ET: 'part of your family is seaport living'.so you've got a bit of lobster in you as well

Ashe at 21.20, I agree let's see more

SR819
It's not immigration that changed working class communities, it was Thatcher.

The white working class have not 'seen a reduction in their condition' nor have their wages been 'undercut by immigration'. Blame the employer not the employee, the employer is breaking the law, the employee is not.

Immigrants aren't responsible for the 'effects on wages and living conditions' - employers, landlords and government are.

Immigrants are not prioritised against white british people for housing. Any priority they may seem to be given will be because their need is greater than A N Other on the list.

If you can prove someone was rehoused through preferential treatment for immigrants to the detriment of someone else ( i.e. a white British person being 'put to the back of the queue') then get yourself to the Solicitors and argue the case in a court of law because that is illegal.

People who call for a debate on immigration get on my nerves, most often they are the ones for whom there is no debate, it's clearly very black and white for them - no immigration full stop and everyone not white British should go back home.

Lancashire Mr D. I will take a look at your link later, not got time at the moment.

The point about the Kurds was in response to your point about the need to defend them via the no fly zones.

Nope, I never said the UK was a major player. I think the UK should ditch the special relationship attitude too and stop being so subservient to your country and stand up to it a lot more.

You have a blinkered view on your country's place in the world and in history.

Do not dictate to me who to comment too or not. If I'm challenged on something I haven't even said, I have the right to reply.

I have always hated raceism and I think we are moving towards a society of people who are blends of different races. However there is a reaction to things like Diversity Officers and diversity and equality panels in the public sector, the NHS, Councils,schools, etc. We need to go back to employing the best possible person for the job regardless of race, religion, gender, class or age. The class divide of my youth has all but gone but a new generation have created new class divides. Because they were lucky enough to have gone to university and obtained a Micky Mouse degree they demand that organisations employ graduates only rather than someone who put off earning their living for as long as possible by taking one silly degree and Masters degrees after another. Raceism is wrong but we must not be silenced from saying that we disagree with other cultures that treat women like slaves or slaughters animals in a way that causing great suffering.

dilberto,

'The left are pro-immigrant and anti-native' That's a rather sweeping generalisation on something you cannot possibly begin to know let alone pronounce on.

'Opposition to any prejudice is just another form of prejudice' Pardon? How can opposing prejudice be another form of prejudice? I oppose homophobia, am I therefore prejudiced against heterosexuals? Don't make such silly statements.

What can the 'Left' offer those who due to social and economic insecurity would support'far right' immigration policies.

This talk of immigrants undercutting British workers is really not the elephant in the room....employers employing people for less than the legal wage is.

Why is it the employee's fault and not the employer? Why is your argument not with dodgy employers rather than people just trying to legally earn a wage and provide for their families?

If immigrants working for the minimum wage is such a problem for you, ask yourself why it is them who are filling the jobs, could it be the dole dossing white british natives won't get out of bed for the minimum wage or is it because they don't want to demean themselves enough to do the jobs that the immigrant workers are doing?

'To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead'.-Thomas Paine

If no one is aware of this, there are more Brits living abroad than Immigrants in this country. So saying they have completely drained our resources in nonsense.

Lou - I didn't say that I was a minority in my own country.(not yet). I indicated that at some date in the not too distant future that my ethnic group will be replaced as the primary inhabitants in its ancestral homeland by alien ethnic groups from other continents.
All available statistics and demographic projections show that if present trends continue, then we are a minority well before the next century.
If you are so foolish that you cannot see what is happening all over the country, that is your problem.
Look at Government websites, you say? Don't make me laugh - they said only 13,000 Eastern Europeans were on their way! They said Saddam had WMDs. Gullible or what?
And if I concentrate on Muslims - that is because they are by far the worst of a bad bunch and need dealing with first. And they will be.
If my rhetoric is extreme, I make no apologies.( I am EnragedBrit after all). Nothing has ever been sorted out by moderates in a time of crisis.
Chamberlain was a moderate. Churchill was an extremist.
I'd go with Churchill every time.

Yeah, I agree with virtually all the comments:

Why is opposition to current immigration policy a problem? Isn't immigration policy a legitimate concern for people? Why is that 'far right?' I suspect a great number of 'far left' people are concerned with the damage immigration has done to social and class solidarity, union power, social services and wage levels. Why is any of this prejudiced?

Maybe "Britain is no different from the rest of Europe" because all of Europe is reacting to a new, much more open immigration policy. Maybe people just don't want to live in post-national value-plural free market paradises. Maybe the policy is wrong, not "the bigots."

And lastly, the BNP. They have not just adopted the language of identity politics. They have adopted its utterly confused philosophy. They have said - I am part of an oppressed group. And no even bothers to explain why they're dismissing that claim.

I am not racist...I'm a realist with an eye on history....
Turn the closk back 75 years....A time when everything was slower with no computers...There was a large banking crisis...this caused a global downturn...this lead to Germany still limping along after WW1 deciding to elect Hitler who managed to appeal to the working classes (with very high unemployment) with the promice of jobs...which he provided and then wadged his hate campaign against the jews....I am not saying that Blighty would repeat this terrible mistake in history but the ingrediants are taking shape to have a melting pot that could produce that kind of outcome....If the political clases dont pull their finger out and realise that whilst the cheep labour looks good on a lot of companys balance sheets as they can get their staffing costs down. this welth is not perculating to the wider society...the govenment needs to addrsss this urgently. If they dont then I do genuinly fear for the future...with Oil depleating I can see oil wars on the horizon....A right wing nationalist ajender will realy get support then.

Immigration benefits businesses and the government in a big way. Business have a ready supply of cheap labor, they actually lobby the government hard for more immigrants, they know the immigrants are cheap but will also do many of the jobs us whites will not do. The businesses prosper because of cheap labor and they pay more in taxes to the government, so the government in turn prospers.

But the government benefits in another way, when things are not going so well for them and they want to divert public attention all they have to do is bring up immigration because they know it is emotive and they know people will quickly focus on it and forget everything else, so they use immigration as both an economic benefit but also a political tool to bail themselves out of sticky situations. That explains why Cameron said that the multiculturalism has failed, he is throwing a born at the masses and he knows they will chase and chew on the born for a while and forget about all the public cuts that he is pushing through, the politicians know this works every time!!

If you want to divert public attention so that you push through unpopular measures bring up the issue of immigrants and the British public focus on it while you get on with shafting them. The immigrants are just pawns to be used by businesses and governments whenever it suits their agenda!

The people we should be targeting for shafting us are the big business and the governments, they are the real culprits and beneficiary of immigration!!

Buckskins wrote:
"Here in the US by the first born generation the majority of say Arab immigrants are in the professions and well on the way to realizing their dreams. It's the same with the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese immigrants are now mostly business people and their kids are doing the same or also in the professions.They came here on their bare butts but worked hard and knew the value of education for their kids, and so they have prospered. Immigrants are an asset, not a liability. It's their kids that will be financing your govt retirement in part."

What part of the US does he live in: lily white Iowa? That statement is total baldersash; yes, some SE Asians do move ahead in professions, but many do not, right here in California. Arab immigrants are uncommon here, but there are Indian and Pakistanis who also may integrate in part ... but with issues of Islamic identity still present. But the big issue here and throughout much of the southern US is immigration from Mexico and Latin America, much of it from illegal crossing of the southern border, and you should see some indication of the hostility to these immigrants from the anti-immigrant legislation passed and proposed in the state of Arizona. Latino immigrants, legal and otherwise, far outnumber Arabs and Vietnamese, and there you find a level of hostility to immigrants among the white population quite the equal of that in England. And yes, the political power does nothing about controlling immigration at the federal level for those same reasons: it profits the rich and big business. Who else will work on the farms, clean the hotel rooms, wash dishes in the cafes, and do the work of household servants for very poor pay. Just a reminder, the billionaire Meg Whitman, candidate for California governor last year, like so many of her kind, employed an "undocumented" immigrant housekeeper. They cannot resist, these ultra-rich, from exploiting the immigrants, and the "undocumented" are the most easily exploited. And yes, the white working class (a class not usually recognized in the US) is the most bitter and angry about the current situation.

Immigration is not the problem. Multiculturalism and Islamofascism is. Two thing many on the discredited political-left hold so dear!!

Not being a cricket fan I neither know nor care Ehtch. :o) I don't diss the Yorkshire neighbours having found them all perfectly charming, I could make an exception for William Hague however :o) Midlander originally anyway.

No more detraction from the debate though please. It's a serious article.

Well EnragedBrit you really are a vile piece of racist scum aren't you. There's more hatred in the bile you project than any Muslim, Asian or Black person I've ever met. Give me a million of them living here anyday over you.

You are an absolute disgrace to the human race and people like you make me ashamed to be British.

Try the EDL website,you will find a brotherhood of like minded scum ready to welcome you with open arms.

How easy it is to be liberal on such issues when one resides along a tree lined cabled avenue road with 5 bedroom detached homes.

It gives one a feeeling of being so multicultural when one can invite a mmember of an ethnic minoirity to ones barbeque to show off to friends that you are not just a Guardian Reader; one is also part of the Guardianister.

With ones middleclass children catered for so nicely at the local school within a monoculture, and ones local GP and hospital not crowded by a plethora of newbys, who have not paid a penny in income tax It is so great to be able to talk down to the working class on such subjects and class them all as fascits because they look towards fringe political parties that spell the missing word called commonsense.

Britain still has plenty of room to take half the Third World provided none reside down my tree lined cabled avenue road. Britain can still be flooded with East Europeans provided my husband's building business is making a fat profit and does not have to pay the rate for the job.

In short, some of us could see the stark obscene hypocrisy on this subject matter as far back as 1974 but when 2000 came along why did the likes of searchlight not wake up?

The failure of the middleclass to see their own hypocrisy is as the result of 2 generations of lefty school teachers and lefty Universities with students, who's only real knowledge of muliticulturalism was a quickie on the campus lawn and the knowledge that they would be economically far away from the problem after 10 years of work.

Finally, for those who say they love multiculturalism what nation they will retire too one must ask? It will not be the UK. They will never state the real reasons for retirement elsewhere but it will be because of immigration and all the other fancy words such as pluralism etc.

A few words somem up our government during the last 3 decades and they are. Trendy middleclass lefty Guardian reading Radio 4 liberals residing in a little world of their own but sadly influencing our MP's by a factor of 100%.

We're a sum of many parts or generations Ehtch indeed.

Will the British Geert Wilders please stand up?
I think Eminem said that, didn't he? If he didn't he should have.

I am a white pensioner and live in a small town that has very few immigrants. However, I see little sign of 'tight knit white communities', here.
Not all immigrants are low-skilled/low paid and I think we white folks would have problems getting medical treatment (and many other services) if we relied solely on white, home-grown talent.

Someone raised a good point about many on the "far left" should also oppose immigration, because immigrants and immigration has destroyed class solidarity, fractured white, working class communities and led to a serious depression of wages and a lowering of working conditions on a scale not seen since the post war welfare state was established.

The unions' response to immigration is the most bizarre. All the unions, from the centrist one to the far left ones, all seem pro-immigrants, even though immigration has done untold damage to the people that unions are supposed to represent, the white working class. Why are so many on the so called "left" defending immigration? They talk of class being swept under the carpet, they talk of wages being driven down, of living standards for the working classes being eroded, yet none of the union leaders ever mention "immigration".

At least amongst the American unions, they occassionally have the courage to speak out against immigration and immigrants, but the unions here are even more pro immigration than the businesses that can take advantage of cheap labour, which is ridiculous.

An important point is being missed I think. The most startling result was in the potential support for 'tackling' islamic extremism. The media consensus has largely ignored a growing resentment at the discourse it has been using in this area. Extremist fellow travellers in muslim organisations have been given an automatic hearing -Bunglawala, Begg, Sacranie are all islamist - while their opponents have been marginalised to the point that we only hear their arguments emerge from representatives of the EDL and the BNP. It seems to me to be turning ugly. It's a dangerous situation and one which most people outside the media and the 'progressive' left know about very well.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't only the WWC who have concerns about the growing number of immigrants over the past decade or so.

I too have witnessed entire areas of London being swamped with people who speak no English, are unwilling to mix with the local population and absolutely drain the available public services (trust me, I work in a front line role for a local authority so I know what I'm talking about). My department alone pay for Turkish, Polish and Somali interpreters 4 full days a week (on top of all the other language interpreters which we have to order on a 'when needed' basis, which is pretty much every day.

Here's my problem: I'm black, was born here, raised and educated here, grew up attending the local Methodist church, I have a better command of the English language than most of the white Brits I encounter on a daily basis. I've never claimed benefits, I pay my taxes, I don't live in a council property, I don't have a criminal record - I have contributed far more than I've taken back.

My parents came to this country as part of a recruitment drive by the English government to fill jobs after the war and to help rebuild this country. My mother came here at 18, trained as a nurse and spent her entire working life paying taxes in this country. My dad spent over 40 years doing shift work and paying taxes.

None of my family have claimed any benefits other than child benefit (which everyone is entitled to).

The area I was raised in was always fairly mixed but we all got along well and took pride in our community.

I visited my parents recently and was horrified to find that I did not hear a single person on their high street speaking English - I kid you not. I'm told that you can walk down there at any time of the day and it will always be packed because nobody appears to do any work.

To all intents and purposes I am British - I've only visited my parents place of birth once, as a toddler. Were I to "Go back to where I belong" I'd be seen as English and the local population would accuse me of coming to their country and taking their jobs!

So... What is the solution for people like me? Most WWC wouldn't be able to tell the difference between myself and someone who landed here last year unless I open my mouth and speak! What is the solution for my children? My partner is white, they are mixed. Should they go back to where they came from too?

Why are White's racist and no one else? If you believe that statement you have some kind of mental illness.
Last week talking to a friend. He was ratting on about 'having to many of them in Bradford' 'them' being Eastern European himself Asian.