Immigration does not cause unemployment

Study refutes claim that foreign nationals are depriving British-born workers of jobs

There is no link between rising immigration and rising unemployment, independent economists have found – contradicting persistent claims from anti-immigration activists and politicians that an influx of foreign nationals into the UK in recent years has led to more British-born workers on the dole.

The respected National Institute of Economic and Social Research found that there was "no association" between higher immigration and joblessness – even at times of recession or low growth of the sort that Britain is experiencing at the moment. In fact, the Institute's researchers suggested that the opposite might be the case and that immigration acts as an economic stimulus, pushing total employment levels higher and dole claimant numbers lower than they would otherwise have been.

"Perhaps surprisingly," their economists said, "the interaction between migrant inflows and GDP emerges as positive, indicating that during periods of lower growth, migrant inflows are associated with ... slower [dole] claimant growth than would otherwise have occurred." The researchers did concede that the stimulating effects of migration on the overall labour market at a time of recession are likely to be small.

The anti-immigration pressure group MigrationWatch claimed yesterday that rising immigration from Eastern and Central Europe since European Union enlargement in 2004 had contributed to a surge in youth unemployment in Britain, which is now above 1 million. MigrationWatch released its own report, saying: "Youth unemployment in the UK increased by almost 450,000 in the period from 2004 Q1 to 2011 Q3. Over the same period, numbers of workers from the A8 countries grew by 600,000.

"Correlation is not, of course, proof of causation but, given the positive employability characteristics and relative youth of migrants from these countries, it is implausible and counter-intuitive to conclude ... that A8 migration has had virtually no impact on UK youth unemployment."

However, critics of MigrationWatch pointed out that youth unemployment started rising before 2004, the point when Polish and other former Soviet bloc nationals were freely permitted to enter the UK to work.

And Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and former chief economist at the Cabinet Office, also argues today that most of the rise in youth unemployment took place in 2008 and 2009, a period during which the number of Eastern European workers entering Britain to seek employment dipped. Government ministers have implied a link between immigration and joblessness. "Controlling immigration is critical or we will risk losing another generation to dependency and hopelessness," said Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in a speech last July.

The Coalition has imposed a cap on immigration from outside the European Union and has pledged to reduce net migration to "the tens of thousands" a year by the end of this parliament in 2015. The Office for Budget Responsibility, however, has cast doubt on whether the Government will succeed in meeting this goal, with the Coalition's fiscal watchdog estimating that average annual migration until 2016 will be 140,000.

Net migration hit a record high of 252,000 in 2010, although this was mainly due to a sharp fall in the number of Britons leaving the country rather than an increase in immigration.

To analyse the impact of migration on the labour market, the Institute's researchers compared the overseas nationals who were allocated national insurance numbers in an area with the number of people claiming the dole locally.

Case studies: immigrant success stories

"I came with nothing. Now I employ four people" - Datsa Gaile, 39, Northampton

In seven years I have gone from living in a single room, scouring the country for a job – to editing my own newspaper and employing people. When I came to live in the UK in 2006, a friend and I arranged accommodation and work with an agency in Latvia. But when we arrived in London there was nothing. We thought we would have to stay on the streets. I realised I had to do things for myself. I made a CV and got a job. Then I brought my children to the UK. In 2009 I began studying for a BA in business studies at Northampton. At university, I began a paper for the Latvian community. We print 10,000 copies per month.

"I don't believe I'm taking someone else's job" - Agata Wasziewicz-Schmidt Dos Santos, 29, interpreter, Newquay

My husband and I came here in 2008 from Poland. First I worked at Starbucks because I couldn't get work in languages, even though I speak Polish, Portuguese and English. As soon as I changed my email address to a less foreign name, I started getting invited to interviews. I don't believe I'm taking someone else's job, because there aren't many people who speak Polish and Portuguese. I give back to the community, by working in schools and hospitals. My husband owns a martial arts business. He trains other instructors – one of them is an unemployed Brit.

Independent

Trinity College withdraws invite to British National Party leader to debate

Trinity College has been forced into a U-turn on controversial plans to have British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin join a debate on immigration.

The university said it could not guarantee the safety and wellbeing of staff and students and has warned the party leader he will not be allowed on campus next week. BNP party members have also been banned from the city centre grounds for the event.

Mr Griffin had been asked to speak at the University Philosophical Society, known for a diverse mix of guests over the years from rocker Pete Doherty to Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and writer Sir Salman Rushdie. A spokeswoman for Trinity said the invite had been withdrawn after staff and students objected.

"There were objections but like any democracy there will be objections. The college encourages balanced debate and freedom of speech at all times," she said. "It is a very important part of academic life, particularly among students and their societies. As part of the education of our students, the college also promotes the autonomy and self-governance of student societies. These are important principles observed by the college."

However she added: "Following careful review of operational and safety issues, the Philosophical Society and the college are now not satisfied that the general safety and wellbeing of staff and students can be guaranteed. Access to the college will not be given to Mr Griffin or members of the BNP."

Mr Griffin had been scheduled to attend the debate This House Believes That Immigration Has Gone Too Far, scheduled to take place on Thursday October 20. Trinity said it had given the decision to pull the invite careful consideration.

A relatively small group, Students Against Fascism, had met this week to voice opposition to the visit and organise against it.

Independent.ie

Debate invite to BNP chief prompts major row at TCD society

A planned debate at Trinity College’s Philosophical Society has divided its committee and been thrown into disarray following a decision to invite British National Party MEP Nick Griffin to take part.

The debate, on the motion that This House Believes Immigration Has Gone Too Far , is scheduled for October 20th next. Mr Griffin has agreed to speak in favour of the motion. Another speaker who had agreed to oppose the motion withdrew at the weekend on discovering that Nick Griffin was to take part.

John Palmer, who is on the governing board of the European Policy Centre and deputy chairman of its Political Europe programme, told The Irish Times last night he found it “totally unacceptable” that Mr Griffin should take part in such a debate, and had told the organisers he would not take part if Mr Griffin’s invitation was not withdrawn.

Former European correspondent at the Guardian , Mr Palmer said: “The BNP’s roots are in Nazism, and it is very clear those roots remain strongly Nazi.” He had “no problem taking part in debates with people who had racist or reactionary views on immigration”, but he would not do so “with a party rooted in support for the Holocaust and all that represents”. The BNP also had “extreme anti-Muslim policies”, he said.

TCD’s Socialist Party Society has also opposed the invitation to Mr Griffin, as has the Union of Jewish Students in Britain. They called on the Philosophical Society to withdraw its invitation to Mr Griffin, pointing out that “as was witnessed at Durham and Oxford universities, publicity stunts such as these tear apart student communities and contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students on campus”.

In a brief statement last night, the Philosophical Society said: “The Phil is a neutral forum for discussion. We do not endorse the views of any of our speakers. Nick Griffin has been invited to speak solely on immigration. He is a prominent speaker on this issue. The debate will be balanced, with two guest speakers on each side of the motion.”

When asked who those guest speakers would be, society president Eoin Ó Liatháin said he did not wish to comment further.

According to Trinity News, the story about Nick Griffin’s participation in the debate first leaked on the blog of the BNP’s press officer, Simon Darby.

Mr Palmer said last night he had been first contacted by the Trinity society about taking part in a debate “some months ago, and had agreed in principle”. He was presented with the motion “a couple of weeks ago, but no further information”.

He believes he was sent another message in the middle of last week indicating Mr Griffin would be taking part, but as he was abroad at the time he did not receive it until Saturday evening last. He then contacted the society to say that “unless the invitation to Nick Griffin was withdrawn I would not participate”.

He also believed the debate had divided the Phil committee, some of whom had told him they “strongly opposed” the Griffin invitation.

Irish Times

Starkey raving bonkers! Historian accused of racism on riots

David Starkey's TV career in the balance after he says Enoch Powell was right and that 'whites' have become 'black'

The historian David Starkey was fighting to save his lucrative TV career last night after he claimed that the riots were the result of "black culture" and that whites involved in the disturbances "have become black".

In a discussion on BBC 2's Newsnight, Mr Starkey said the civil disturbances had realised Enoch Powell's prediction in 1968 that mass immigration in Britain would lead to "rivers of blood".

There was speculation that his comments would damage his television career as sources at Channel 4, the channel where he made his name, said there was "nothing in the schedule" for programmes featuring Mr Starkey, while Krishnan Guru-Murthy, a prominent presenter on Channel 4 News, questioned whether the historian had "lost it". His fellow guest on Newsnight, the author Owen Jones, last night went further, saying that Mr Starkey's TV career "has ended and it has ended in disgrace".

The historian, an honorary fellow of Cambridge University, also said the Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, an "archetypal successful black man", sounded "white"; and that Jamaican patois had left "so many of us" feeling England was "literally a foreign country". The comments on Friday evening left Mr Jones, author of Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, and another guest, the author and broadcaster Dreda Say Mitchell, apparently stunned.

Mr Starkey, an expert on the Tudor period, is most famous for the Channel 4 series Monarchy and more recently featured in Jamie's Dream School, but has also made programmes for BBC TV and radio.

In the Newsnight discussion, Mr Starkey said: "I think what this week has shown is that profound changes have happened. There has been a profound cultural change. I have just been re-reading Enoch Powell. His prophecy was absolutely right in one sense: the Tiber didn't foam with blood, but flames lambent wrapped around Tottenham, wrapped around Clapham.

"But it wasn't intercommunal violence; this was where he was completely wrong. What has happened is that the substantial section of the chavs that you [Mr Jones] wrote about have become black. The whites have become black."

"A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic gangster culture has become the fashion. Black and white, boy and girl operate in this language together, this language, which is wholly false, which is this Jamaican patois that has intruded in England. This is why so many of us have this sense of literally a foreign country. Listen to David Lammy, an archetypal successful black man. If you turn the screen off, so you were listening to him on radio, you would think he was white."

Ms Say Mitchell challenged Mr Starkey's remarks, saying: "You keep talking about 'black' culture – black communities are not homogenous groups. Stop putting this blame on one culture."

Mr Jones said the comments were "utterly outrageous" and that viewers would find his comments "offensive generalisations".

And he told The Independent on Sunday: "I think we are in the middle of a very dangerous time. There is a backlash going on and he has introduced race into the debate in a very inflammatory way. We cannot dismiss him as a buffoon. I think there should be no platform to espouse these sorts of outrageous views based on prejudice, not fact, and incitement of racial hatred. His career has come to an end and it has ended in disgrace."

Mr Lammy, whose constituency saw the outbreak of rioting a week ago, said: "His views are irrelevant – he's a Tudor historian talking about contemporary urban unrest."

A Channel 4 spokesman said the company would not comment on remarks made by Mr Starkey on the BBC. But Mr Guru-Murthy tweeted: "Wow. Starkey blames black culture. Has he finally lost it?"

However, Nick Griffin, MEP for the British National Party, said on Twitter that he was "wondering whether to make David Starkey an honorary Gold Member for his Newsnight appearance".

IoS

Thanks to Newshound for the heads-up

A proudly diverse nation

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Daniel Pitt. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

Britain is a land built by migrants. After all, there was no one inhabiting these islands 50,000 years ago, and for most of human history there were no international borders. The emergence of the modern British nation state and the advent of a global economy brought with it the movement of capital in search of profit and the movement of people in search of work. Britain, home of the industrial revolution, saw successive waves of immigration from the 19th century onwards. It was driven by the needs of capitalists to find an adequate supply of workers. However, from the beginning, the capitalist class also grasped that the migration of cheap labour into the country provided them with a ready mechanism for dividing working people.. This was not automatic; it depended on an invented common identity of Britishness, which offered a false sense of solidarity between workers and bosses, while dividing native born from “foreign workers”. Nowhere is this seen more clearly than in the treatment of Irish workers who came to Britain in the 19th century to work on the canals and railways. They were forced to leave their homes—much like Roma people in Slovakia today—because of impoverishment or oppression, and usually both.

Our rulers have always tried to sow divisions among workers but there is a powerful history of class solidarity.The next time you walk down a canal towpath or ride a train think of the thousands of Irish labourers—the navvies—who died building the infrastructure of the industrial revolution, housed in the most squalid living conditions imaginable. Textile mill bosses also imported Irish workers. Initially this was often to use them as strikebreakers. In situations of sharpened competition in the labour market among low-skilled workers, it is not difficult to see how tensions arose. Karl Marx observed the process and got straight to the heart of the matter: “Every industrial and commercial centre in England now possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps… The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standards of life. In relation to the Irish worker he feels himself a member of the ruling nation and so turns himself into a tool of the aristocrats and capitalists of his own country against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself.” Marx went on to explain how this antagonism was kept alive by “the press, the pulpit and the comic papers” in much the same way that the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express do today, with their relentless attacks on migrants and Muslims. But there was another process cutting aganist the divisions between workers. The bringing together of workers in the factory system created a need for unity against the common enemy exploiting their labour. Despite the best efforts of the capitalists to stoke racism, the impulse to class solidarity was often stronger. Many leading members of the Chartists, Britain’s first mass workers’ movement in the mid 19th century, came from the ranks of Irish labourers. Class fighters such as Feargus O’Connor and James Bronterre O’Brien led British workers into struggle, as did other “foreign” workers like the black Chartist organiser William Cuffay. Unfortunately the Chartists were defeated, and racist ideas were able to fester.

The New Unionism of the 1880s brought a new wave of Irish activists into politics. Ireland was officially part of Britain at this time so there was no issue of immigration controls—it was the availability of work not controls that adjusted the flow. At the end of the 19th century millions of Jews from the economically undeveloped parts of eastern Europe fled poverty and persecution. State-sponsored anti-semitic pogroms killed thousands of Jews in Russia and Poland. Three million largely poor Jews migrated to the US and perhaps a quarter of a million to Britain. Ruling class figures responded with racism. Tory MP William Evans Gordon said in parliament in 1902, “Not a day passes but English families are ruthlessly turned out to make room for foreign invaders.” This racism paved the way for the Aliens Act of 1905, the first to limit immigration and which defined some groups of migrants as “undesirable”. It made it easier for racists to argue that Jewish people were a problem in British society - however, Jewish workers came together with other sections of the working class. In the 1930s fascist attempts to turn “native” Britons against Jews were defeated on the streets. The long economic boom after the Second World War saw capitalists respond to increasing demand for labour by again looking to workers from overseas.

This time they looked further afield in the British Empire—to the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent—for workers to plug the shortages in areas such as public transport and the hospitals. Black people soon found that the land of opportunity was also a land of racism. Some landlords and pubs in places like London and Birmingham put up signs saying, “No blacks, no Irish, no dogs”. But socialists and trade unionists organised reception committees to welcome the new workers and to help them settle in. However there was no automatic unity among the oppressed. Some established migrants, who had become assimilated into British society, came to view more recent immigrants as outsiders, and at times as a threat.

Some British people of Irish backgrounds could be among the most antagonistic towards Black people, seeing their own “whiteness” as making them superior to African-Caribbeans. Post-war Britain’s open door policy wasn’t to last as the boom ebbed and turn into crisis towards the end 1960s. The Tory politician Enoch Powell who had once implored Jamaicans and others to come to find work in the “mother country”, now scapegoated black and Asian immigrants for the mounting problems faced by a British economy in decline. This was even though many so-called immigrants were in fact born in the country. The 1971 Immigration Act brought a shuddering halt to “primary” immigration to Britain. Future migrants would be the dependants of those already here and not new workers. But the rising racism, especially in the mid 1970s, led to a powerful anti-racist response that reached a crescendo with the formation of the Anti Nazi League (ANL). The ANL drove the predecessors of the Nazi British National Party (BNP), the National Front, off our streets. Today asylum seekers, living in forced destitution, are blamed for “ruining areas” and bringing crime. Or in the case of “economic migrants”, like those from new European Union countries in eastern Europe like the Irish before them, lowering wages.

It can sometimes appear easier to kick the “foreign” worker next to you, especially during times of low class struggle, such as after the defeat of the Chartists in the 19th century. Equally however, during times of rising struggle, divisions are overcome time and time again. A key task of socialists today is to harness that class solidarity to fight both against the bosses and in defence of the rights of all working people, regardless of spurious notions of nation and race. Socialists must act as “tribunes of the oppressed”, as the Russian revolutionary Lenin put it. We must oppose all racism and bigotry. Today that means standing up against Islamophobia and racism, and breaking the back of the organisations these twin poisons are breeding, the Nazi BNP and the English Defence League.

BNP - Where did it all go wrong?

There are many people who will not be surprised (and probably relieved) that the BNP had a disastrous result in the recent General Election, where they failed to obtain a single MP and lost many Council seats.

With such a large number of people seriously concerned about immigration levels, and the main political parties offering very little to combat this problem, it was reasonable to expect that the BNP might pick up a few seats from protest voters. However, the electorate not only voted for a hung parliament, but rejected what they saw as the extreme views presented by the BNP.

To have a policy that encourages people of foreign origins (who were born in this country) to leave the UK is not only offensive, but impractical. Had such a plan been put into practice, it would have solved the unemployment problem, but also created millions of vacancies with no one to fill them!

The BNP could have suggested an immigration policy that insisted on only allowing new immigrants into the country that had required skills or sufficient funds to support themselves (without claiming government benefits). But they chose to make colour and race more of an issue. Some of their other policies (not related to immigration) may have been more reasonable, but certainly needed a lot more thought.

Perhaps one of the other reasons for their failure in attracting support was Nick Griffin, who wanted to run the party like a one man show, rather than a team (did anyone see other members of the party involved in their election bid?). Whilst many of the BNP supporters are not racists and were genuinely interested in doing what was best for Britain, there were still a number remaining with more extreme views.

The British public has shown their lack of confidence in the main parties, hence the hung parliament, and clearly would welcome a new party that reflects their political views more accurately. Obviously, this is not going to be the BNP, at least not in their current form, and we must hope that a new contender will appear in the near future that will offer realistic and acceptable alternatives.

There is talk that Nick Griffin will be asked to step down as leader of the BNP, but I doubt if this will make any difference to their future hopes of success. The BNP would have to dramatically change their image (and policies) to attract any serious interest, but it may be impossible to escape the reputation of their past to achieve this.

Nick Griffin has said that the BNP is now a "big small party", but if it can't win a seat at a time like this, it won't remain a party of any kind much longer.

News Blaze

Immigration is not fuel for BNP support – IPPR study

Social exclusion factors such as lack of qualifications and weak social cohesion far more important

Higher immigration to an area is not to blame for driving the voters into the arms of the BNP, according to a study exploring the roots of its support published today. In fact, the analysis by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) finds that nine out of the top 10 areas for BNP votes actually has a lower than average proportion of recent migrants.

Instead the study which looked at the roots of BNP support across 150 local authority areas suggests that social exclusion, such as lack of qualifications, weak social cohesion and low levels of voter turnout are far more important.

The IPPR researchers say findings show that the idea that politicians need to adopt ever-tougher immigration controls to undermine the BNP is misleading. Instead they need to work harder to build strong communities, strong education systems and rebuild trust in democratic politics so that "marginalised and isolated" people do not feel so disconnected.

The researchers say that the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, argues that in many working-class and lower middle-class areas immigration has brought in so many people that they "totally swamp the existing people …destroying their communities" and leading them to support his party.

"The findings suggest that areas which have higher levels of recent immigration are not more likely to vote for the BNP," says the study. "In fact the more immigration an area has experienced, the lower its support for the far right. It seems that direct contact with migrants dissuades people from supporting the BNP. For example, of the 10 local authorities where the BNP gained most support in the 2009 European elections, nine had lower than average immigration," says the study.

Barking and Dagenham, which has had significantly higher levels of recent migration, is the exception rather than the rule, say the researchers. The study found however that Stoke-on-Trent, Thurrock and Barnsley, which are ranked second, third and fourth in the list of the top 10 BNP share of the vote areas, all have lower than average immigration.

By contrast the three local areas with the lowest levels of social "resilience" in the country, Sandwell, Barking and Dagenham and Stoke-on-Trent, are all found in the top 10 for BNP votes.

The researchers' analysis suggests that the more "resilient" a community is the less likely it is to vote BNP. They measure social resilience of communities by their ability to withstand and adapt in response to shocks and include indicators such as unemployment, level of skills and qualifications, ability to influence local decisions, crime, health, business survival rate and voter turnout. As examples they name Richmond-upon-Thames and Wokingham as the two most resilient communities in the country.

The IPPR calculates that, based on the 2009 European election results, the top 10 most resilient communities in the UK cast fewer votes for the BNP put together than the average UK local authority.

The study acknowledges that immigration is a matter of concern to the British people and has had some negative effects on parts of the UK but say that where people have had significant direct contact with migrants, most are not concerned enough with immigration to vote for the BNP.

The researchers say the implication of their finding that isolation and dejection rather than immigration is driving voters into the hands of the BNP should give politicians and commentators the confidence to resist the idea that much tougher border controls must be introduced in order to regain public support.

"Mainstream politicians need to work harder to build strong communities and strong education systems, and to rebuild trust and confidence in democratic politics so marginalised and vulnerable people do not feel so disconnected," it concludes. "Doing so should allow them to serve the interests of these communities more effectively, and in the process, undercut support for the BNP."

Guardian

BNP has no practical policies

Letter to Bourne Local

Chris Robinson claims that the BNP has the support of nine per cent of voters, but that they "are neither racists or seeking the Third Reich".

However, the BNP has no sensible, practical policies: it has no experience in government and has no leaders with any brains capable of formulating policy. Wishful thinking is all very well, but it does not cut the mustard.

The judiciary spend all day in court listening to evidence, rather than reading reports in tabloid newspapers. A majority of UK people support membership of the EU (two thirds of a 60+ per cent turnout in 1975).

Immigration is a major feature of mankind: it has been going on for 400 years (Mayflower set sail in 1620). It is a worldwide issue which this country cannot fix on its own, hence a need for multi-national agencies.

The BNP thinks that being beastly to foreigners is all it takes, but people like me are glad of all the medals that our ethnically-diverse sports-people win.

EU labour law makes it possible for UK nationals to work all over Europe. The only law valid in this country is that which has been enacted by the UK Parliament.

The European court system is nothing to do with the EU: it is bound by treaties that all European nations have signed (including non-EU members). The BNP cannot organise and manage its own debts, let alone the nation's.

Many people see Nick Griffin and his band of goons as similar to the racist, anti-intellectual bully-boys who helped to form the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany.

Despite attempting to portray himself as a cuddly, user-friendly man of the people, Mr Griffin still has a big credibility problem. The BNP believes in divide-and-rule: most civilised folks prefer a life fully open for anyone to progress as far as their talent allows.

The only real lesson to be drawn from the recent election is that the major parties are now fully aware of the drawbacks of proportional representation: the fruitcakes can only get elected under PR.

RCM condemns BNP claims

The RCM has slammed suggestions made by the BNP that immigration is to blame for the pressures facing NHS maternity services.

The BNP had used an RCM survey to back up its claim that developing world immigration was destroying state infrastructure such as the NHS.

It said on its website: ‘According to a survey by the Royal College of Midwives issued in 2008, the quality of NHS care has plummeted because ministers failed to predict a massive rise in the birth rate among immigrant mothers.

‘Four in ten midwives questioned by the RCM said care was worse as a direct result of the rising birth rate – and it was putting mothers and babies at risk. Almost all – 91% – said the birth rate had shot up on their wards over the past few years, putting their units under intolerable pressure.’

The RCM’s general secretary Cathy Warwick said: ‘Let me spell it out simply and clearly. The RCM rejects absolutely the BNP’s assertion that immigration is a problem. It is not. This country has always been a country of immigration and the people who have come to this country over centuries have contributed to its success.’

She says that a great many midwives were born outside the UK and that without them the NHS would be ‘on its knees’. She points out that the rising fertility rate of women over 40 places extra demands compared to younger women, along with the increasing caesarean section rate and the welcome growth in the level of choice that women have over their care.

She adds: ‘The growing complexity and quality of maternity care are therefore the main reasons why pressures on the service are growing. Thankfully, all mainstream parties recognise this and there is cross-party support for more resources for maternity care to deliver the first-class service we all want. That is the approach that responsible political parties should be taking, not scapegoating foreign-born mothers for a failure to invest in more midwives and better facilities and choice for all women.

‘The RCM is an organisation that celebrates diversity and the richness it brings to our national life. We are committed absolutely to giving every woman, whatever her background and wherever she is from, care personalised and tailored to her.’

Royal College of Midwives

BNP are 'Nazi thugs' - Cameron

David Cameron has launched a scathing attack on the British National Party, calling them "Nazi thugs" and a "bunch of fascists".

The Tory leader admitted that many people will be angry at the main two parties over the MPs' expenses scandal, but urged them not to react by voting for the BNP.

Fielding questions from the public at an agricultural show, he said: "If you vote for the BNP you are voting for a bunch of fascists who want to divide this country over the issues of race and the colour of skin."

His response turned to anger when a member of the audience at the Bath and West Show in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, argued that the BNP "have a point when it comes to immigration". Cameron told him: "Go and have a look at what the BNP have said. Do not be naive about what these people stand for. They dress up in a suit and knock on your door in a nice way but they are still Nazi thugs".

He told the audience: "There is a proper national debate that we should have about immigration. I want us to limit the number of people coming to Britain, but do not believe that the way to beat the BNP is to half agree with them. These people are not pleasant people."

ITN

Has BNP rewritten its constitution?

Joan Walters, 'BNP the most open political party now', Points of view, December 4, wonders why I don't agree with "sensible BNP policies on limiting immigration and preserving our homeland for future generations of OUR people" (her capitals).

If the policies are now "sensible", do I take it that the party has re-written its constitution since the last General Election? Is it then no longer "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration" and to repatriating non-whites in order to restore "the overwhelmingly white make-up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948"? While some in the BNP accept that the latter is probably not achievable, it still appears to be an aspiration.

Joan Walters evidently has a very different conception to mine of who "OUR" people are. In my mind, these include not only several British friends who are of Asian, African or Afro- Caribbean descent, but also the very large number of public figures of a wide range of ethnicities who most of us consider to be part of the grain of our society.

If the BNP's aspirations were fully realised, we would be saying goodbye to people like Kelly Holmes, Lenny Henry, George Alagaia, Moira Stuart, Sir Trevor McDonald etc, etc, and to a whole host of sportsmen and women, musicians and actors who enrich our lives.

It is perfectly legitimate for any party to have a policy of limiting immigration. But to discriminate on the grounds of race — on immigration or any other policy — is an insult to the millions of ethnic minority Britons who contribute greatly to our economy and culture, and to the many who have fought in our armed forces. And also to the rest of us who are proud to be part of a tolerant and diverse society.

The party has invoked the Human Rights Act in trying to limit publication of its membership list. Leigh Barnes, national legal unit co-ordinator, has even declared the Act to be his "legacy" because his relatives fought in the Second World War.

This is, of course, the same Human Rights Act described on the BNP website a couple of weeks earlier as "one of the most pernicious pieces of legislation ever passed by the mother of Parliaments" that would be "repealed during the first term of a British Nationalist Government".

Does anyone else detect a strong whiff of hypocrisy here?

Francis Kirkham
Email to Express and Echo

Poor white boys are victims too

It was the tight suits that first alerted me. Or maybe the fact that they abruptly fell silent as we passed.

I had just given a speech – on the future of immigration, diversity and good relations in Britain – at the Birmingham hotel where 40 years earlier Enoch Powell had chosen to talk of the River Tiber “foaming with much blood”. As I made my way out of the hotel, one of my colleagues nudged my elbow and mouthed silently: “BNP.”

Hearing that we were in town, the British National party had arrived at the hotel, complete with an Enoch Powell lookalike, to deliver the same speech as Powell had made decades earlier.

In the flesh the BNP always feels like a pompous, self-regarding comedy turn – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a serious political force. Extremists gain leverage when the Establishment, or what the public believes is the Establishment, fails to talk about the issues that bother it.

My own speech had been squarely about the two questions that are at present top of the political charts – race and immigration. But I also wanted to deal with a wider question: at a time when our society is wealthier and better educated than ever before, who’s being left behind – and why?

To be sure, the problems of racial discrimination against minorities haven’t gone away – black and Asian young men are still up to seven times more likely to be arrested by the police; Pakistani men will earn more than a quarter of million pounds less than their white equivalents over a lifetime; and young Bangladeshi women are having to settle for jobs for which they are overqualified.

But we are also confronting for the first time in my lifetime an equality deficit not much talked about at Westminster. I am referring to the growing underclass of poor white boys – a forgotten group who also face a kind of institutional racism. I am deeply worried that they will grow into poor, disillusioned, alienated white men.

Why should the Equality and Human Rights Commission care? Many people, including our friends, think that it exists largely to shout the odds for anybody who is not male, white, straight and able-bodied. But that is wrong on every count.

We aren’t a minorities’ pressure group. We work for the whole of society, not just those at the margins – though those who suffer most disadvantage have a right to come first in the queue for our support. (And let’s remember that some of those who face systematic inequality aren’t small minorities – women are a majority, most of us will become parents and virtually all of us will get old.)

What we are is a body that attacks unfairness wherever it sees it. That’s why some of the wider trends that may be leading to greater inequality are right at the top of our agenda – economic change, the skills gap and, above all, migration.

Let me be unambiguous about this last issue. I am pro-immigration. The British people’s experience is that managed migration has brought great advantages to the country, not the tide of hate that Powell prophesied. But immigration has also raised important issues – not least that if we aren’t careful, the benefits from it will fall into the hands of employers, shareholders and middle-class professionals, while any burdens are left to be borne by the poorest in society.

So we have to ensure that the positive impact of migration is not offset by the costs – such as public services under increased pressure and an infrastructure that is struggling to cope. Let these issues languish in the tray marked “too difficult to talk about”, and resentment will grow. We also need to be clear that worrying about the consequences of immigration does not make you antiforeigner. And we must tackle a vital question: why are some groups in society not getting the chances they deserve? Last week two reports highlighted again the issue of underachievement. A report by the Bow Group, the Conservative think tank, showed that in the past 10 years almost 4m pupils left school without gaining the basic qualifications of five good GCSEs.

The cost to the economy of low educational attainment – and low social mobility – is £32 billion a year, or £1,300 to the average family, according to Reform, the independent think tank. Its report spoke of the “why bother?” generation – people who feel shut out by the system. If people feel shut out, they will try to find someone easy to blame: the outsider, the immigrant.

At the commission, we are doing research on educational underachievement and its link to ethnicity. Initial findings reveal that, for example, Bangladeshi and black African students at school outperform their white peers from comparable economic and social backgrounds. Statistics also show that black African, Bangladeshi and Pakistani students achieve higher GCSE scores than equivalent white students.

We know that it is not only white children from poorer background who are struggling. Black Caribbean children are also underachieving.

In the autumn, after our research is published, we will host a conference on white working-class boys. We want to listen to the pupils themselves, the teachers and the parents. And we need to demonstrate that fairness is about equal treatment for all – black, white or Asian.

It is only in tackling these issues that we take the toxicity out of debates on immigration, race and socio-economic underachievement. Fair treatment and equal chances are everyone’s right. No one should feel the work of the commission is “not about me”.

Trevor Phillips is chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission

Times Online

Braindead in cyberspace

Anybody who has ever posted to an internet forum will be aware that these are prime targets for manipulation by the Braindead Neanderthal Party (BNP). In some cases this can be subtle, in most cases it's as subtle as a sledgehammer. BNP members routinely flood forums with threads on race and immigration, then support themselves with a multiplicity of sock puppets.

Sock puppets are operated in a variety of ways. There is usually an attempt to pretend that more BNP members exist on a forum than is really the case. Some sock puppets are deployed as "ordinary members of the public" who invariably support the BNP line. Some are deployed to hunt with the hounds and run with the foxes. Some will appear to mildly question the BNP and its policies - the questions posed in an easily rebutted manner, as was the intention.

Many BNP posters adopt a tone of sweet reason, and are capable of dressing up their vile propaganda in some handsome clothes. But most of them will simply post with a link to a news story - so long as the story is crime-related and has a picture of a black or Asian face, they're satisfied. Then the sock puppets come in to do their duty.

The majority of BNP posters being notably unintelligent, they frequently revert to gutter language and have few inhibitions about making personal attacks on other posters. This frequently leads to them being banned - but they always come back.

What is remarkable to many is that abusive BNP posters fail to understand that for every person posting on a forum there are many more "lurkers" - people who simply like to browse forums but who do not feel inclined to contribute. Members of other political parties might have a care for what these unseen lurkers make of them, but the braindead BNP rarely do.

Illustrative of this is the curious case of the Oxfordshire and Brighton Argus forums.

For some years the Brighton Argus forum has been targetted by various BNP supporters, who, true to form, began thread after thread on their favourite subject and got on with the business of abusing their gainsayers. This led to a pattern of bannings and reincarnations that has continued to this day.

Somewhere along the line, the Argus BNP contingent discovered the Oxfordshire forum, where they began their familiar pattern. Though moderation of the Argus forum is at best feeble, at the Oxfordshire forum it is virtually non-existent. Very quickly the language and the abuse reached new depths, and what was by all accounts once a very active and lively forum began a steady decline as regulars deserted, tired at the endless immigration threads and the certainty that questioning or opposing the BNP supporters would bring a shower of foul-mouthed abuse raining down upon them.

Today the Oxfordshire forum is a sterile, inert place, populated only by the braindead BNP, the odd die hard-regular, and an anti-BNP campaigner.

Back at the Argus, they have adopted a new tactic. This involves blocking threads started by people they detest, or where the balance of posting has gone against them (as it always does), or where they have been shown to be liars, or - uniquely, where they have started a thread so that they can block it themselves and blame "the lefties".

Thread blocking apparently works by posting huge amounts of data into a reply box. The effect is to cause something akin to server time-outs. The posts can only be viewed after several minutes of rendering (if at all), cannot be added to, and also have the effect of making the site run slowly.

For some time these idiots have run riot, blocking entire pages of threads. They schizophrenically admit to thread blocking one day (in the name of "free speech", as one of them claimed), and the next blame "the lefties". And they sit in their empty haven of the Oxfordshire forum to crow to one another about how well they have done.

Of course, it has never yet occurred to them that they are doing the party they support the biggest disservice possible - but I don't call them braindead for nothing!

Things have lately become so serious on the Argus forum that one of their own, posting on the Nazi Stormfront site, took them to task:

'Well you and your buddies have screwed up big time. Now nobody can post to either forum and there are likely to be legal consequences and bad publicity that are going to reflect badly on all Nationalists. Thank you. Thank you very much.... You swamped the forum with race-based posts that had nothing to say but just contained links to news stories. It was all you did, and not surprisingly other posters got fed up with it. You wouldn't leave threads that had nothing to do with race alone and other posters got fed up with that too. When they complained to you, you and your cronies immediately stooped to personal abuse. You even abused people who had a BNP mindset... You also did the same thing on the Oxford forums. You made that forum a joke and even when one of our own people came on to fire a warning shot across your bows you ignored him. You caused disruption every day on the Argus forum and used the Oxford forum to boast about it. Very clever... You went there and behaved like trolls so you got treated like trolls.'

Those are excerpts from the first of a series of Stormfront posts. The response of the Braindeads was predictable - they ignored what any rational person would have seen to be sound advice. Unable to believe that one of their own could seriously question their disruption of the two forums they concluded that the Stormfront poster must be an imposter!

BNP antics on two obscure internet forums might not seem to carry much importance (and on these two forums at least, the BNPs are their own worst enemies), but multiply that by several hundred active forums and you have thousands and thousands of people daily exposed to their message - no matter how badly or unintelligently it is posed.

Several things have become very clear to me, after browsing several dozen BNP-infested forums. That is their ability to brazenly lie, to avoid difficult questions (usually by coming back with a question), to query their opponents' bona fides, to attribute to their opponents things they have never said or done, to take statistics and quotes and to mangle them until they fit in with the BNP purpose, and to deflect almost any topic, no matter how innocent, into anti-immigrant propaganda.

There is also a strange propensity for dredging up posts by opponents that were made years before - as if these creepy creatures were keeping databases of who said what and when. Now why would they want to do that?

The BNP encourage and pursue cyber-activism with a vengeance. They realise, even if their opponents do not, that the Internet is an increasingly vital tool in the war of ideas and propaganda, and that the internet forum is one of the strategic fronts in that war. They have taken the initiative, meeting little real opposition away from the larger forums - and though, thanks to their own incompetence and stupidity, they frequently do themselves more harm than good, we should remember that often a post containing nothing more than a link to a crime story with ethnic minority involvement is all that is needed for them to get their racist message across.

Though it isn't my wish to either deny or denigrate the anti-racist stalwarts who do oppose the BNP on many forums, I think we can do so much more. They have many small local newspaper forums to themselves - forums which do have quite a wide local readership. We should be on these forums, not only challenging their views, but exposing their organisation for what it really is.

And the BNP make it so easy!

A thread on crime? Respond by posting of criminality among the BNP membership themselves - there are more than enough links to such stories. Or remind them of the missing money promised to Sharon Ebanks, collected from among their own ranks. Why do none of them ever question what happened to it?

Fastest growing party? Remind them that in 2005 (a great year for racism) the BNP had a net gain of less than 150 members, according to their own accounts as submitted to the Electoral Commission.

Corrupt local government? BNP supporter "EN Ronn" composed an article named 'Unsettling Accounts', reposted on Stormfront several times. Make good use of it! In fact, take a good look at Stormfront, including the back threads - there is so much to use concerning the corrupt internal workings of the BNP that you can counter them on almost anything and throw them completely off balance. And, of course, keep checking the regular anti-racist websites that contain tasty little tit-bits you can store away for future use.

Nick Griffin the best thing since sliced bread? Apart from anti-Griffin posting on Stormfront and similar sites, the best demolition of his reputation to date was penned by the man he deposed, the late John Tyndall. His magazine Spearhead may thankfully be defunct, but its website still exists, and contains many articles full of useful information and quotes. If it's there, you may as well use it.

We're Nationalists? Are they? Ask the majority of them to explain their "nationalist philosophy" and watch them squirm. On two forums they were asked this, and on both avoided giving any answer - in fact their response was to demand that we explain it (they always come back with a question when they have no answers, remember?). Eventually there was some desultory quoting from Wikipedia, and even the OED definition, but nothing in their own words. Which allowed us to show them up as the bone-headed bigots they really are, obsessed with one issue alone, and utterly clueless about the ideology they profess to follow.

We're patriots? So much to choose from to shoot that one down in flames - Mark Collett's "Churchill was a ****ing ***t" tirade is always good.

Undermining the BNP with facts about their own party's doings seems to me the best course of action in the current climate. They cannot dispute provable facts, and their general response when presented with them is a sort of embarrassed prevarication, and sometimes an abusive retort. It doesn't matter which - you have succeeded in undermining their credibility, and can be seen to have done so.

You may not win many converts to the cause of anti-racism but you will cause people to think more deeply about the organisation they may have been tempted to support or vote for. And mostly you can do it simply by posting the facts, the unavoidable, incontrovertible facts!

Article supplied by DG

Smart suits can't hide BNP's extremist views

Letter to Lincolnshire Echo

The BNP is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Nowadays its members dress up in smart suits and try to make their views sound respectable. But they still hold the same extremist and bigoted views they have always held, and their tactics remain the same.

The BNP seeks to exploit the fears people have about immigration and spread myths and misinformation to create resentment towards 'outsiders'.

I have been in politics in Lincoln for nearly 30 years. I believe Lincoln people are sensible and fair-minded and do not like extremism. Lincoln has a proud record, going back many years, of showing hospitality to people from other countries and has shown the tolerance and understanding which are the foundations for good community cohesion.

The BNP has shallow slogans and little else. It has no roots in our local communities, little appreciation of the needs and aspirations of our communities and little idea about the solutions for improving them.

In the few places in the country where the BNP has won seats in local elections, its candidates have quickly lost interest, have been disqualified or have let their electors down in one way or another.

There is no place for the BNP in Lincoln and I hope the electorate in May will make that very clear.

Councillor Ric Metcalfe Leader Lincoln City Council

This is Lincolnshire