Can you imagine a UK referendum with the following
question?
Do you support the
admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa,
in accordance with the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?
Even to suggest that the British people might have
been asked their opinion on migration in any of the years since 1945 is to risk
being called a racist. Yet it is entirely obvious that if such a question had
been asked at any time and with any variant a large majority would have said
No.
The UK where such a question would never be asked is called a full democracy by the Democracy Index.
Poland which is classed as a flawed democracy is in
fact asking the question that dare not speak its name in Britain. Perhaps this
is the flaw in Poland’s democracy? The Polish Government thinks that it ought
to ask its people about the demographic make up of Poland now and in the future
and it also thinks that it can do something about it.
Sadiq Khan recently is said to have rejected a picture of a young white family as not representing real Londoners. But white people still make up 53.8% of London’s population. It must be possible that some families are still all white. But look at the direction of travel.
If you were a Londoner born in 1961 97.7% of your fellow Londoners would be white. In 1971
the figure would be 92.6%. Even in 1991 the figure was 79.80%. But by the time
the person born in 1961 reaches retirement he is already not a real Londoner. In
fact, only 36.8% of Londoners are white British.
London is different from other parts of the UK, but England has reached the stage where only 81% are white and 73.5% white British so in about twenty years white English people will no doubt be told be told that they are not representative of England and not really English at all.
The other parts of the UK are further behind the
trend, which is one reason why they still have nationalist movements. But these
will be killed off by demographics unless they hurry. There will be not much
point campaigning for Scottish independence if a typical Scottish family today
ceases to be representative of Scotland.
The demographics of Poland are quite different. According to the latest census 97.6% are Poles.
It is immediately obvious too that in Poland ethnicity is treated differently to the UK. Polish is treated as an ethnicity, while British or English or Scottish is not. To suggest that a black person is not British or English would be considered racist in the UK. This is one of the reasons why Poland has so few people who would be described as ethnic minorities in Britain. Minorities in the Polish census are described as Silesian and Kashubian, German or Ukrainian. The number of people from other races in Poland is very small indeed considerably less than the 20,000 who lived in the UK in 1945.
The fundamental difference between Poland and the UK
is that successive British Governments have deliberately allowed mass migration
both from within Europe and from outside. There is a game played whereby
politicians pretend that they want to stop migration and part of this involves
appearing to be strict and stern about it. But it is obvious now that the
direction of travel for the UK is quite deliberate.
There may be good reasons for this. It may be
economically beneficial to a have multicultural, multiracial, multilinguistic
UK. It may be necessary due to the low birthrate in Britain and to pay for our
pensions, the welfare state and the NHS.
On the other hand, Poland is catching up with the UK
economically and liable to surpass it soon. I would prefer to be treated in a
Polish hospital than a British one. The welfare state is not as generous in
Poland, but this is one of the reasons it is overtaking us economically.
Poland is not as attractive to migrants as the UK
partly because it is not as generous with benefits and partly because people
speak a language made up of strange combinations of consonants. It is easier to
learn to pronounce and spell “man” than its’s Polish equivalent “mezczyzna” and
that is one of the easier Polish words.
There is divided opinion in Poland about migration
just like in any other country. Some people would prefer Poland to be more
liberal, less Catholic and more like the UK or France. There has been
incredible generosity towards Ukrainian refugees despite there being historical
conflicts between Ukrainians and Poles as recently as 1943-1945. But these have
been forgiven and forgotten. Poland has probably taken in more refugees in
recent years than any other EU country.
But there is a crucial difference. When Belarus was
flying in people from the Middle East in order to send them over the Polish
border, the Polish army built a fence and stopped them.
Now when the EU demands that Poland takes a quota of
refugees (around 30,000) mainly from Africa and the Middle East the Polish Government asks
voters in a referendum whether they want this. There will not be much the EU
can do if Polish voters say No. It would not be very democratic to force Poland
in those circumstances and how would the EU force it anyway?
The difference is that when the Polish Government wants
to stop migration it succeeds. The UK Government doesn’t even try.
The UK left the EU in order to gain control of our
borders, but still fails to control them. Poland remains in the EU and has more
control over who comes to Poland than we do. There is a lesson here. We could
have stayed in the EU if our Government and our judges had been willing to
stand up to it. But the British Government and the British establishment never
wanted to control our borders. They were playing with us when we were offered a
referendum on Brexit. It didn’t matter whether we voted to leave or remain.
Is Poland racist to specifically wish to exclude
illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East? Certainly, if the UK Government
did this it would be accused of racism.
But racism doesn’t exist in Poland. No one is excluded
from a job because he is black. There are almost no racially motivated hate
crimes in Poland. Few if any black or Asian people are called names in the street.
It’s like the UK was before the Second World War. People might have given their
black dogs dubious names and they might have held less than woke views about
other races, but there was no one to be racist to. No one was excluded, because
there was no one to exclude. No one was a victim of racism, because almost no
one was from a different race. There was no need to have a Commission for
Racial Equality because everyone was of the same race.
Would it have been racist if the British Government in 1945 had decided to keep the UK’s demographic make up the same as it had always been? No. We had a perfect right to limit migration in any way we chose. So, it cannot be racist for Poland to wish to do the same. It is the right of every country to decide who lives there. But some countries defend their borders and their people and others do not. Some not only try to stop mass migration. They succeed.
Do you want a picture sixty years from now of a white family which says "Does't represent real Varsovians?