It ain’t over until the woke lady sings – The Battle of the Proms

 

Over the years the conductors and the BBC itself have become increasingly uncomfortable with the popular and patriotic music of the Last Night of the Proms.  For that one night only, the British are allowed to take pride in their nation and celebrate who they are and where they are from.  The woke British Broadcasting Corporation dislikes anything that celebrates Britishness, dominated as it is by the contrary woke-ideology that encourages the validation of disparate identities at the expense of the mainstream population.

Fearful of a head-on confrontation with the British public, up until now the Beeb has attempted to subvert the Proms from within.  It has selected lesbian conductors and sopranos and tried to turn a celebration of Britishness into a celebration of woke British values.  Instead of that which has traditionally been understood as Britishness – rooted in a Christian society that values virtues such as stoicism, courage and martial valour – the non-values of Sodom and Gomorrah are celebrated.  This Trojan Horse strategy of subverting patriotism from within, so that to wave the Union Jack means you also support the waving of the LGBTQ + rainbow flag, is very clever.  Meanwhile across the world our political class promotes values inimical to traditional society and calls this disastrous identity politics “British values”.

People are naturally patriotic and particularly on a party night like Last Night of the Proms they are easily susceptible to having a nefarious agenda slipped past them.  No one wants to be a party pooper.  The BBC’s Last Night of the Proms therefore got away with portraying Britishness as wokeness.

Nonetheless wokeness cannot hide its true colours.  It is not about unity or tradition, it is by definition hostile to what holds us together.  Wokeness is about creating disparate identities that define people as small and “oppressed” groups, downplaying and denying what unites them with their countrymen.  This is the corrosive and poisonous dogma of intersectionality.  It makes the marginal the mainstream at the expense of tradition and shared culture.  This is why the woke are sympathetic to the promotion of traditional Islam and feminism – seemingly contradictory ideologies.  This is not a contradiction if your overarching ideology is actually about destroying the mainstream culture and eradicating tradition.  Contradictory perspectives and ideologies are equally worthwhile of promotion if you wish to destroy Christian society.

Now there is not that much explicitly Christian about Last Night of the Proms (apart from Jerusalem).  Rule Britannia is from the Seven Years War when our Protestant identity was far stronger.  Land of Hope and Glory being Edwardian is more from the zenith or peak of British imperialism when perhaps more Masonic and Deist ideas were in the ascendancy, but the composer himself was a Roman Catholic.  Nonetheless patriotism more than faith is what is celebrated, albeit with references to God natural to a Christian society.  The reason these pieces of music are a target is they support a coherent national identity and that national identity because of our culture and history is linked to being a Christian country.

Subversion by the BBC had been working and was powerfully symbolised in last year’s last night, with both EU and Rainbow flags being unfurled and waved.  Particularly symbolic was the choice made of the soprano for Rule Britannia.  A rather large bisexual or lesbian American was selected who unfurled not a Union Jack, but a Rainbow flag.  She also sang the innocent children’s song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with strong hints of sexualisation.  It really was decadent degeneracy.  In a free society people can follow their sexual leanings, but in a decent society one does not advertise that as an integral part of one’s identity, particularly for a national celebration meant for everyone such as the Proms.  Claiming to be inclusive this behaviour is really exclusive of most of us, who really do not need to know about someone’s preferences and passions in the bedroom . . .

The contrast seemed even more powerful because the beautiful Tartar soprano Aida Garifullina was outside in the park also singing Rule Britannia, as though the mainstream and the traditional ideas of beauty were banished to the outside, while the margin had moved into the centre.  Orthodox Youtuber Jonathan Pageau has talked extensively about the topsy turvy way the woke agenda places the marginal in the centre at the expense of the traditional and normative.

This rendition of Rule Britannia by the woke lesbian Jamie Barton was the very peak of the Trojan Horse strategy.  She was able to ride the patriotic cheers as though they were actually cheers for what she was inclined to do in her private bedroom (a fact she was all too keen to make public).

This strategy that was working now seems to have been abandoned.  Covid 19 has changed the strategy.  Just as we had to witness unrepresentative BLM demonstrators destroying the monuments of our history and identity so the newly appointed Proms conductor from Finland, Dalia Stasevska, sees Covid and our virtual house arrest as an opportunity to “sanitise” the Proms of our patriotic songs.  This really is sneaky, because just like the BLM demonstrators, the conductress feels she can make this move as the audience will not be there.  It is though a strategic blunder.

This move, to delete patriotic songs, just proves wokeness and patriotism are not compatible.  For the former is about minority identities at the expense of cohesion and the latter brings us all together.   Wokeness, let us be clear, is not simply about tolerance, but promotion of the abnormal, the irregular and the marginal at the expense of the traditional.  Its whole narrative thrives on painting history and shared identity as oppressive of minorities who are of more importance than the majority.  So it was never really true that British values could be woke values.

Britain is a tolerant country, but tolerance is not the same as active promotion of the marginal.  Britain has a history we are proud of that has allowed a space for the margin, but has not attacked the mainstream tradition.  It is a history based on the recognition the mainstream does not need to oppress the margin.  Wokeness, with its cultural Marxist philosophy cannot accept tolerance, because really its programme is all about revolution.  It aims to overturn the normative and will utilise disparate groups and interests to do that.  As with all revolutions it is not promoted by the ordinary working class, but by a narrow group of privileged intellectuals who do not share the concerns of normal people.  Sadly this narrow group dominates in fields like the media, especially the BBC.

What will now happen is that the ordinary public, Sir Henry Wood’s key audience, who so love the Proms will react and no longer accept the woke propaganda, being revealed for what it is and what it is hostile towards.  Thus if the proposal goes ahead, the Proms would become a narrow world for the self-important woke and privileged.  Patriotic music is so often a way into the world of classical music for those not fortunate enough to have been educated through the private system and university (where nowadays you seem to learn to sneer at tradition).  The Brexit voters are the descendants of Sir Henry Wood’s target audience. 

The BBC might see its legitimacy at stake, when the unpopularity of the proposal becomes clear.  Most likely a “compromise” will be found in a dispute that never was other than in the inflamed imaginations of the privileged media class, so the songs will remain, but sanitised and made bland.  Nonetheless, what has happened is a major error.  The woke, having wormed their way into British life have now clearly cast their ideology as the opponent of patriotism.  We can now hope that when the woke soprano sang, it was the swansong of using patriotism as a mask for the woke agenda.

LAWFARE - THE WEAPON OF THE PROGRESSIVE ASS

When Charles Dickens revived the old phrase “the laws is an ass” in his novel "Oliver Twist", he was writing in a time when despite the legal reforms in the Victorian age, law generally meant the law of precedent known as common law and the law of equity or fairness.  The former was the strict interpretation of legal rights, the latter was the evolution of a process of fairness within the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor, known as the keeper of the King’s conscience. 

In his novel that focused particularly on the legal profession, “Bleak House”, Dickens portrayed lawyers as mercenary, cynical and self-interested.  Those who became caught up especially in equity disputes in the Court of Chancery, where the Lord Chancellor sat, found themselves consuming their capital and destroying their happiness, chasing the chimera of legal settlement in their favour.  The interminable case of Jarndyce v Jarndyce has entered the popular consciousness of Englishmen.  It was of course ironic that the area of law meant to do away with a legalistic and inflexible approach itself had become a burden upon litigants.

Yet today we have a new and particularly post-modern form of legal abuse – that often referred to as lawfare, implying war by other means.  Examples current are the ongoing persecution of the hunting community through the courts and the blatant political attempts to prevent implementation of the referendum on EU membership.

What makes the development of lawfare so troubling is that England was a nation in which the rule of law was a sacrosanct principle.  Back before Henry II (who built upon Anglo Saxon respect for the law in his legal reforms) the King’s Peace meant that common law in Anglo-Saxon England that extended across the realm.  These principles, although much undermined, survived post the Conquest and were restored by Henry II and reluctantly reaffirmed by his son, King John when he signed the Magna Carta in 1215.

That deep respect for the rule of law, by which an English aristocrat like the commonest felon could be sentenced to die on the scaffold, as a principle before which every Englishman was equal, spread across the globe.  Most famously the constitutional governmental system in the United States built upon the English principle of the rule of law.  Through the Commonwealth this principle became worldwide.

What then is the modern Western nation state without the rule of law?  It is that system of commonwealth suffering from that constitution most feared by the Whigs in their rhetoric at least, arbitrary government!

Yet what Whigs say should never be taken at face value.  The Whigs overturned important principles such as the precedent of Royal Succession and used their new found power in England to run a corrupt oligarchy.  It is interesting and telling that today’s liberals, who use the law as a weapon against political opponents, are the philosophical descendants of the Whigs.  That belief in history going in a positivist direction has been further affirmed harmfully through a Left wing account of jurisprudence by the American academic of the Left, Professor Ronald Dworkin.  "Progress", according to the ideology of the Left, could now be enforced by judge-made law.  A hybrid of Whig positivism and cultural- Marxist jurisprudence has given us "lawfare".

By taking advantage of the Englishman’s reverence for the rule of law, corrupt progressives are not just blatantly attempting to overturn referendum results, but to tie up the Englishman in red tape and restrictive laws   In a sense the ban on hunting with hounds was the test case, the canary in the coalmine.  Contrary to the principles of English common law, which looked to established practice for legality, Parliamentary statute overturned generations of a country sport, symbiotically tied in with rural life, in a complex ecosystem of nature, agriculture, sport and tradition.  The English common law would never have ruled in such a way.  It depended upon Parliamentary statute to overturn a prescriptive right to hunt.  After such an egregious victory, many more things became subject to bans and restrictive legislation, until the Englishman has found it difficult to emerge from his house without breaking one law or another.

This abuse came from the growing importance of parliamentary statute, depending upon a transient majority in the Commons, over the importance of common law, which looked to legal precedent and also, in a sense even more importantly, established usage.  If something had been done for time immemorial, then in a free country it must be legal – unless a Parliamentary statute overruled this.

There is nothing antiquated, quaint or anachronistic about the common law: the most serious offence of murder remains a common law offence.  Statute though, with its expression of the sacrosanct principle of Parliamentary sovereignty, commands legal legitimacy and transcends pre-existing common law.  Courts would go on following precedent until overruled by a new act of Parliament. Statutes should be rare and something like a matter of last resort.

The problem with the increasing level of legislation is not just that it is used to restrict an Englishman’s historical rights, but that there is nearly always a political agenda behind it.  There is currently a lot of talk about the Benn Act, which – against all precedent and having been passed through a breach of parliamentary convention – forces the executive to approach the EU for an extension in the event of no deal at the time of the legislated deadline. 

Those MPs who passed the bill in a cynical and political manoeuvre now grow disingenuously indignant about the rule of law when the Prime Minister has threatened to disobey this cynical law – as though the Benn Act were some ancient principle handed down for generations.  What hypocrites!  This law is nothing more than a tactic and yet it is granted the same sanctity as court rulings based in centuries of precedent.

Even worse and especially since the creation of a “supreme court” by Tony Blair’s government, the problem of judge-made law through judicial review is growing and threatening the nation with a constitutional crisis.

Before our eyes we can see that the Whig history was wrong about our constitution.  We are governed by the Queen in Parliament.  Within its realm Parliament is sovereign, but it depends upon the head of state for Royal Assent.  Furthermore Parliamentary sovereignty has nothing to do with the exercise of the Royal Prerogative and neither is that Prerogative justiciable. 

This is not simply a misreading of history that is leading to a constitutional crisis.  It is also to do with that ongoing problem of the “long march through the institutions” by the cultural Marxists.  To a large extent left-wing liberals are the useful idiots of the cultural Marxist agenda, even if they are not fully-aware or fully-signed-up to the agenda of cultural Marxism.  In any event, they are willing to breach with precedent, protocol and prescriptive rights to achieve a political agenda. 

That means that longstanding practices unpopular with or unnoticed by the majority, such as foxhunting and shooting can no longer depend upon being established customs.  They are threatened by a simple majority in the Commons.  If the Lords object they will be overruled (and since Blair’s reforms, the Upper House has been completely corrupted, anyway).  The exercise of the Royal Prerogative by a Government to achieve democratic goals such as dissolution or prorogation are prevented by statute or the Supreme Court.

The whole agenda of the progressives, by which they essentially cheat the system, is reliant upon the Englishman’s acquiescence to the law as an-almost-sacred principle.  Nonetheless, this cannot carry on forever.  If one or two political movements use the law to frustrate democracy or destroy ways of life, then the law itself will lose credibility.  There is an arrogant contempt of the law by those who weaponise it for their own political goals, however complacent they are about their own righteousness.  Being self-satisfied about one’s political views and having the power to abuse the law cannot go on with impunity.  The danger is progressives (liberals and cultural Marxists) will push people too far so that the law and our institutions are no longer respected.  That will not only take away their power, but be a loss and a blow for Anglo Saxon civilisation.  The mistake was to believe the Whig analysis of ever-increasing parliamentary power and history heading in a liberal direction, rather than recognising our rights and civilisation depend upon established usage, custom and precedent.  That Tory spirit of precedent and prescriptive rights in our law making is needed if our institutions and respect for the law are to survive.

Civic Virtue and the World

Aristotle taught that man’s telos was to achieve virtue.  Just as the purpose of a musical instrument is to be played and thereby produce music, so Man is to live ethically.  Part of that ethical living is to make a commitment to the Polis, the city state, and to devote oneself to public life.  It is ethical to participate in politics.

As Edmund Burke famously pointed out, for evil to triumph good men simply need to do nothing.  If men of virtue do not participate in public life it will become dominated and controlled by the corrupt, the careerist and even the criminal.  In the West after generations of participation, engagement in politics has been decreasing, leaving the field of public life to the cranks and fanatics that our current university system seems intent on churning out of its post-modern system.  Indeed, it seems it is only those driven by vanity as opposed to virtue that have the energy and zeal to enter public life.  

Whether it is fanatics like Corbyn and McDonnell who wish to change the country in a way no normal person could accept or shallow careerists like David Cameron, there seems little room for the man committed to public service as an Aristotlian virtue.  There are two predominant forces in politics today – the ideological leftist extremists and the careerists.

In the United States we have seen a peaceful revolution against this corrupt (in the broadest sense of the word) system.  Donald Trump was elected because there was something rotten in the state of the Western democracy.  A professional and managerial political class committed to its own shibboleths of ideology, well out of step with the consensus of normal people had become isolated in its apparently impregnable position of power.  Donald Trump was elected to change all that – he said the unsayable in an environment of suffocating political correctness.  Paradoxically this New York TV celebrity gave a voice to traditionalist conservatives and Christians deeply troubled by the course the political class had set their nation upon.

It is no cliché to draw a parallel with Brexit.  That other Anglo-Saxon nation, the old country, the United Kingdom went through its own peaceful revolution in the Brexit vote.  Delivering the largest democratic mandate in history the British public voted decisively to leave the international and globalist project that was set up to destroy the nation state and democratic accountability - the European Union.  In England and Wales the vote was emphatically for leave, the figure only being made more marginal by a capital city out of step culturally and politically with England and Wales as a whole.  Scotland and Northern Ireland voted remain for specific reasons and should not be considered as having voted against the United Kingdom itself.

Whereas in recent weeks we have seen a significant triumph for the Trump administration, in the exoneration of the President from any suspicion of being complicit with the Russian Government to win the election; in the United Kingdom Brexit has been dealt what is perhaps a fatal blow.  Theresa May will now work across the House of Commons, where there is a majority committed to stopping Brexit.

This tells us much of the decline of British institutions after forty years of being governed by an unelected and foreign bureaucracy.  It is no wonder that when Parliament was merely there to provide a fig leaf for two thirds of laws not democratically processed, the quality of politician and the institution of Parliament itself should have suffered a serious decline.  Our political class is not up to the job of Brexit because it has been enervated and corrupted by the European Union and its corrosive effect on representative democracy.  Participation in politics when ruled by Brussels is a charade and it has attracted those who are happy to play a charade.  Now their bluff is called and they are terrified by the thought of political responsibility and accountability.  What might seem like an opportunity to the public man of integrity is terrifying to the careerist politician.

The corrupt careerists therefore did what comes easiest to them, they lied that they would deliver Brexit while spending three years plotting to subvert the democratic result of the referendum.  This is of course disgraceful, wrong and corrupt.  How should one respond?

Despair or extremism are two very tempting responses.  Our system appears to have shown itself irredeemable.  The public gave Parliament a chance to restore its sovereignty and it preferred vassalage.  Yet neither anger nor despair are responses that one striving for virtue should countenance.

There is the so-called Benedict option  If we look at the betrayal of Brexit not in isolation but as symptomatic of the decline of Western politics, then rather than despair should we not be liberated from placing any hope in temporal victories?    One could then withdraw from the world not in despair, but in a spirit of devotion and hope for the next world.  It is interesting to note that Aristotle himself placed the life of contemplation at an even higher level of attainment in virtue than civic participation.

If we are thinking in typological terms, then an analogy might be drawn between a Brussels-administered United Kingdom and First-Century Judea, with its charade of independence, while de facto power was very much in the hands of the Roman administration.

There was a political movement in Judea, the Zealots, who sought for a political victory over Rome.  They were disappointed in a corrupt Jewish establishment that had come to terms with Rome.  These zealots were also to be deeply disappointed in Christ, because they had hoped for a Messiah who would overturn the oppressors and bring about a political Utopia in the form of a new Davidic Zion, powerful and flourishing.  Yet as Christ taught, His kingdom is not of this world.

The temptation to zealotry in today’s circumstances would be to slip into a revolutionary mindset, perhaps even looking at a violent solution to the political corruption and lack of national sovereignty revealed by the Brexit betrayal.  Such an extremist Brexiteer zealotry is not the answer.

Yet again just as despair and extremism are temptations that should be resisted, abdication of responsibility is not an answer either.  We are in the world at the moment that we should be, with all the responsibilities that entail to act or not.  We cannot entirely disengage from this disappointing and fallen world, but neither can we place the totality of our hope in it.
 

Christian civilization is under attack in subtle ways, for the serpent is the subtlest creature in the garden.  Whether it is the attack on gender as a reality or national identity or marriage, forces have combined to destroy the foundations of our culture.  Brexit is just one example of this attack on all that gives meaning, in that national identity has to be dissolved if the post-modern agenda is to succeed. 

The point is not to give in to despair, but to continue the good fight, with an expectation of all being put right eschatologically.  With the specific example of Brexit our nation shook and destabilised the foundations of the new establishment’s new Tower of Babel.  It is right to continue shaking it, without believing we can replace it with a perfect state ourselves.  If we were to do that we fall into the very heresy of chiliasm that lies behind the concept of the European Union.    There will never be an ultimate political solution to this world, but it is right to strive against corruption and duplicity and attacks on our core values.

Punch and Judy Politics – that’s the way to do it!

The British Parliament is fairly unique in Europe with its tradition, ritual and adversarial debates.  As disillusionment with the political class has grown, the party loyalties have broken down in the nation and people no longer see the point in the tribalism of Parliamentary events such as Prime Minister’s Question Time.

The Speaker of the House, who has little respect for tradition but a great deal for himself, has asked the three leaders of the political parties to consider ways to change the atmosphere of PMQs.  And yet really this misses the point, because the tribal politics of Parliament worked when people were engaged with the system and trusted their politicians.  The sometimes raucous atmosphere was described by Ang San Suu Chi during her address to both Houses as “the sound of democracy”.  We ought to consider why she said that and imagine how controlled the parliaments of authoritarian regimes must be.  A powerful political class likes a quiet Parliament.

The new dislike of Prime Minster’s Questions is due to a twofold and interlinked cause.  First politicians have become more careerist and political conviction and ideology have diminished.  This means that there is less conviction to the adversarial approach.  The new type of politician has aggravated the public, not through his opinions but through who he is – the slippery careerist only interested in the greasy pole, who treats politics as a path to high office.  Therefore the public also no longer believe in the adversarial clashes in Parliament.  It seems empty and meaningless.  So, on the one hand the politicians no longer believe in it and on the other, the public no longer believes in the politicians taking part.

If a primary concern of the voters is immigration but a primary concern of our politicians is same-sex marriage, then there is a disconnection between the public and their political representatives.  Not only that, but as a rule, most politicians take one view on Europe, immigration and the family and the public tend to take another view.  So people no longer feel represented in Westminster.  It may be because of this break in a connection between the political class and the voters that the Nationalists in Scotland have gained some traction (rather than a rejection of our common history by the Scots being the primary cause of nationalism).

Interestingly John Bercow is in many ways the incarnation of much of what voters distrust about politics.  A man whose views changed as the electoral fortunes of his party diminished:  A man who has dispensed with tradition by declining to wear the wig, thereby taking attention away from the office and increasing the focus on himself and a man who seems to have an aversion to the aspects of Parliament that depend on conviction to function effectively.  For example, if PMQs was still a way of addressing the breaches in our own nation then the adversarial nature of it would strike a chord.  It is when the people going through the motions all seem to share a liberal, metropolitan outlook that the clashes in Parliament seem rather to be about going through the motions than sincere debate.

Prime Minister’s Questions should work well by allowing political divisions in society to be brought out and aired with the passion and confrontational nature that means people can go about their lives, knowing their own grievances, passionate beliefs, fears and concerns are being fought out in Parliament, not on the streets.  Instead, parties outside the system are growing to cater for the voicelessness that the public is experiencing.

There is something slightly self-important about MPs fearing that they look ridiculous.  The best thing about the adversarial nature of politics is that it puts the ordinary voter in the position of being the reasonable judge, weighing up both sides. 

Just as in the criminal court, everyone expects prosecution and defence to push their case as far as they can, because the person who is trusted to make the reasonable decision is the juror; so with PMQs the voter can observe with a detached air and cast himself in the role of the reasonable man looking at two caricatures. 

Politicians’ concerns about how PMQs make them look are not just about vanity though, changing PMQs would also be a power grab by the political class.  If parliamentary debate moves towards a more consensual tone, it becomes politicians patting each other on the back, not putting their opponents under scrutiny and pressure, but instead looking at the demands of the voters as an unreasonable force to be mitigated and addressed.  The whole political process would be turned on its head, with the political class becoming more incestuous, more self-regarding and less respectful of the voter, who would no longer be regarded as the reasonable judge of their arguments, but an unreasonable agitator whose anger must be assuaged by politicians working together.

It is no accident that a Speaker who cannot see the importance of the wig, cannot see the importance of adversarial and tribal politics.  A consensual form of politics would suit the political careerists rather than the conviction politician.  Change the atmosphere of politics and we will see yet more of the more slippery sort of politician prospering – the sort of politician who prefers to cast aside tradition and swagger in the empty openness of classical architecture, rather than understand he is only a part of a thousand years of history when surrounded by the Gothic of Pugin.  Such politicians are of course already there, but they must not be allowed to reshape Parliament in their own image.

Parliamentary tradition is there for a reason.  Politicians should stop worrying so much about how they look and worry more about whether the current parties are representing the country at large or just metropolitan London.

The True European is no friend to the Eurocrats

To talk of scepticism about the European Union, that political and economic project, as being an anti-European phenomenon is (often) a complete misunderstanding of that position.  Of course, there may be a minority of Euro-sceptics who genuinely loathe their European kin, but what really fires mainstream Euro-Scepticism is opposition not only to loss of democracy, but more fundamentally opposition to the standardisation of Europe.  That standardisation is the destruction of European culture in all its various national manifestations.

T S Eliot, in a radio lecture to a German audience in the Post-War years, stated:

“For the health of the culture of Europe two conditions are required:  that the culture of each country should be unique, and that the different cultures should recognise their relationship, so that each should be susceptible of influence from others.”

What is relevant here in terms of the political project in Europe today is that it is based upon standardising and making all Europeans the same.  If we believe in a European culture however, we must understand that it is strengthened by the different local expressions of that heritage.  If everything is forced from above by a political and legal authority to be the same, there can no longer be the cross fertilisation necessary to sustain European culture.

This blogger does believe in European culture and that there is something unique and special that Europe has to offer the world.  It is from the interaction between Christianity and the heritage of Greece and Rome.  These two societies, which valued humanity, were fertile ground for this new Semitic faith from Galilee.  Greek was the language of Scripture and Rome the ecclesiastical centre of the new religion.  Today we are all still shaped by that interaction between these forces.  All Europeans have this in common, including Eastern Europe with its Christian Orthodox and Byzantine heritage, which can trace its genesis to the same three roots.

However, that cultural unity is achieved through the diversity of local sub-cultures, from the Anglo-Saxon to the Italian.  Our strength lies in our difference and our culture is not the same as politics.  The trouble with the European Union is that it is trying to replace European culture with European politics.

The two forces are in complete antithesis, because the predominant political ideology is anti-cultural.  The dominant political outlook, to the exclusion of all others, is secularist, liberal and materialist.  To value Europe’s cultural heritage is to destroy your career in the European Union.  One only has to call to mind the debacle of Rocco Buttiglione’s candidacy for the European Commission to understand that the Commission is instinctively opposed to European values.  It was precisely because Buttiglione as a Roman Catholic held to a moral and spiritual code that sustained our culture since the Holy Roman Empire that his candidacy was undermined.

So the European Union is more about secularism and liberalism than sustaining European culture.  It would rather see a Europe in which the only value was the legitimacy of personal choice – a moral code described by American Distributists as similar to that of “the psychopath”, in which one choice is no more morally valid than another.  This is in contrast with a European culture based upon real values.

Furthermore by its aggressive project of standardisation the strength of Europe’s different cultures is being eroded.  A key example is weights and measures.  This may seem a mundane subject, but weights and measures are part of everyday life, they become part of our unique colloquialisms and our sayings.  They reflect an outlook on life and are therefore part of popular culture.  Thus imperial measurements in England do not adhere to an abstract theory of measurement, but rather commemorate specific events or individuals – the foot for example, mythically being based upon the size of King Edward’s foot.  This uniqueness is of course anathema to the anti-cultural European Union and so selling goods in imperial measurements in England has become a criminal offence!

So the argument of this blog is that the true European loves what makes Europeans different and what makes them the same.  The English, with our common law, adversarial politics and law, our foxhunting, pubs and yes selling our goods in pounds and ounces, and of course with William Shakespeare and our poets.  The French: with their painters, their strong secular state, sustained rural way of life, their gentler form of capitalism, their wine and cuisine.  The Germans: with Goethe, with their music, their philosophy, their consensual industrial relations and yes their beer festivals.   The Italians: with Dante, their opera, strong family-values, their Catholicism.  It is sad when these traditions diminish and standardisation undermines tradition.  Politics undermine culture.

In the same way, what holds Europe together is inheriting the universal and cultural values of Christendom, expressed differently throughout Europe, from the severe Calvinism of some parts of the North to the sumptuous Catholicism of the South.  Whatever the local manifestation, that common culture holds us together and a political system so averse to that inheritance also undermines what Europeans share.

The European political class must realise that Europe’s spiritual and cultural survival does not depend on political unification, but local diversity.  We saw in the last century the danger of that impetus to unite politically when Germany became a political unit and standardised, it went on to try and create a standardised, political unit of the whole Continent and its archipelagos.     

John Major, during his more beleaguered years as Prime Minister, trying to gain acceptance of the Maastricht Treaty emphasised the Catholic concept of subsidiarity - a principle that was championed by that English Catholic and Distributist G K Chesterton.  The Roman Catholic Church has learnt from history what a dangerous path it is to ignore local conditions.  It had to face the Reformation as Northern Europe began to express its Christianity in its simpler, more democratic way.  The European Union should learn from the Church and in that way Europe will become stronger through its diversity of Protestantism, Catholicism, different languages, customs and different national traits.  The best way to achieve that European diversity is through that tried and tested political institution – the nation state.

The nation state is large enough to unite, without being too large to gain popular engagement and acceptance.  It is of the same size as a nation of people by definition.  It is the nuclear family, with those special ties, as opposed to the extended family of a whole Continent.  It holds together a people who have specific things the same in common: language, race, history, religion.  Of course all European nations are part of something bigger, but they are the local manifestation of that culture and because they are of the same size as a people they command the political legitimacy a super state could never command.  Men will die for their country and thereby save democracy from threat; they would not die for an international bureaucracy. So Europe should not vest an international bureaucracy with law-making powers and all the trappings of a nation state.  No one will come to save it when it falls under threat.

Silence on the Christian Holocaust from the Heirs of Christendom?

This blog will begin with some honourable exceptions in the matter of Western silence on the deliberate persecution and removal from their religious and native homeland of Christians through murder and intimidation.  Our first exception to an otherwise failed political response is Fiona Bruce MP, who secured a Westminster Hall debate on the persecution of Christians and rightly drew an analogy with the Nazi mass extermination of Jews in the last century. 

Of course it is right that we should oppose persecution of all peoples, whatever their faith or race.  It was right that the West intervened to protect Bosnian Muslims, even if a consequence of Bosnian Serb defeat was relief not just for decent Bosnians but also a minority who went on to fight for the Taliban in Afghanistan.  It is right that the West is bringing pressure to bear on President Assad, when he has allegedly used chemical weapons on his own people as well as using conventional weapons to slaughter his fellow citizens.  It is right to do that, even though many persecuted Christians depend on President Assad’s survival to protect them from the Al Qaeda-inspired rebels who benefit from Western policy.

It is not right however to ignore the persecution of those who are closest to us culturally and spiritually.  Surely when Christians are persecuted in the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan, there is a special onus on the inheritors of Christendom to speak out and take action?  Strangely it seems that the Western media is sadly lacking in interest in the persecution of a people whom HRH Prince Charles (our second exception to the general political failure) has described as “our brothers and sisters in Christ”.

When I refer to us as the inheritors of Christendom I mean all of us, whether or not we are faithful or practising Christians.  Even if we are not, we have inherited a culture and a history shaped by Christian faith.  We have a duty to uphold that culture, whatever our personal beliefs.  We cannot choose to have been born in a Caliphate or a Buddhist state, whether we are believers or not we have been born into and shaped by a Christian culture.  The Western atheist owes his values to the same inheritance as the Coptic Christians.  I believe that this not only behoves us to uphold our own values and customs, but to understand that special link it gives us with Christians in other parts of the world and particularly in the Middle East, where Christ lived, walked and taught.

It is worth quoting His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, bearing in mind how much the Prince has done to reach out to Muslims in our own country:

“I have for some time now been deeply troubled by the growing difficulties faced by various Christian communities in various parts of the Middle East.  It seems to me that we cannot ignore the fact that Christians in the Middle East are increasingly being deliberately targeted by fundamentalist Islamist militants.  Christianity was literally born in the Middle East and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ.”

Prince Charles by dint of his role and upbringing is more aware of our cultural roots than those who run the twenty-four hour rolling media or the politicians more worried about climbing the greasy pole than standing up for principles.

Why should it be though that the media ignores this or pays it scant attention and politicians see no benefit in speaking out (apart from notable exceptions including Fiona Bruce MP and other MPs such as David Simpson MP (DUP)?  Perhaps part of the explanation can be revealed by another honourable exception:  Baroness Warsi.  The Baroness has spoken out about this issue and yet this begs the question as to why someone of Islamic faith of an immigrant family has spoken out more vocally than all those politicians whose roots are Christian and European?

I think the excuse our leaders would give is that for a White, ostensibly Christian Western politician to condemn the persecution of Christians would play into the hands of Islamists who for propaganda purposes would then be able to falsely portray Middle Eastern Christians as Western stooges.  One is reminded of President Obama’s behaviour over the abortive Green revolution in Iran.  Even when the protesters pleaded for American support he remained ambivalent.  The Green Revolution failed.

This attitude seems to be based on shame about and alienation from our own values and a misunderstanding that somehow speaking for the cause of what is Right and Just strengthens the arm of the wicked.  Speaking truth to power earns your cause credit not discredit and inspires rather than undermines.  Silence on the other hand can look like indifference or even tacit acceptance of the rightness of the oppressor’s action.  We know where the attitude of asking "What is truth?" leads.

It is the view of this blogger that the attitude Western leaders are portraying is not pragmatic politics but an exhibition of politically-correct guilt and alienation about our own values.  An aggressive secularisation and attack on our traditional values has left us with pusillanimous politicians who no longer speak with conviction or even know what convictions they should hold.  Rather than talk of our Christian values as Sir Winston Churchill did, politicians can only speak in value-neutral language.  To speak passionately about the persecution of Christians would not be value-neutral precisely because we have that special link with them.  So in our perverse modern world the very reason for speaking out becomes a reason not to speak out.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, another important and honourable exception, has referred to Christians murdered by suicide bombers in Pakistan as martyrs – a powerful way of highlighting how distorted the extreme Islamist view of martyrdom is and what a cruel parody of true martyrdom has developed in Islamist doctrine, as well as expressing the much-needed sympathy for Pakistani Christians. 

This blog recently touched on the Church of England’s embarrassment over the existence of the Devil.  Well, we live in a world where those who have inherited the legacy and duties of Christendom have monumentally failed to speak for and act for their spiritual and cultural brethren.  Not only have they failed, but they exist in a world where they are so alienated from the values of their culture that they are impotent to speak out precisely because of our special link with other Christians who are being murdered every day.  Surely that disabling impotence must be the work of the Devil in our culture and politics.

For those frustrated about our politicians' failure to act and wish to do something in however small a way for our spiritual brethren can I recommend the Barnabus Fund?  Their website can be found here and is self-explanatory:

http://barnabasfund.org/UK/

Nostalgia is good - Progressives might not like it, but there was a lost golden age

The current political class is dominated by the ethics of vanity identified by Jesse Norman MP in his book on Edmund Burke MP as liberal individualism.  This liberal individualism permeates the thinking of the metropolitan class that has the time and money to govern the rest of us.  It is the nadir of a gradual decline in Western thinking that puts the material before the spiritual, the modern and novel before tradition, the atomised individual before society and science before religion.

On the Left we see this reductionist outlook represented in its disparaging of institutions that make up the fabric of our society, sneering at valuable institutions from monarchy to marriage.  If we are all individuals the Left says we should not be oppressed by conjugal vows or subject to a Queen.

Meanwhile the Right has forgotten its duty to conserve our institutions and has turned a legitimate institution, the market, into an idol. It regards market economics rather than values and norms of behaviour as explaining human actions.  Patriotism and faith are replaced by rational choice theory.

Things really seemed to go wrong after the wonderful scientific discoveries of men of faith such as Isaac Newton.  This great deepening of our understanding of the material world, which began as a wonder at Creation was turned into idolatry of science, where science was claimed as the explanation of all things and our institutions and traditions were only seen as valuable if they could be justified by scientific tests.

Not only was this so-called Enlightenment anti-religious it was also in a sense anti- human.  The one man who did most to pervert our new scientific understanding was that serpent in the garden of philosophy, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  At university the blogger undertook a whole module on this leading thinker of the Enlightenment and discovered a misanthrope.  He seemed to regard human interaction as leading to a destructive amour propre.  For him the human institutions that bind generations together with their accumulated wisdom were forces of oppression.  He therefore detested the society Man had built up in the light of religious faith. 

The French revolution with its belief that Rationalism independent of tradition could explain everything followed, with Rousseau as its hero.  Since then this rationalist and materialistic outlook has continued to attack tradition and faith.  It has chipped away at our social bonds, questioned the norms of behaviour that make living together possible and indeed life enhancing.

Much is attributed to the Enlightenment from individual freedom to parliamentary democracy.  England gives the lie to this.  Much of what people give the Enlightenment credit for was already underway in these Islands before Rousseau and the others put pen to paper.  Religious pluralism came about following the new settlement of the Glorious Revolution (one hundred years before France committed regicide), but this was only implementing ideas that were gradually developing following the Restoration in 1660.  Charles II’s reign might have seen reversals in the journey towards religious pluralism, but a compromise was being worked out.  It was finally achieved with the accession of William III, but not by reverting to the narrow Puritanism of Cromwell and the Regicides.

A middle of the road solution was reached without reference to abstract theory.  In good Anglo-Saxon fashion a compromise was cobbled together that allowed people to worship God true to their own interpretation of the Bible, Parliament was given freedom from Royal Prerogative and the Whigs therefore got what they wanted.  It was a compromise that worked however because it realised men live by tradition and affections not rationalist theory.  So the settlement preserved the monarchy and indeed the pageantry of monarchy.  It preserved the House of Lords and it continued with the Church of England as an established church – so the Tory affection for tradition was acknowledged too.  It recognised that while we must be free we are also social creatures who need institutions and traditions.

 Over the Channel, when abstract principles were followed rather than the lessons from history, the Terror and the guillotine resulted.  That is not to say that only the French make such a mistake.   While atheism and materialism took power by force in 1789, in the United Kingdom its growing strength has been more insidious and by stealth.  “Clever” people no longer respect our traditions.  They act as though our institutions survive by some strange accident, some oversight when we were embarked on dismantling the structure of oppression while on the road to liberty.  What they do not realise is that true liberty depends on these institutions rather than the false freedom of liberal individualism which is to be lonely and weighed down by the material world.

So people are right when they look back nostalgically to better times, because as these abstract, rationalist ideas have gradually permeated our nation more and more we are constantly losing what is life enriching. 

As we approach Christmas however the whole country returns home, casting off abstract rationalism.  Family, tradition and the Christ Child are seen again for how central they really are to our lives.  It is a return to the Merry England of carolling and wassailing, Christmas pudding (banned by the Puritans), Father Christmas, hunting (banned by New Labour), hawking and feasting.

So our resistance to the liberal individualists with their economic theories and their scientific explanations of religion begins when we wish each other “Merry Christmas”.  Certainly if we start to wish each other “happy holidays” instead, we have given up the fight. 

A Message to “Elf and Safety” – We will not be Druv!

The blogger for another year attended the Lewes firework celebration, where tradition, controlled anarchy and fireworks gain control of the streets of a Sussex town for one night of the year.  To anyone sick to the back teeth of our molicoddled, standardised and blandly modern world of political correctness and health and safety Lewes bonfire night is the greatest antidote.  Of course the P.C. forces of the nanny state hate it, but they just cannot control it.

The bonfire societies have a long tradition of resisting authority’s attempts to control bonfire night and their constant refrain is “We will not be druv!”  Sadly in Twenty-First Century Britain even Lewes is not unaffected by the dull and officious spirit of the age with all its health and safety and fear of anarchy.

Nonetheless the 2013 Lewes bonfire celebration kept that old spirit alive and –much to the frustration of the official mindset – it goes from strength to strength.  In a society as controlled as ours, where an impolite tweet on "Twitter" can lead to a police investigation, we all need a night off from the oppressiveness of the politically-correct atmosphere and Lewes, with its effigies, its controlled chaos, costumes, parades and vibrant traditions provides this.

Lewes does however highlight how in every other respect we are losing touch with our traditions and real life.  In a world where conker trees have to be cut down for reasons of health and safety or politicians with a little more character find their careers destroyed because they are not bland enough for the media and actually say things people feel, we are fast losing touch with real life and indeed losing touch with fun!

Yet again the political class lies at the root of the problem.  Many of the people who govern us have their roots in cosmopolitan London and move in a different sphere, ignorant of our nation's traditions.  The only way to succeed in politics is to be bland and dull.  Therefore the successful politicians are terrified of anything exciting, traditional or dangerous. 

Many politicians want us to live in a standardised, bland and modern world. Indeed “Modernisation” is their shibboleth – which means the chipping away at traditions seen as irrational, but which actually hold us together as a nation.

If more of our politicians were more rooted in England and its traditions we might see a different attitude.  There is however a self-perpetuating class of people who govern us, moving from Oxbridge to political researcher to MP, with little interaction with people outside the Westminster bubble.  The political class is standardised and boring and follows the same pet issues as the equally dull media class.  It then tries to remould our old country in its own image.

It is only in a Britain governed by such people that such a great tradition as Lewes Bonfire Night could be put under pressure or frowned upon.  Luckily the British public do not take the governing class very seriously and carry on anyway!  As the Bonfire Boys say:  “We will not be druv!”

Nimbyists of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your reputation with politicians!

Two interesting publications have recently come about.  One is the much-publicised report by the Office for National Statistics suggesting that people are happier in rural areas and small market towns, while they are unhappiest and most anxious in urban areas.  The other is a book by developmental economist, Paul Collier on the impact of immigration, called Exodus:  Immigration and Multiculturalism in the Twenty-First Century.

While Collier has previously focused on the impact of a lack of common culture in African countries, he has now turned his attention to the impact of immigration in the developed world and the erosion of mutual regard.  Mutual regard is lost when people have very different cultures – whether that be tribal differences in the modern African state or multiculturalist divisions in Western countries.  Collier appears to realise what politicians do not: That concern about immigration has much more to do with a loss of a common understanding of norms of behaviour and values, than economics alone.  Diversity has a corrosive effect on a shared identity and therefore undermines trust in a society.  This has nothing to do with race, but everything to do with the damaging doctrine of multiculturalism and the sheer scale of immigration in recent years.

The ONS report on the other hand makes clear that we are less lonely and less anxious when we live in more local communities – the market town in particular stands out as an ideal form of community.  Of course what holds the market town or the village together is that people know each other – they are not strangers in their own community.  People have a common understanding of norms of behaviour and shared values. 

The common thread to these two publications is a fact that might be blindingly obvious to the man in the Dog and Duck, but is rarely articulated and completely misunderstood by the political class.  That fact is surely that what strengthens community is the local and the cultural things held in common.  We all need to belong to community to feel fulfilled and we need to share common values, manners and standards with our neighbours.

The way to achieve this goal of the happy society is to live in smaller and more homogeneous communities.  This is directly contrary to all recent governments’ agendas, which have pressurised local authorities to build more and create larger and less homogeneous communities.  Indeed in the blogger’s own home district, a recent report has shown that the primary cause of housing demand is immigration. 

This leads to two negative effects: It undermines the smallness of the community and makes it more diverse.  This is not at all good for general wellbeing.  It must be right to recognise that a healthy society is not only about how economically rich it is, but how happy people are.  We can be materially wealthy, but spiritually poor.  The latter poverty is far more serious.

This blog is not arguing that we should close the doors on everyone, rather the argument is that a society can deal better with immigration, maintain its own wellbeing and make the immigrant more welcome, when people are better assimilated.  That requires a strong community into which the immigrant can be absorbed.  Otherwise we all end up as lonely atoms randomly bouncing around a bleak and urban world.

The Government is looking closely at how to increase general wellbeing.  Surely, the lesson from these recent publications is that we need less development in our small towns, more controls on immigration, protection of our nearby green spaces.  It is time for the political class to acknowledge that concern about these issues is not only about house values, but is a valid concern about losing something far less tangible but far more valuable - our wellbeing.  It is time to start listening to and stop dismissing the so-called Nimbyists!   

The hijab, the niqab and the burka – statements of faith are all well and good, but what if they are in breach of good manners?

There has been much political discussion recently about when and whether it is appropriate for women of Islamic faith to hide their faces.  Birmingham Metropolitan College attempted to ban the full-face veil or niqab, but pulled back from this rule.  The Liberal Democrat MP and Coalition Minister Jeremy Browne MP criticised the wearing of full-face veils and Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health has asked the NHS to look at its policy on dresscode, due to the feelings of disquiet some patients have when treated by a medical professional who keeps their face hidden from them.

The matter that sparked off this debate was when a defendant in a criminal trial wished to hide her face when in the box.  The judge required her to remove her veil when under examination, so that the jury could observe her facial expressions.  This seems a commonsense solution.  The defendant might have felt subject to unwanted scrutiny when her face could be seen, but when you are a defendant in a criminal trial that is an inevitable part of the process.

As a conservative who believes in freedom I would be very reluctant to follow the French example of banning the veil in public places.  France is an avowedly secularist country and can therefore consistently ban expressions of religious faith.  On these islands we are a free society with a Christian heritage.  To ban expressions of religious faith goes against the grain.  With an established church and Lords Spiritual in the upper house, religious faith is woven into the fabric of our constitution.  And so is freedom.  Not the French idea of freedom based around secularist ideology, but the freedom to be left alone – an Englishman’s home is his castle, as the expression goes.

The trouble is when a very different culture is grafted on to a longstanding society such as ours that is based on unspoken norms of behaviour, there can be cultural clashes and misunderstandings.  Yes we are a free society, but we achieve that by giving each other space and not forcing our opinions on each other.

The veil adopted by some Muslim women is a strong and uncompromising expression of religious opinion.  In a free society it should not be banned, but the blogger questions whether the veil is actually the sartorial equivalent of forcing your opinions on others.  It creates an awkward social situation just as someone talking about religion and politics down the pub makes for an unpleasant atmosphere.  It steps over a certain boundary and while strictly-speaking it is simply an individual choosing how they dress, it is really a non-verbal statement and creates a physical barrier.  To put it bluntly, in ordinary every day life, the veil can be perceived by non-Muslims as crossing the boundary into bad manners.

In our culture it is good manners to look a person in the face when you speak to them.  I do not condemn recent immigrants who have not yet adjusted to Western society.  Rather, the fault lies with those in the political class and liberal elite who close down debate about the veil in the name of that chimera the multicultural society.  This means people new to our society do not appreciate how many of us are made to feel awkward by the hiding of the face. 

I am sure there are good cultural reasons in Muslim countries for the veil – I do not presume to say otherwise. The flipside of this is that to help the new immigrant societies to integrate they should be helped to understand that the hiding of the face in our culture sends a very different message. 

Many would argue that it is up to us to be tolerant of this choice of dress.  In terms of the law I agree; it is not for the state to criminalise dress.  It is however, the role of society to nurture good manners.  To give a less controversial example - Perhaps in some cultures the physical contact of a man’s and a woman’s hand through the handshake would be unacceptable.  In our culture to decline the handshake would seem bad manners.

A blanket ban, outside of the workplace, is not right in a free society; however, the blogger cannot see anything wrong with requiring employees or students to dress in a way compatible with those institutions' dress codes.  In the health service, when people are often feeling vulnerable and are unwell or in pain it seems very sensible to ban the full-face veil.

Interaction between people is enhanced by facial expressions.  You can tell how someone is reacting to what you say.  It is about being able to engage fully.  If immigrant communities dispensed with the veil it would make it all the easier for stronger bonds to be built with individuals of the indigenous community.    

Why Doesn’t the Beeb seem comfortable with the Last Night of the Proms?

The instruments have been put back in their cases, the flags have been furled and the prommers and orchestra have all gone home for another year following that great British party to celebrate the end of the BBC Proms – the famous Last Night.

The Last Night is one of the British traditions that is so well loved by people that its programme should be sacred.  The BBC is the custodian of this great party of an institution and yet you can’t help but feel the BBC is somehow uncomfortable with something it should be very proud of. 

Much as the Last Night of the Proms was once very establishment – with God Save the Queen and all the patriotic songs, in today’s Britain to enjoy this night is an act of  proud rebellion against the shackles of political correctness.  It is the one night of the year when real people get the chance to celebrate being British in a good-humoured, but unambiguously patriotic way.

It is light hearted and fun, it is patriotic and very British.  So the BBC ought not to tinker, yet it cannot help itself.  The sacred canon is of course opened with Sir Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Seasongs and then we move into the unapologetically nationalistic Rule Britannia and the rest.  Everyone gets the chance to wave the flag and it is so enjoyable.  It is even more enjoyable because it is a forbidden pleasure.  One can almost feel the political and media class trembling in their boots as “Land of Hope and Glory” reverberates around the dome of the Royal Albert Hall.  Today patriotic songs are virtual protest songs against the new, insipid, politically-correct establishment.

Perhaps that is exactly why the BBC constantly tries subtly to change the programme.  Have you noticed how the Fantasia on British Seasongs has been removed from the evening?  I don’t think sophisticated BBC types can comprehend the sheer good fun of bobbing to the Hornpipe or the mock-weeping to “Home Sweet Home”.  What about the orchestra playing Jack the Lad faster and faster?  These are all great traditions that we all hold in real affection.  Bring them back BBC!  Remember how they tried to water down Rule Britannia too?

Meanwhile, Radio 3 commentator Sean Rafferty every year appears desperately to play down the patriotic fervour, by constantly mentioning the small number of foreign flags and how international it all feels.   Can you imagine him saying:  “Isn’t it great to see all those Union Jacks?  What a patriotic event!”  Sadly that just seems impossible.  Of course it is good to see foreigners who feel they belong enough to wave their flags, but is it not even more heartening to see good-hearted patriotism alive and well?

The BBC just cannot do patriotism.  Patriotism is not in its DNA.  Is this why it is always trying to ensure that the conductor is no longer British?  The message is we are international – this is not actually a patriotic event.  Well BBC yes it is and that is why we all love it so much!  The conducting is of course about the musical ability, but on the Last Night it is also about entering into the spirit, getting the tone right and understanding our national sense of humour.  A British conductor like Sir Andrew Davis got the humour of the moment just right – no pompous speechifying, just entering into and enhancing the spirit of the event.

The BBC is a custodian of the Last Night, not the owner.  It should allow us to enjoy the fun and patriotism and not try and impose its own misplaced guilt about being British.  To criticise such a great fun event such as the Last Night of the Proms seems churlish, but that is how the BBC is getting away with watering it down.  We all feel so cheerful after singing Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory, we turn a blind eye to the creeping political correctness.

Immigration and the Chasm between Voters and Politicians

Nothing is more likely to turn the already sceptical British public towards outright hostility to the European Union than immigration from new accession states.  When it becomes clear that they no longer have any control over their borders in terms of immigrants from accession countries Rumania and Bulgaria, there will be real anger – is the political class ready?  If there is one power that indicates sovereignty it must be the right to control your borders.   Of course the power was ceded before this, but now the European Union is made up of countries with very different standards of living.  The incentive of freedom of movement to migrate in large numbers from poor to rich countries is therefore great.  Parliament cannot change the law easily as it no longer has the right to do so under European treaties.

What is even more worrying is that the political class does not really understand how deep a concern immigration is for voters.  When canvassing myself as a parliamentary candidate it was usually one of the first issues raised by residents on the doorstep.  Politicians must remember they are the public’s servants and much as they may be eager to see the nation transformed into a multicultural, confusing and sometimes threatening mixture of different nations, the British public does not want such a transformation to their home.  The polls are clear:  The politicians need to listen.

Before the blogger goes any further, let’s put to rest some insulting misconceptions.  Being concerned about mass immigration does not make someone a racist.  It is possible to have friends from different cultures and races, indeed to find that difference between you and what you have in common with your friend a matter of interest and a building block for friendship.  At the same time it is not a contradiction to have that deep instinctive need to feel at home in your own country where common norms of behaviour and values are silently understood.  This is human nature and when politics goes against the grain of human nature it will always lead to disaster.

For many of those voters I met when campaigning the problem is nothing to do with the individual immigrant; it is the sheer level of immigration and the way that it undermines common cultural understanding.  If immigrants are fewer then they can be better integrated and the differences can be a welcome matter of interest rather than feel a threat.

Often politicians talk of the economic benefits of immigration, by which they mean immigrants taking on jobs while natives remain on benefits - New Labour's false solution to welfare dependency. But Britain is not simply an economic polity of different cultures such as Singapore.  Rather, this nation owes its stability and freedom to a common understanding of its history and the legitimacy of its political institutions.  Small-scale immigration can be accommodated, but a large amount of immigration in a short space of time can threaten this united view of what the nation and its values amount to. 

The blogger himself confesses to feeling a stranger in some parts of London.  This cannot be good.  It is far easier to be a place of welcome to the immigrant, the stranger and the refugee if one’s home country is bound together by a common culture.

The most negative aspect of mass immigration has been the policy response of the political class.  That policy is summed up by the concept of “Multiculturalism” – the doctrine whereby every culture however new to these shores is equally valid with the indigenous culture.  This has made it all the more difficult for immigrant communities to integrate, to become accepted and to better themselves economically.  Multiculturalism was as much a failure to treat the immigrant with respect, as it was to uphold the traditions of the indigenous culture, because it disadvantaged the immigrant in trying to adapt to his new home.  It could only lead to a festering resentment on both sides of the multicultural divide. The problem of Political Islam growing amongst a second-generation community that has not fully integrated is a key example of the problems multiculturalism has led to.

Thankfully Anglo-Saxon tolerance and a determination on the part of many immigrants to be part of the nation has undermined the liberal elite’s aim to keep cultures separate in a new, relativist society.  Most immigrants adapted to and became very much part of the home culture.

There is a strong feeling however that with new waves of immigrants with no historical affection for this country, that the British public is being taken for a ride.  With Commonwealth immigration, different as many were in terms of appearance and tradition, they understood what Britain was and had a shared history through Empire.  The easy movement across the European Union on the other hand means those with a very different history and culture can come here for economic benefit alone.  It is not just about claiming welfare, it is about jobs too, especially in a recession.  It is argued that increased demand for public services from large numbers of immigrants means more jobs.  We all know in the real world it actually means creaking public services that cannot respond to increased demand.  Doctors’ surgeries, schools, housing, are all under far greater pressure than they were.

The political class must show that on the issue of immigration it has stopped sanctimoniously preaching and has started listening.  The question to politicians is simple:  On immigration are they listening to the British voter or the European Union?