I don’t know if you saw Dispatches last night, but you really should catch it on 4 on demand (4od). Channel 4 is often infuriating, but in this case Rageh Omar’s 3-part documentary (”groundbreaking”, as it is described) is a public service. Another reason for C4 receiving more license fee money than the BBC.
Omar, the son of Somali immigrants, is travelling round the country talking to people (whether white working-class or middle-class, or black, Indian, Pakistani or from other racial or ‘ethnic’ backgrounds) on their views on immigration.
In a YouGov survey commissioned by Dispatches, 44% of the UK population believes that there is ‘definitely’ an immigration crisis and 39% that there is ‘to some extent’. These figures for people of Commonwealth origin (i.e. black or South Asian) are 18% and 40% respectively – 58% of people who emigrated to the UK or are the children of immigrants consider there to be an immigration crisis.
There are many other responses that make eye-opening reading.
The public (including black and Asian people) believes that the Labour Government has allowed immigration to get out of control, and that this is having a negative impact upon the country. It is time for politicians to address this issue head-on, rather than burying their head in the sand. Labour politicians or liberal commentators dare not raise their heads above the parapet (except, for example, for the brave Frank Field and Polly Toynbee who acknowledge the impact and sense of grievance). And these words from Enoch Powell in 1968 reverberate today:
Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
As for the current Government, they will no doubt be saying: “Immigration crisis? What crisis?”
Mountjoy