and time again that immigration has immense economic benefits.

As Sting said again, here’s no monopoly on common sense on either side of the political fence. We believe that those seeking asylum made a choice. We believe that migrants all inherently are bad faith actors in an otherwise open and thriving community. We deny the simple fact of genocide and the direct consequences of global exploitation leading to global inequality. We have no moral or ethical right to denounce what we would continue doing to ourselves: criminal exploitation. Paramilitary recruitment, drug trade, all of which show cruel child neglect in the name of scoring political points. Wouldn’t we want a different future for them, too?

⏩ Sarah Kay is an international human rights lawyer now described as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” . . . again.

Do We Love Our Children Too?

Dixie Elliot ✊We know who the first man to set foot on the moon was. 

But did you know that the first people to set foot in Ireland were immigrants?
 
That and other things you might not know:

The first people to arrive in Ireland were Mesolithic hunter-gathers who travelled across Europe and arrived in Ireland by boat around 8,000 BC.
 
So were the first inhabitants of Ireland immigrants or were they Irish?

Well Ireland hadn't got an name yet so obviously they weren't Irish.
 
Then in 4,500 BC the Neolithic Farmers came from Anatolia, which would now be known as Turkey.
More bloody immigrants!

Ireland still wasn't called Ireland so they weren't Irish either which meant that the country was full of foreigners, even before the Irish came.
 
Fuck off! Where did the Irish come from if there was nowhere called Ireland?

During the Bronze and Iron ages the Celts were moving around central Europe including Northern Spain. These people were described as Keltoi by the Greeks and they spoke a precursor to the modern Celtic languages. Along the way they integrated with other tribes, stayed in the one place or moved on.

Around 500BC the first of these Keltoi people arrived in Ireland. They didn't invade, they just arrived and kept coming over the course of time and settled here. The language these people spoke is well over a thousand years older than the English language which originated in and around where Germany is today. The Anglo-Saxons eventually brought the English language to Britain.
 
The Celts called the land they settled in Ériu, their word for describing a 'fertile land.' In their mythology Ériu became the name of a goddess and together with her sisters, Banba and Fódla, she represented the spirit of the island.

So Ireland eventually had a name.

In 795 AD the Vikings began raiding the coastal areas of Ireland, plundering and pillaging. These Norsemen, who were primarily from Norway, were a right shower of baduns. They eventually began to settle along the coast, so that they'd have somewhere to park their longships. Viking ports were eventually established at Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork and Limerick, which became the first large towns in Ireland.

After they had been defeated by an army led by the High King of Ireland, Brian Boru, at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the Vikings gave up on the idea of conquering Ireland. Instead, the Norse established coastal settlements like Dublin and increasingly assimilated into Irish society.
However, the kinsmen of the Viking Norsemen, who were also primarily from Norway, had been at the same carry-on in in what would become known as Normandy in northwestern France, which was of course named after themselves and they became known as the Normans.
 
This lot eventually got round to invading England which, at the time, had been ruled by the Anglo-Saxons, who, as I already pointed out, originally came from Germany. The Normans, led by William the Conqueror, defeated the Anglo-Saxons, led by King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Apparently he was keeping an eye on them when an arrow went clean through that eye killing him stone dead. Or so they say.
 
Over time the victorious Normans intermarried with the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts in Britain and became known as the Anglo-Normans.

In 1167 Dermot MacMurrough, the deposed King of Leinster, asked the English King Henry ll to help him regain his territory after rival Irish lords and the High King of Ireland Rory O'Connor forced him into exile. Henry told him to give a guy called Strongbow a shout. Strongbow had just discovered that if you crush apples you can get an alcoholic drink called cider, which was becoming very popular at the time, and he didn't want to go to Ireland in case others started into the cider making business while he was away invading.
 
MacMurrough told Strongbow that if he gave him a hand out he'd give him his daughter Aoife's hand in marriage. She was a fine looking colleen so Strongbow agreed to help him and in 1169 the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland. MacMurrough became the King of Leinster again and Strongbow cider became the most popular alcoholic drink in Ireland until Arthur Guinness invented the black stuff.
Strongbow married Aoife and MacMurrough was glad to be back on his throne, although his arse wasn't on it for more than two years before he died in 1171. The Anglo-Normans went on to help themselves to the rest of Ireland.
 
Now here's the thing. Over time the Anglo-Normans assimilated into Gaelic society, adopted the Irish language, embraced local customs, and intermarried with the native clans. They famously became 'more Irish than the Irish themselves.'

The English Crown weren't having any of this as it threatened their control over Ireland, so Parliament passed the Statutes of Kilkenny in 1366. These laws strictly banned the Anglo-Normans from speaking Irish, adopting Irish names, dressing like the Gaels, or marrying native Irish people. However, these laws largely failed to stop the ongoing Gaelicisation of the Anglo-Normans.

So, in brief, the first people to arrive on these shores were immigrants. These immigrants kept coming until the first of the Celts turned up and they too were immigrants.
 
The Vikings and the Anglo-Normans came as invaders not immigrants, but Irish culture suited them just fine so they got tore into it and out came the jugs of Strongbow.

Irish culture, including the Gaelic language was as strong as it had always been. It remained that way until the time of the Irish Holocaust (The Famine) in 1845 when the deliberate starvation of the poor Irish people forced them to flee from the shores of Ireland, in coffin ships, seeking a better way of life. They went for the most part to America, where racism was waiting to greet them as soon as they arrived on Ellis Island in New York.

The London Times, at a time when the exodus was at it's most pitiful, screamed with delight in one of its editorials...

They are going! They are going! The Irish are going with a vengeance. Soon a Celt will be as rare in Ireland as a Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan. 

It is estimated that up to 2 million people left Ireland for North America, Australia, and Britain to escape starvation and disease between the years 1845 and 1855. Since then, between 9 and 10 million Irish born people have emigrated from this country.
 
Today the Irish diaspora; that being all those known to have Irish ancestors, is believed to be in the region of over 100 million people, which is more than fifteen times the population of the island of Ireland. Which is the reason why Saint Patrick's Day is the most widely celebrated national holiday across the world. More so than even the USA's 4th of July.

How ironic that the Far-Right in Ireland accuses todays foreign immigrants of being 'invaders' who are a 'threat to our culture' and that within twenty years Irish people will be as rare in Ireland as Eskimos in the Sahara Desert. Oh and Muslims will impose Sharia Law on the few remaining Irish people who will be driven into the likes of the Mourne Mountains or the bogs round Barnesmore Gap.
 
You don't need to ridicule that warped logic as it ridicules itself.

James Connolly wrote in July 1900:
 
All races are mixed more or less; a pure race does not exist. The modern Irish race is a composite blending - on the original Celtic stock have been grafted shoots from all the adventurous races of the continent.

Roger Casement made clear his feelings on racial purity back in 1904:

The more we love our land and wish to help her people the more keenly we feel we cannot turn a deaf ear to suffering and injustice in any part of the world . . . 
And remember that a Nation is a very complex thing – it never does consist, it never has consisted of men of one blood or of one single race. It is like a river which rises far off in the hills and has many sources, many converging streams before it becomes one great stream.
 
Bobby Sands scrawled his thoughts on racial unity on a filthy wall in his prison cell when he wrote his famous poem:

The Rhythm of Time

"It is found in every light of hope,
It knows no bounds nor space,
It has risen in red and black and white
It is there in every race.
It lights the dark of this prison cell
It thunders forth its might,
It is the undauntable thought my friend
That thought that says ‘I’m right’!"

The whole history of Ireland has been one of immigration. The immigrant came to these shores at the beginning of time in search of a better way of life. In more recent centuries the Irish immigrant was forced to leave these shores in search of a better way of life.
 
Racism is a refuge for the ignorant. It seeks to divide and to destroy. It is the enemy of freedom, and deserves to be met head-on and stamped out. - Pierre Berton

 

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Where Did The Irish Come From If There Was Nowhere Called Ireland?

Dr John Coulter ✍ There was a lot of well-worded rhetoric of condemnation of the race riots which erupted in parts of the Province following an alleged stabbing incident in north Belfast.

But the vast majority of these carefully drafted press statements seemed to avoid the crucial ‘elephant in the room’ - what will be a workable, long-term solution to the illegal immigration crisis sweeping the UK?

This month’s riots were a mirror image of the race riots which engulfed my home town of Ballymena last year, where - as in the recent situation - a water cannon was deployed by police.

Whilst rightly condemning the mindless violence, the PSNI Chief Constable did make mention of the peaceful protests which had also taken place in areas such as Coleraine, but were vastly overshadowed by the rioting elsewhere.

Th trigger for the current racial unrest is the belief that illegal migrants and asylum seekers are sneaking into the UK via the open border with the republic.

The underlying problem is that when violence takes centre stage, all migrants are tarred with the same brush. Racial rioters do not take notice of the many folk from the ethnic communities who, since 1945, have integrated successfully into Ulster society.

Rioters do not distinguish between genuine legal migrants who are making a positive contribution to the economic life of the UK - especially those who work in the NHS - and the illegal ‘benefits brigade’ who see the UK’s benefit system as an easy ticket to manipulate.

Then there’s the asylum seekers who have genuine reasons, too, for being in the UK because of religious or political persecution in their home lands, such as Christians who have fled Nigeria or the Middle East.

Analysing the causes of the riots recently in my commentating on GB News TV, I emphasised the point that for a long-term solution to the immigration crisis to work, it required radical political surgery, not a sticky plaster.

For Northern Ireland, the problem - ironically since partition - has been the existence of the common travel area between the six counties of Northern Ireland and the 26 counties of Southern Ireland. A generation of folk in Northern Ireland still remember how the south was used as a springboard for the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the border pro-Union community by republican terrorists during the Troubles.

If any flow or even a trickle of illegal migrants coming from Southern Ireland into the UK is to be halted, then manned border posts and check points must be introduced.

That sounds like a very radical option, but there’s a perception that many politicians, community groups and places of worship are afraid to address the immigration ‘elephant in the room’ for fear of the current woke snowflake society branding them as racist, fascist, Nazi or Far Right.

However, given the recent riots - and the fact that next May voters in Northern Ireland will go to the polls in local council and Stormont Assembly elections, political parties will have to seriously address the immigration issue.

However, the real immigration issue is in mainland Britain where the so-called small boat crisis is perceived to be out of control, hence the recent surge in support for the Right-wing Reform UK party with some opinion polls predicting leader Nigel Farage MP could be a future holder of the keys to 10 Downing Street.

The root cause of the UK’s seeming inability to get control of the small boat crisis, which has seen tens of thousands of illegal migrants cross the English Channel to Britain, has been the UK’s lack of an iron wall of ships across that particular sea border.

If ever that point was being rammed home, it was the recent resignation of the Labour Defence Secretary John Healey who cited that military spending ‘fell well short’ of what was needed.

Put bluntly, the Royal Navy simply does not have the ships to create that iron wall across the English Channel which would force the small boat armada to turn back - and we are still not in the teeth of the summer months when the weather in the channel is expected to be better, thus encouraging more migrants to risk the crossing.

Even if a budget was magically approved to build more ships and train more sailors, that development will not become a reality within the next few months.

Put bluntly again, the real problem is the inability of the French authorities to stop the armada of small boats leaving French shores in the first place. If the French security forces were doing their jobs competently and effectively, none of the illegal migrant boats would leave the beaches.

Mind you, the inability of French authorities to control their own borders comes as no surprise. They could not do this in the Great War and they could not do it in the Second World War, so why should we in the UK be so surprised that France cannot hold sway over its own beaches!

Even if the French could gain control of their beaches, what about the tens of thousands of illegal migrants who have already arrived in the UK and have been housed in hotels before being moved into the community? What is radically required in an isolated holding centre along the lines of the American Camp X Ray, which existed in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

Such a detention camp would be policed by the intelligence community so that every migrant or asylum seeker would be vetted to ascertain if they were genuinely fleeing persecution, or had the view - ‘we’re on our way to benefits Britain!’

The genuine migrants seeking political or religious asylum could be integrated into the community while the illegals would be deported to their countries of origin. But no one leaves the UK’s Camp X Ray until their identity is confirmed.

Integration must be the key to migrants and asylum seekers remaining in the UK. In this respect, the Christian Churches have a major role to playing in educating migrants in Western Christian values.

Last year, I attended a Presbyterian missionary rally at which a woman spoke passionately about how her church was assisting such integration in Northern Ireland. However, she emphasised one of the main difficulties they faced was these new comers’ views on women. To migrants - legal and illegal - from some cultures, women are viewed as second class citizens or sexual play things.

Likewise, many migrants arrive in the UK with little more possessions than the clothes they are wearing. Given that migrants have been housed in hotels where they get regular meals and clothing, the perception has been fuelled that UK authorities take the view - migrants before locals.

This perception has fuelled an anger and fear in some communities that migrants are being given preferential treatment especially as many local families are struggling with a cost of living crisis, having to rely on food banks, or even deciding if they can either heat their homes or cook a meal - the so-called ‘heat or eat’ dilemma.

One fact is certain in Northern Ireland. The current political parties will have to radically address the immigration ‘elephant in the room’ before next May’s elections, otherwise the door will be opened electorally for the real Far Right parties to enter the political arena with their hard line solutions.

Time is not on the side of the current local government and Assembly establishment parties if they want to avoid another repetition of this month’s horrible rioting.

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Time To Tackle Immigration ‘Elephant’ Head On

Christopher Owens “When I was just a boy I so wanted to be loved/When I thought I held your hand I know now it was a gun/It was empty from the start but a threat to make them run/A veil of protection though we needed none" - Converge.

24/02/22 - Eight men (Owen McMahon, four sons and a McMahon employee) were shot dead at their home in Kinnaird Terrace, Belfast. According to survivors, police officers were behind the murders.

08/06/26 - One man (Stephen Ogilvie) was taken to hospital with slash wounds to his back, face and eye injuries after an attack in Kinnaird Avenue, Belfast. According to some reports, his attacker (Hadi Alodid) had briefly served as a police officer in Sudan.

Chilling proof, if needed, that history in this country doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

♞♜♝

Firstly, it goes without saying that the attack on Monday night was an appalling act of violence and should be condemned by everyone living in a peaceful, democratic society. While some details are still emerging at the time of writing this, we should still wait for more information to come to light so we can get a better picture of the circumstances that led to that brutal act of violence.

Similarly, the subsequent rioting and torching of homes that we’ve seen played out over the last few days is utterly sickening. Seeing families targeted because of their skin colour should be anathema to everyone. There is no excuse for intimidation or pogroms of any kind and the fact that this is the third instance of rioting over immigrants in the North in less than three years is a depressing thought.

A lesser discussed impact of the pogroms is that it allows the political establishment act as the moral authority and ignore the underlying causes and tensions that have led to such nihilistic violence.

♞♜♝

Let’s state the obvious: to the average citizen it feels like this country is at breaking point:

  • stagnant wages
  • high cost of living
  • lack of new housing
  • faltering NHS
  • a road system which gridlocks if someone sneezes
  • petty crime seemingly going unpunished
  • hypocritical and unaccountable political system
  • withdrawal of communities into individual silos
  • a society that no longer believes in itself

These, of course, are not unique to the North. Many countries in the West and the United States are faced with these problems as well.

But when mass immigration, in particular the way it's been handled by the political system, is thrown into the mix; things become explosive. This is because it’s the most obvious example of change in a society like the North which was (and still is) overwhelmingly white. Of course, there has been immigration in the past: Vietnamese, Black British, Nigerian, Sudanese, Kenyan, African, Pakastani, Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Italian, Israeli, Polish, Greeks and Cypriots have all made the North their home and we should be proud of how they have not only become part of the furniture, so to speak, but that many run successful businesses and give back to their respective areas.

However, in recent years, the number of new arrivals has increased dramatically. Once again, this is not a unique situation to this country, but it is the first time demographics have shifted not just visibly but also at great speed. Change will always happen and nowhere is immune. But change that would normally happen over a span of 50 odd years has happened in the space of 10-15 years. If handled incorrectly, the end result can lead to parallel lives, impact on already stretched health and social services, housing and a grave sense of alienation and displacement among people which can be difficult for some to articulate. If ignored by left wing commentators, it gives the far right the equivalent of a penalty kick.

And quite a few commentators from across the political spectrum have been doing that in recent days.

♞♜♝

Let’s look at a few examples, two from the left and two from the right:

Claire Hanna (SDLP):

The violence in North Belfast was horrific, the video will create fear and shock. No good will come of sharing it or of turning on each other in this society, including for the clout of online voices who don’t know or care about us and who offer absolutely nothing for the future.

On the face of it, this seems to be a reasonable request not to share the horrific footage of the attack and it’s certainly true that various terminally online types have been sharing it not only as an example of the “suicide of the West” but also because their nihilistic world view is partially quenched by such sick footage.

However, when you consider that initial news reports suggested that the incident was merely a stabbing, the tweet can also be considered an attempt to stifle discussion and downplay the severity of the attack. Considering trust in both legacy and new media is at an all-time low (who could forget "firey but mostly peaceful protests" in 2020), I don’t think this is an unreasonable conclusion to draw.

Anthony McIntyre:

The person arrested on suspicion of last night's attack is reported by the PSNI to be a Sudanese national. That has kickstarted a surge in anti-immigrant rhetoric from quarters which were much less vociferous when Ian Ogle was knifed to death in Belfast in 2019. Ogle's killers, because they identified as white and British, did not provoke the same rabid outcry that we are familiar with when the attacker is a different colour. The Irish News has reported that 'far-right activist Tommy Robinson and tech billionaire Elon Musk amplified calls for people to take to the streets in response to the incident.'

Obfuscation, pure and simple.

Firstly, Ian Ogle was stabbed in the chest and then stamped on the head by a gang of men. An evil murder undoubtedly, but one that we have (sadly) seen many times. By contrast, Ogilvie was slashed repeatedly, has lost much of his eyesight with some witnesses believing that it was an attempt at beheading. Leaving aside the 50-year-old example of the Shankill Butchers, that is highly unusual for a killing in Belfast.

Secondly, the background of Ogle’s murder involved the East Belfast UVF, long standing grudges and family ties. At the time of writing this piece, we don’t know the full story of what led to Alodid’s actions but I would be surprised if it was as expansive as Ogle’s.

Thirdly, Mackers knows fine rightly that the discussion surrounding this case will inevitably touch on mass immigration, especially now that the Home Office has confirmed that Alodid had entered the UK in 2023 (supposedly via Dublin) and was granted refugee status the same year until 2028. Writing in 2024, Mackers made his views clear: 

I'm fine with immigration but not fine with suppressing any opinion that is not fine with it. The government have not yet explained how they are going to make it practical. They do not provide the infrastructure and leave it to the leftoids to label those who ask questions about the infrastructure deficiency as far right and racist. Time out of number I have said to people that if they accuse everybody of being far right they will create a far right much more virulent than it currently is.

Yes, the likes of Elon Musk and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon have inflamed the situation but the implication that ordinary people who feel that the North is spiraling out of control have to be manipulated by such types is what the kids refer to as a cope: for many, the video of the crime confirmed their worst fears. They didn’t need anyone to tell them to be angry.

Now let’s look at the right.

Fergus Mason: 

Is anyone actually stupid enough to believe that the family of Stephen Ogilvie, who is currently in a coma with hideous injuries after being attacked by an imported savage, would write a bland statement about the importance of immigration to the hospitality sector? The government's fingerprints are all over this.

Leaving aside the blatant racism, this commentator doesn’t seem to consider the possibility that the Ogilvie family (as well as Stephen) may not be bigots and do genuinely value the importance of immigrants contributing to society, particularly within the NHS.

Disturbingly, it can also be interpreted as an attempt to dehumanise workers who are already facing a rising tide of racist abuse in our aforementioned overstretched society. Such views are abhorrent to the average person.

Paul Golding: 

I hate the IRA, but fair play to those staunch republican for telling the African invader to get the fuck out of Belfast.

Filming a man minding his own business and proceeding to racially abuse him = staunch republican? Fuck away off with that bullshit. The cunt filming that video would have run a mile if he’d been asked to help out the republican movement back in the day.

♞♜♝

The reason it’s important to look at both sides is to see how one fails to address some core issues while the other offers a blinkered, hate-filled response to a complex issue. And there’s evidence that the traditional barrier of ‘themmuns and usuns’ that has demarcated the debate on mass immigration along nationalist and unionist lines may not be as sturdy as some think.

Writing in Unherd, Aris Roussinos noted that there were scenes in North Queen Street and Ardoyne that suggested that it may not be long before nationalist areas have their own migrant riots. If true, this would be a grave inversion of the 1932 Belfast Outdoor Relief Strike (again, history rhyming but not repeating) and would dent the idea of Irish nationalism as a progressive force.

In some ways, globalisation has now given the situation in this country a wedge that has pushed both sides even further apart: nationalism/republicanism (generally) have gone Eurocentric as it allows for a decent facsimile of a united Ireland while unionists/loyalists (generally) have gone in a Brexit style direction as they feel disillusioned with the peace process. Both of these differing stances, combined with a decaying infrastructure, loss of common bond among communities, disconnect between elected representatives and the voters and stagnant wages, has added an extra layer of gunpowder onto a tinderbox which Hadi Alodid inadvertently set off with his evil, frenzied attack.

We live in deeply toxic times and genuine adults need to step up and avert an oncoming crisis.

♞♜♝

Writing in 2011 about the then recent London riots, Kenan Malik correctly diagnosed the malaise and offered up words that we must live by:

Because the right has appropriated the arguments about moral failure, many on the left have rejected moral arguments altogether. The left talks much about the social and economic impact of neo-liberal policies. But little about its moral impact. Such wilful blindness is dangerous. The questions about economic and social poverty, about unemployment and the cuts, are closely related to the questions about moral poverty, about the breakdown of social solidarity and the rise of a nihilistic culture. There can be no challenge to mass unemployment and the imposition of austerity without the restoration of bonds of social solidarity. We cannot, in other words, confront economic poverty if we do not also confront moral poverty. We need to remake our own language of morality, reforge our own moral norms.

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Deliberately Misinterpreting The Present For An Elusive Future

The Hartmann Report ✏ Written by Thom Hartmann. 

How a small nation’s pragmatic, humane approach exposes the lie behind America’s manufactured “crisis” and offers a roadmap for defeating the racist strongmen weaponizing immigration for power…

Razor wire in the sunrise, shadows waitin’ at the gate,
Families walk from fire only to meet another state.
Little hands on chain-link fences, tired eyes that plead for grace,
A journey made for freedom ends in fear they shouldn’t face.
’Cause the cruelty ain’t a bug—it’s the whole damn plan,
Turning hope into a weapon in the heart of this land.
But we can guard our borders without losing dignity;
We can choose the road of mercy over cold strategy.

The most gruesome feature of the Trump/Vance/Miller regime is their glee in brutalizing nonwhite people and terrorizing anybody who objects or tries to hold them to account. Their entire rationale is that the barbarity and savagery are “necessary” to deal with millions of “illegals.”

Denmark is onto something that could blow up their entire excuse for this violence against both people and our Constitution, and Democrats need to pay attention.

Back in June 2008 I did my radio program for a week from the studios of Danish Radio in Copenhagen. 
Continue @ Hartmann Report.

Did Denmark Find The Answer To Immigration 🪶While Trump Chose Barbarism Instead?

The Journal 📰 False claims about asylum seekers often use terms in confusing and contradictory ways.

Ongoing Crisis Involving migrants have introduced an obscure lexicon about asylum seekers into political debates in Ireland.

Terms like “human trafficking”, “economic migrants”, “illegal immigration” and “refugee” are sometimes used to specify the legalities of people coming into Ireland.

However, these terms are also frequently misused by anti-immigrant groups to conflate those seeking protection with those who travel to Ireland for job opportunities.

The Journal has increasingly seen such terms used interchangeably online, including in misinformation about refugees, or at protests against new arrivals being housed in certain areas.

But digging into the meaning behind such terms shows that there are specific distinctions between those entering the country.

The conflation of these terms by anti-immigrant groups can often make them seem the same, and the thrust of arguments by those groups sound more convincing to those who can’t distinguish between them.

The Journal’s FactCheck team regularly comes across nonsense claims online that use these terms: for example, posts that that refugees are economic migrants, or that asylum-seekers in State housing are unvetted and don’t receive background checks.

Continue @ The Journal.

Explainer 🪶 What Is The Difference Between ‘Economic Migrants’, ‘Refugees’ And 'Asylum-Seekers'?

The Journal ★ The claim that Muslims outnumber the Gaeltacht population has circulated online in recent days.

False Claims Have been widely shared online which suggest that Ireland now has a larger population of Muslims than people who live in Gaeltacht areas.

These claims have circulated since 14 October, when a number of accounts on X shared a graphic showing a map of Ireland with its Gaeltacht regions highlighted in green.

The graphic also featured two statistics: one which said “Gaeltacht population 106,000″ and another which said “Muslim population: 112,000″.

This image with incorrect data has been shared dozens of times on social media

However, the figure about Ireland’s Muslim population is incorrect.

According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), there were 81,930 Muslims in Ireland when the 2022 Census was taken.

The same Census results show there were 106,220 people living in Gaeltacht areas in Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Kerry, Cork, Waterford and Meath.

It also recorded 1,873,997 people saying that they could speak Irish across the entire country, equivalent to around 40% of Ireland’s entire population over the age of three.

There are no statistics available on how many Muslims in Ireland are living in Gaeltacht areas . . . 

Continue @ The Journal.

Debunked 🪶 There Are Not More Muslims In Ireland Than People Living In Gaeltacht Areas

Church And State ★ written by Joseph Carvalko.

I’m not a practicing Catholic—not because I reject the teachings of Christ, but because the institutional Church has, too often across centuries, including the 20th Century, betrayed those teachings through its complicity in the most egregious human rights violations. 

Yet I still believe in the moral vision attributed to Jesus: the sanctity of human dignity, the triumph of kindness over cruelty, and each of our obligation to protect the vulnerable.

These are values that transcend religion. They are the bedrock of any humane society, and in the case of Americans, a shared aspiration of moral behavior.

Today, Christian Nationalists distort that vision. Their rhetoric and policies—especially around immigration—stand in opposition to the Gospel’s call to welcome the stranger. Their support for militarized deportation forces, like ICE under Trump, reveals a theology of exclusion, not compassion.

Pope Leo’s recent message to U.S. bishops offers a stark moral contrast. He urged them to speak out forcefully against deportations and to act in unity for the protection of migrants. His words were clear:

1. Those who condone inhumane treatment of immigrants contradict the very essence of a pro-life ethic. 2. Every migrant should be welcomed as if welcoming Christ himself.

Immigration And Human Dignity Needs Moral Clarity

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ On Tuesday 26th August Nigel Farage outlined the policies to be adopted by his far-right party Reform UK. 

Some of what Farage had to say was worryingly close to the orations spouted by Adolf Hitler in the early years of the Nazi Party who for twelve years terrorised ethnic and racial minorities in Germany, banning strikes and making trade unions illegal.

The Nazi Party claimed Jews were “not German” and removed their “German citizenship”. Nigel Farage, with his anti-immigrant tirade, sounded dangerously close to this man in his verbal mannerism. Reform Uk's policies are also considered to be “anti-trade union” and want to reduce their “contribution in the workplace.” Nigel Farage perceives trade unions as “obstacles to the free market” and wishes to reduce union power making “strikes more difficult”!! The unfortunate thing is an increasingly large number of people, some of them union members, in Britian are listening to him and his Reform UK party. 

Reform UK are bitterly opposed to immigration and that I fear may be just the tip of the iceberg which could eventually encompass all people of migrant descent being, at best, deported. Reform UK advocates using old Ministry of Defence (MOD) properties no longer in use – old army barracks and Royal Airforce (RAF) huts – as holding centres for all immigrants, which would look remarkably like the early Nazi concentration camp at Dachau! Examples of major Reform UK policies include:

a radical approach to immigration including a plan to increase detention capacity by 24,000 within 18 months, build new removal centres, and spend £2bn on bilateral agreements for migrant returns. 

This could well mean agreements with evil murdering regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan who, remember, British and US soldiers died fighting against aided by many Afghan people now living in Britain.

The BBC News covered Farage’s speech outlining Reform UKs policies should they be elected to government. He said; “there are people arriving from Iran who should not be walking our streets today”. He outlined how these people would be “deported” under a Reform administration. When he was asked at this televised news conference about “people getting deported who faced murder and torture” he dodged the issue. The nearest he came to addressing the point was; “I cannot be held responsible for what happens in the world”. Roughly translated he means Reform UK and himself as leader of this party could not care less what happens to these people once they are returned. 

The Taliban who are now the government in Afghanistan would, no doubt, like some of these people back in their clutches for interrogation! Tony Symonds of the BBC News suggested, “for Reform to get done what they want to do they will have to pull out of agreements.” By this he was aiming at global agreements which Britain are presently signatories to! This was another issue Farage skirted past but he was clear about pulling out of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). He also suggested changing UK domestic law on human rights cutting a lot of these safeguards which protect all people, refugees and indigenous people alike, living in Britain.

Farage wants to “renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement” probably removing any points beneficial to the nationalist population and Irish unification. Using the refugee issue Reform UK want to “renegotiate the GFA” completely to “protect the borders of the UK” referring to migrants entering the UK via the Twenty-Six-Counties. If he can have the border put back in place that would put a barrier between the UK and the EU, one which could be policed! It should be remembered the GFA is enshrined in EU law and International Law. The last two countries to walk away from such agreements enshrined in what was then the ‘League of Nations’ were Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. Renegotiating the GFA may once again see British troops on the streets of Belfast and Derry to maintain British rule over the Six Counties!* Farage will almost certainly use this as a way of removing the “Irish dimension” from the GFA and probably the right of people to dual nationality and citizenship in the Six-Counties. Could it signify a return to one party Unionist rule and an end to the ‘Legislative Assembly’ at Stormont?

Moving on to what are often called ‘small boat’s’ and people arriving in the UK in these craft particularly from France he said; “the only way to stop the boats is by detaining and deporting all who arrive by this route”. Many of the British electorate may well applaud him for this move particularly those living on the south coast but they should perhaps remember, where would these deportations stop? Extreme policies like these tend, certainly historically, not to stop at their intended aims. These aims tend to be the thin end of the wedge and lead to far greater numbers of deportations and then incarcerations of people and the enactment of policies which the electorate did not sign up to or vote for.

BBC Political Correspondent, Ben Wright, warned very clearly of the present mood in the country as he sees it; “If Reform win the election they will start building detention centres for migrants. The Home Secretary would then be under an obligation to start deportations”. Again to many living on England’s south coast initially such a move may be music to their ears but, and again I repeat, where would these “detention centres” stop? Farage was asked again about potential torture and would he be “bothered” by the fact many of these deportees, many who have arrived legally by approved routes, would face “torture?” The Reform leader replied; “of course I’m bothered but I’m more bothered about the numbers arriving here.” Reform UK aim to, if elected, “deport 600,000 in the first five-year term”! These bilateral deals Reform UK talk of with other countries to ‘take people back’ how much exactly would such deals cost the tax payer?

In order to introduce their policies a Reform UK government would have to change the law. This would not be easy by the normal route providing, that is, the normal Parliamentary procedures apply under such a government. For a Reform government to pull out of global agreements is not easy under ordinary circumstances. Like the present incumbent President of the United States, who cares nothing for relations with foreign countries, Reform UK are not a normal political party usually associated with a liberal democracy. Yes, they are strong upholders of capitalism, as were Franco and Pinochet, but using the customary parliamentary chamber to enact their laws the electorate may discover to their cost, not apply. Reform UK are not a normal political party associated with British elections, they are an extreme right-wing party with fascist ideals, who would take the ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’ to an extreme right-wing position. If this party win the 2029 UK election, could it be the last election that country holds? This has happened in various countries when far-right fascist parties have taken power. Italy, Germany, Spain, Chile to mention a few!

Despite the poor performance of the Starmer supposedly ‘Labour Government’ such a knee jerk reaction is concerning and has happened. In the fairly recent by-election in Runcorn and Helsby Reform Uk's Sarah Pochin was elected as MP. Sarah Pochin won by just six votes but Starmer’s concern should be that Reform UK overturned a 14,000 Labour majority! Voters should perhaps be a little weary about electing this party into government. If an election were held tomorrow Reform UK would be favourites to win! A knee jerk protest is one thing voting in a potentially fascist party to government is something completely different. Today it could be ‘immigrants’ for detention, tomorrow it could be you and/or your family!!

*For this possibility it may have been advisable for the IRA and INLA to have loosely maintained their structures and weaponry at a peacetime level.                                                                                                                                        
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Reform UK

Barry Gilheany ✍ Just another week in the perpetual shitshow that is the world of Nigel Farage:

the accumulation of toxins that is the English (or English as British) version of the Triple P virus (Populism, Polarisation and Post-Truth) that has entered the bloodstream of British politics, and which is posing a stark threat to UK liberal democracy. 

Farage’s pledges of a Trump style mass deportation programme to finally end “illegal” immigration once and for all which would entail the immediate return of all arrivals on “small boats” to the countries from whence they came; negotiation of return fees with regimes such as the Taleban and Iran’s homicidal theocracy and withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (Farage’s latest iteration of a tyrannical European institution which negates the rights of the freeborn Englishman) lays bare the sheer ugliness of the Alt-Right agenda and the two sides of its minted coinage: narrow, nativist nationalism on one side and pathological international isolationism on the other in its callous disregard of human rights abuses in far off countries of which we know plenty. 

It is ethical ground that Farage and his ideological ilk share with the latter day anti- “war,” anti- “imperialist” left in their recycling of Putin’s “NATO expansionism to blame” narrative on Ukraine and apologism for the crimes against humanity of the former Assad regime in Syria. In line with Farage’s bottom feeding (or perhaps bottom fingering) have been daily protests outside hotels holding asylum seeking applicants and with far-right groups barely hidden in plain sight and an efflorescence of territory marking “flegs” shagging. The crucible to much of this week’s fervour around migration has been the litigation over one such holding centre, the Bell Inn in Epping, Essex in which the Court of Appeal overturned a High Court injunction compelling the government to close the Bell Inn and move its residents on by `12th September. Speaking from personal knowledge, this confluence of events has created a palpable sense of fear and anxiety for migrant and asylum seeker advocacy organisations and their clients and a wider concern that with Reform UK 15 points ahead of Labour in opinion polls the UK could indeed be set for a Farage premiership.

“Operation Restoring Justice” the Reform UK moniker for Farage’s mass deportation plan is not border control but Trumpism in a union jack. It is a louder, more extreme version of former PM Rishi Sunak’s failed 2023 strategy to detain everyone, deport everyone and process no one. It was a policy destined to fail, whether by design or default. It created a backlog of unheard asylum claims, spiralling hotel costs and public anger – with no drop in small boat crossings. But Farage wants to go further. He pledges to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); repeal the Human Rights Act to remove legal avenues of repeal; disapply the UN refugee convention for five years; and exit anti-torture and anti-trafficking treaties.[1]

If one is to believe in Farage’s hubristic prospective, Britain could deport 288,000 people annually. That’s nearly 800 a day – 30 times the current rate of asylum-related returns. Of course, the arithmetic and geopolitics do not stack up. The UK has just 2,200 detention places, Farage wants 24,000. Deportation relies on returns deals, but none exist with most of the countries from which refugees are fleeing, including Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and Sudan (discounting Farage’s lack of moral scruple about dealing with odious regimes or civil conflict-ridden failed states). Nor is France likely to cooperate if the ECHR is nullified.[2] There is a cost estimate of £10bn over five years, including £2.5bn for the construction of detention centres in undetermined locations.[3]

But here’s the bub. Farage is playing at performative politics in the most cynically strategic manner possible and it is through his carefully crafted playbook that his pathway to 10 Downing Street lies, as hopefully but cautionary improbable this prospect is. Exuding power without any authority or responsibility, Farage is setting the agenda on immigration from the bully pulpit of weekly press conferences held in the ‘silly season’ when Parliament is in recess and the major party leaders are ‘on the beach’ (literally as then Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb was during the debacle of the fall of Kabul to the Taleban and the evacuation of Westerners and their Afghan helpers). The viewing public has quite had probable more exposure to a perma tanned Farage strutting forth at the helm of his press conferences while the official Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch flails around in her unfocused, shouty manner and Prime Minister Keir Starmer while performing statesmanlike on the foreign stage struggles to keep a lid on the widespread dissatisfaction on the domestic performance of his year old government.

Ever attuned to the shifting sands of the news agenda and the attention spans of public opinion, Farage has conducted seven press conferences held most on Mondays, with announcements on migration and crime trailed into the weekend press and his live appearances on news channels sometimes lasting longer than an hour.[4]

Those conferences have generated fevered debates and backlash that run for days. There follows a raft of defections, from a police and crime commissioner, former MPs and, on Wednesday 26th August 2025, Reform UK’s first Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP). Never starving of the oxygen of publicity, Farage has featured on at least 22 front pages.[5]

Unlike tightly controlled government press conferences, Farage always veers off-script, always takes questions but dismisses any he cannot answer. Like a Donald Trump with oracy and articulacy, he exploits to the maximum the time he has available with long rambling answers that comprise a smorgasbord of half-truths and pet theories that could be converted into news stories.[6]

A key element of the Faragiste operating manual is a flexible and economical, nay shameless, approach to the truth and his own spoken record. For just 24 hours after making his headline making pledge to deport women and child small boat migrants, he rowed back on it (is it too much of an attribution to humanitarian considerations that he didn’t want to be associated with the iconic cruelty of the separation of children from their parents on the US-Mexico border during Trump 1.0?) saying that exemption of them “at this stage is not part of our plan for the next five years” and that, besides, “there are so many illegal males in Britain”[7]

After the opprobrium of Northern Ireland’s political parties and those involved in the negotiation of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement predictably fell on his shoulders like the proverbial ton of bricks, Farage also swiftly backtracked on his proposal to renegotiate the Agreement acknowledging with candid honesty that “The Northern Ireland situation is deeply complex” and “that will not be at the forefront of what we do”.[8] But should Northern Ireland ever become a concern for a Reform UK government (heaven forbid!) then both sides of the constitutional divide should be careful for what they wish for. Being essentially an English nationalist party, Reform could well look for the easiest way to expedite any responsibility for NI by, maybe, calling snap border poll with no preparations for the aftermath (as was the case after the Brexit referendum) and then wash their hands of the consequences in true ‘not me guv’ isolationist style.

Farage’s MO of treading delicately but strategically on the penumbra of what is legal to say in public is one which ought to be very familiar to students of demagogues like the late Ian Paisley and Donald Trump. He says that public order is in danger from uncontrolled immigration. The he executes a rhetorical pivot from the undesirable character of those arriving by boat – “suspected of being involved in some form of terrorism” – to the prospect of unrest in communities where there is “rising anger” and “despair” at the influx of these marauding interlopers. His warnings are threats. His foreboding fans the flames.[9] Figuratively speaking, Farage can always be relied on to drop a lighted cigarette butt on a dry gorse field or strike a match near a propane gas cylinder.

And Farage’s rhetorical flourishes have sociopathic consequences. Stoked up by rage at the “invasion” of “unvetted young single males of fighting age” from “backward medieval cultures” (Islamic in the populist imagination,) angry mobs of balaclava clad youths; tattooed and tanked up older men of “Engerland” supporter repute complemented by the pink femininity of the Women’s Safety Initiative (WSI), a grassroots movement whose stated mission is “to expose the dangers of uncontrolled immigration, put women and girls first, advocate for victims and demand real solutions.” (WSI was founded to address "the exponential growth of women and girls being followed, harassed and assaulted by male foreign nationals.”[10]) lay siege to asylum hotels up and down the country though not with the destructiveness of last year’s summer riots (provoked at least partly by Farage’s conspiracist undermining of the police investigation into the Stockport killings of three young girls at the Taylor Swift theme party.). But the toxicity around migration reaches deeper into the soil and bedrock of communities.

And the hostile discursive environment around migration is having real life effects upon those who work in the migrant advocacy sphere. Research by the Guardian newspapers has found that organisations that support migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have been forced to take radical security measures to protect themselves and their clients, in recent months, including temporarily closing offices and moving to online only services, and removing content from their websites including location information. During the course of the research, multiple organisations reported online threats, trolling, hostile emails, and intimidating Facebook posts. Some anti-migrant protestors made video recordings of refugee organisations’ premises and shared them on far-right online groups.[11]

The Guardian also reported that the Charity Commission took the highly unusual step of removing the names of trustees from several charities listed on its website after the Home Office gave a far-right influencer the names of some organisations with which it had meetings about asylum accommodation, following a freedom of information inquest. The City of Sanctuary UK, a small organisation which works with schools, was falsely accused by far-right activists of grooming schoolchildren and was the subject of a complaint to the Charity Commission by the former Tory education secretary for its “politicised” activity.[12]

Although the latest piece of grotesque misinformation to go viral last week did not bear Nigel Farage’s personal imprimatur, it is a parable for our Faragised times. An image of a 12-year-old girl from Dundee in Scotland wielding an axe and knife to supposedly ward off an attack by a male was reposted by Elon Musk several times to his hundreds of millions of X/Twitter followers and by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson. In fact, she has been charged with wielding the weapons in question towards a Bulgarian couple. This is the perfect vignette for our digitally monetised conspiracy ecosphere in which fear and prejudice, and primitive emotion are of greater currency than truth. Farage is an exemplar of this culture. Funnily enough, Elon Musk’s concerns about the supposed erosion of free speech in Britain do not appear to have extended to the decision by Nottinghamshire County Council four-month-old Reform administration to cease dealing with the local newspaper the Nottingham Post after the County Council leader objected to a story about plans for a restructuring of local government. A portent of life in Planet Farage.

How to Respond to Farage: The Old Slogans Will Not Work

It is tempting to look back at previous episodes of far-right activism and electoral successes and reprise the old strategies of anti-racist resistance and mobilisation. The pushback against the National Front in the mid-1970s in set piece street confrontations such as the Lewisham Rally in August 1977, the activism of the Anti-Nazi League and its organisation of the Rock Against Racism movement has passed into the iconography of the British Left as much as the Battle of Cable Street in 1936. The electoral rise of the British National Party in the 2000s culminating in the election of two of its candidates to the European Parliament in 2009 galvanised the Love Music/Hate Racism movement and grassroots anti-BNP campaigning which culminated in the vanquishing of BNP leader and MEP Nick Griffin in the Barking & Dagenham constituency in the 2010 General Election and the all of the BNP councillors on the council in that year’s local government elections.

However, the far right that is mobilising in the 2020s and, disturbingly, setting the agenda on immigration is a different beast from what earlier waves of left-wing activism confronted. Writing about his experience in organising a protest to defend refugees kettled in Thistle City Barbican hotel in London, the barrister and authority on the far right David Renton remarks that shouting:

“Nazi scum off our streets" by anti-racists towards the anti-migrant contingent who were chanting “invaders” and “parasites” ‘didn’t strike me as effective when I heard it, and the more I have thought about it since, the more convinced I am that is the wrong strategy.[13]

For the cheerleaders of the modern far right like Tommy Robinson do not lace his speeches with reworked passages from Mein Kampf; recycle Holocaust denial and Elders of Zion tropes or openly trade in white supremacism. The National Front and BNP who did peddle these ideas could not poll any more than 6% of votes because their explicit racism and fascism put a ceiling on their progress. Supporter of the National Front in the 1970s broke with its campaigning because of their affinity with fascism and Nazism; not least of their considerations was memories of the Blitz on London just over three decades earlier.

For the contemporary far right has a singular focus on refugees with one singular narrative – that the residents in the hotels are single men, are foreigners and that ergo, they are likely sexual predators.[14] As mentioned earlier, the far right is pushing forward a group of female leaders both very amenable to that logic and who have the emotional acumen to push that message to multiple recipients.

This argument with its faux feminist concerns wins supporters and insulates them from accusations that they are extremist (“Not far right but not far wrong” is their mantra). The only way to confront this form of othering is to tackle it head on by rejecting any idea that foreign men – or Muslims – are more susceptible to sexual offending than British males. Rather than confronting this form of racism through “Bash the Fash” or shouting “Nazi scum off our streets” is to rebut that argument with simple, one line statements such as the statistic that 40% of those who attended the far-right protests after the Stockport atrocity have been reported to the police for domestic violence.

Rather than the formulaic wording of most anti-racist, left wing campaign material, that sort of unvarnished figure should appear on their leaflets and posters. In this way opponents of the modern far right can take back control of the narrative.

References

[1] The Guardian Editorial Asylum. Farage’s deportation plan is not border control but Trumpism in a union jack 27th August 2025 p.2

[2] Ibid

[3] Rafael Behr Same man and same playbook – but now with lives at stake Guardian Journal 27th August 2025 pp.1-2

[4] Jessica Elgot Summer offensive. How Reform was allowed to dominate news agenda. The Guardian. 27th August 2025 pp.4-5

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] Libby Brooks Farage drops vow to deport women and child small boat migrant. Guardian 28th August 2025 p.6

[8] Ibid

[9] Behr, op cit

[10] Michaela Makusha Women’s safety group accused of setting back sexual violence debate The Observer 24th August 2025 p.9

[11] Far-right threats force refugee groups to take safety measures. Guardian 24th August 2025 p.14

[12] Ibid


[13] David Renton Shouting ‘Nazi’ at anti-refugee protestors will solve nothing. Guardian Journal 29th August 2025 pp.1-2

[14] Ibid, p.2

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Just Another Week In Engerland/Farageland

Barry Gilheany ✍ ‘What we want to do is to bear down on migration, particularly of unskilled workers who have no job to come to.” 

The words of former UK prime minister Boris Johnston in a TV interview in December 2019, ahead of the UK’s formal departure from the EU on 1st February 2020 and a few days before his landslide general election victory.[1]

In 2016 Len McCluskey, former general secretary of Unite the Union – the second-largest trade union in the UK claimed that:

The elite’s use of immigration to this country is not motivated by a love of diversity and multiculturalism. It is instead all part of the flexible labour market model, ensuring a plentiful supply of cheap labour here for those jobs that cannot be exported elsewhere.[2]

In 2007, the UK’s Labour Home Secretary, launched a clampdown on ‘foreigners [who] come to this country illegitimately and steal our benefits’. In 2015, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron called for a ‘wide-scale change to the rules on welfare and benefits. In the USA, Donald Trump has argued ‘illegal immigrants are lower skilled workers with less education’ who ‘draw much more out from the system than they can ever possibly pay back.’[3]

A range of comments from across political and ideological divides that encapsulate the most ill-informed and pernicious views about immigration; in the case of economic migration rather than biggest contributors though Messrs Johnson and Trump have made successful political careers in the deliberate conflation of asylum, “illegal” and “legal” economic migration and freedom of movement within the EU; the latter being arguably the biggest contributory factor to the Leave win in the 2016 EU referendum. These perceptions have created unfortunate realities such as the xenophobic hostility to EU citizens resident in Brexit Britain and Donald Trump’s draconian mass deportation programme in the US enforced by the virtually paramilitary body, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

But behind the vacuous soundbites of “Stop the Boats” and “Smash the Gangs” which are the staples of immigration discourse and policy in the UK is lack of comprehension and discussion as to why global migration has increased so much and how it has affected other countries. There is little or no consideration about the effects of the collision between the two greatest demographic trends on the UK and other countries.

The first is the world-wide explosion of migration, driven by warfare, climate change, rapid population growth in lower-income countries and the relative ease of travel. Since 1990, the number of people living outside the country of their birth has doubled to 300 million.[4]

Second, the birthrate in all rich countries, apart from Israel, has fallen well below the replacement rate at which population rates are stable. For the first time in human history there has been a progressive decline in populations that cannot be attributed to war, famine, or disease as triggers. Consequently, more and more countries are reliant on migrant labour to complement shrinking and ageing workforces.[5]

For example, Germany will need annual net migration of close to 300,000 until 2040 to sustain its labour force. In the US, immigrants account for about one in five healthcare workers in the second Trump administration. In Britain, the care sector emerged from lockdown with record vacancies – and a commensurate need for migrant workers.[6]

Wilful Ignorance

For the reality of migration and its dynamics confront Western political elites with an inconvenient truth which contradicts their assertion that their societies do not need lower-skilled workers. In fact, there is a real and consistent demand for migrant labour art all skill levels. Migrant workers are not as ‘unwanted as politicians claim. In reality, immigration is primarily driven by labour demand.[7]

Employers and agencies actively recruit foreign workers, as migrants fill crucial job shortages in vital sectors. This is as true as it was in the days when Enoch Powell (before he claimed that immigration would lead to “Rivers of Blood”) as UK Health Secretary encouraged nurses from the Caribbean and other Commonwealth territories in the 1950s and early 1960s to come to Britain to staff its NHS – a role which by general acclaim they filled beyond expectation. It happens in plain sight in Western societies. For the stark reality is that immigration restrictions that deny the central role of labour demand in driving migration will not stop immigration; in fact, they typically prompt migrant workers to overstay their visas or cross borders illegally.[8]

For both governments and anti-immigration activists on the far right who see mass migration as an existential threat to national identity and call for remigration are in denial about a fundamental truth; that our wealthy, ageing and highly educated societies have developed a built-in structural demand for migrant workers that is impossible to eliminate as long as economies keep growing. From that perspective, the most effective way to reduce immigration is to wreck the economy.[9]

In relation to the latter scenario, some anti-immigration activists will admit to a preference for gradual economic decline over solving the problem of declining populations through migration. At the time of the Brexit referendum, Nigel Farage publicly mused that a drop in GDP would be a price worth paying for the recovery of UK ‘independence’ and ‘sovereignty’ from Brussels and, when confronted by the four per cent drop in UK economic output since “Independence Day”, will double down and say that it has not been a ‘proper Brexit’ in the manner of certain Marxists’ pursuit of ‘true communism’ or the quest of some Irish Republican purists for the true ‘Republic’.

But while voters may fret about immigration, this does not mean that they won’t blame their government for rises in the costs of everyday living or if there is no one to care for their ageing parents. Japan provides a case study in the interplay and outcome of these tensions. There has been a drop in its population in every year since 2009 and there has been a collapse in the country’s birthrate. Fewer than 700,000 babies were born there last year, the lowest figure since 1899, and down from a mid-1970s peak of 2.5 million. But historically, it has had very low levels of immigration, and its ethnic homogeneity has attracted plaudits from the western radical right. However demographic changes have impacted on this purity. In each of the last three years, the number of foreign residents increased by about 10% to reach a record 3.8 million. Most are from poorer Asian countries and on work visas, filling holes left by the decreasing population.[10]

Although these numbers are much lower than those for the US and western European countries and very few of them are asylum seekers, there has been a backlash to this increase in foreigners in the form of an electoral breakthrough for the far right Sanseito party with its “Japanese First” slogan; increasing its tally of seats from one to 14 in recent elections to Japan’s upper house.[11]

Not Doing As They Say

In defiance of their own anti-immigration rhetoric, politicians often acquiesce to employers’ lobbying by allowing more migrant workers in or by tolerating the employment of undocumented migrants. The reality that this immigration is more encouraged than it seems is further highlighted by the central role that the recruitment of officially ‘unwanted’ foreign workers has continued to play in facilitating migration and the tapping of new labour sources.[12]

Compared to the post-Second World War decades, when major migrations – from Mexico to the US, from Mediterranean countries to western Europe, and from the Caribbean and South Asia to the UK were put into motion through concerted efforts to recruit workers (a la Enoch Powell and West Indian nurses), governments are now less directly involved and thus less visible in the recruitment process. This is part of a more general shift towards economic liberalisation and deregulation, as well as the rise of ‘flexible work,’ giving increased leeway to private sector operators to recruit and hire local workers and migrant workers alike.[13]

Nowadays, staffing firms such as Randstad, Manpower and Adecco are involved in the recruitment of foreign workers. In the Netherlands alone, there were no fewer than 4,830 official employment agencies in 2021, helping to recruit East European workers for the Dutch horticultural, warehousing and distribution sectors. In 2022, the US had around 25,000 registered staffing and recruitment agencies, and the UK had 20.096 employment placement agencies. While private agencies do most of the actual recruitment, governments satisfy employers’ needs by allowing legal labour migration and turning a blind eye towards the illegal deployment of migrant workers; all out of the view of the public.[14]

Because of the sensitivity and toxicity of the migration issue, such programmes usually abjure any mention of the M-word. ‘Au pair’ and ‘trainee’ are well-known euphemisms for migrant workers. The au pair programmes run by many Western governments recruit domestic and care workers, who often end up staying longer than their initial visas allow and whose presence is widely tolerated as it is common knowledge that their labour fulfils essential economic and social functions. Even South Korea and Japan, long resistant to the idea of admitting foreign workers, have capitulated to pressures to admit workers from countries like Vietnam, Indonesia, and Nepal.[15]

So, Western politicians try to reconcile their desire for GDP growth with rhetorical acknowledgment of public discontent with rising migration levels by tacitly encouraging economic migration, while making hay about irregular (often and inaccurately called illegal) immigration by refugees. There have been some attempts to tighten up routes for legal migration at the margins: in the UK, most international students are no longer allowed to bring dependents, and the salary required to acquire a visa has gone up (though not NHS workers). But net migration is still expected to be about 200,000 to 300,000 for the foreseeable future – well above historic levels.[16]

Even countries with radical right governments are trying the same strategy. In Italy, Giorgina Meloni has pushed EU colleagues to go further on reducing irregular migration, while quietly pushing through two increases in the number of visas available for non-EU workers (alongside already high levels of migration from eastern Europe). In the UK, in a welcome introduction to the incompatibility of dog whistle, xenophobic anti-migrant rhetoric with effective local governance, the new Reform controlled Kent County Council wrote to the Home Secretary in July complaining that new rules preventing care homes from hiring from abroad would “leave providers on a cliff edge.”[17]

Another common migration myth – that immigration undermines the welfare state – does not survive any contact with the reality of the extent to which migrant workers play in upholding affordable welfare provisions, not just indirectly through the taxes they pay, but also more directly through the work they do. Across the Western world, immigrants have increasingly buttressed care systems that suffer from a chronic lack of availability of locally trained staff.[18]

It is now a truism that the UK NHS could not survive without the immigration of foreign doctors and nurses. In 2022, 33 per cent of all doctors working for the NHS were foreign born, up from 26 per cent in 2012. Between 2017 and 2022, the share of newly hired NHS nurses with non-UK nationalities rose from 20 to 45 per cent, the vast majority from outside the EU. Half of all foreign-born NHS nurses are from either India or the Philippines, and two-thirds of foreign-born doctors are either Indian or Pakistani, while the number of health professionals from African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt is increasing fast. About 29 per cent of GPs in England earned their degree abroad. Of this share, 54 per cent qualified in Asia, 28 per cent in Africa and 18 per cent in the EU.[19]

Migration policies in Western countries, whether they concern asylum or the rights and availability of migrant labour, remain mired in institutional paradox, if not hypocrisy. This is especially the case with the “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitudes governments have taken in relation to the employment of undocumented migrants. To give practical effect to populist soundbites such as “British jobs for British workers” would most likely mean the promotion of pronatalist family policies associated with right-wing nationalist governments like Viktor Orban’s Hungary to reverse populist decline and/or coercive measures to force natives to take the jobs that migrants take; the dirty and drudge jobs that the former traditionally refuse to do. While both excite right-wing opinion, they are not compatible with the values of liberal democracy and open societies. And so, real debates and solutions will continue to be delayed and deferred.

References

[1] Hein de Haas (2023) How Migration Really Works. A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics. London: Viking p.109

[2] Ibid, p.130

[3] Ibid, pp.145-46

[4] Sam Freedman The truth about migrant workers: demonised but in demand, and few of us can live without them. The Observer. 3 August 2025 pp.12-13

[5] Ibid p.12

[6] Ibid, p.12

[7] De Hass, p125

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] The Observer. 3 August 2025, p.12

[11] Ibid

[12] De Haas, p.122

[13] Ibid, p.123

[14] Ibid

[15] Ibid

[16] The Observer. 3 August 2025 p.13

[17] Ibid

[18] De Haas, pp.157-58

[19] Ibid, p.158

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

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