Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make EU members, especially if their former imperial links with third world countries have already resulted in their having previously undergone large-scale immigration from them.
Why that should be so has been very well explained by Carl Mortished in a ‘European Briefing’ article that appeared in Wednesday’s Times under the title ‘A black and white view of immigrants from Eastern Europe’.
Mortished points out that, because so many immigrants from the new accession East European member states are willing and now able to accept very low-paid jobs here, whatever feeble formal attempts might be made to prevent them, their coming here to work is likely to exacerbate the already very high unemployment rates among some of the country’s black and Asian and minorities, especially their young men.
This particular mix of ethnicities is a potentially explosive one in a quite literal sense. The situation has not been helped by the recent comment made by Britain’s race relations chief Trevor Phillips quoted in today’s Times. He said that East European immigrants are coming to Britain “with [unacceptable] attitudes towards black people which date back to the 1950s”.
That remark seems to me on a par with, and about as helpful to, harmonious race relations here as it would be for any comparable public figure to claim that adherents of some of Britain's more recently settled faith groups have come here with unacceptable attitudes towards those not of similar faith that date back to the seventh century.
Phillips made some sensible critical remarks last year about multiculturalism,. Since his recent appointment as head of the country’s new quango for promoting equality and human rights, his more recent public pronouncements, such as this one and his recently voiced comments about the potentially inflammatory consequences of ministerial criticism of veil-wearing, suggest he no longer thinks he needs to court centre-ground and moderate mainstream public opinion and can now pursue the CRE’s long-stranding anti-white agenda.