From Britain, an extraordinary story of social re-engineering

As many of you would know, “Immigration” is currently a hot issue in Europe – including of course the UK.  The issue was recently covred in Stratfor, the widely read commentary on strategic affairs and TIME Magazine had a cover story on this a few days back.

But that is not the point of this post. About 3 weeks ago, I came across an article in The Daily Mail, that suggested an extraordinary attempt at social re-engineering by Labour party in UK. In other words, a cynical effort at exploiting immigration to strengthen its hold on power. In plain English, a classic politics of the “vote-bank”. Shocked? So was I. Read on.

From Using immigration to turn Britain into a nation of Labour voters is so shameful I can hardly believe it by Stephen Glover (emphasis mine):

What will future historians consider to be New Labour’s greatest legacy?…

…My guess, bordering on conviction, is that the achievement for which the Government of 1997 to 2010 will be remembered above all is the unprecedentedly fast rate of immigration into this country.

During this period, some three million immigrants were added to the British population.

…There were doubtless several reasons, most of which we are familiar with. One major cause was a booming economy which created hundreds of thousands of low-paid jobs that indigenous workers were unable or reluctant to fill.

…But some of us have long suspected that there was a deeper cause which had more to do with New Labour’s unspoken philosophy than economic forces. And yet, the suggestion that it had deliberately tried to re-engineer Britain for its own political advantage was almost too outrageous to entertain.

Could a political party in a democracy really do that?

A previously unseen official document from 2000 suggests it could.

…The phrase ‘social objectives’ appears eight times in the document’s executive summary of a few hundred words…Anyone who reads the uncensored document…can hardly be in any doubt as to the importance of these ‘social objectives’. It is a reasonable inference that these included transforming the social make-up of Britain in a way that would be favourable to New Labour.

Migrants, and to a slightly lesser extent their descendants, are much more likely to vote Labour than for any other party. It seems that one shameful motivation behind New Labour’s open-door immigration policy was to alter the social composition of this country so as to improve the chances of the party being reelected.

This confirms what Chris Mullin, the former Labour minister, wrote in his diaries. In January 2004, he lamented the failure of the Government to tackle immigration abuses such as ‘the rackets that surround arranged marriages’ before noting that ‘at least 20 Labour seats depend on Asian votes’.

Even as I write these words I can scarcely believe them. That a political party should have put its narrow, selfish interests above those of the country on so enormously important a matter is deeply shocking. To me it is a thousand times more shocking than all the MPs’ expenses fiddles about which we have learned recently.

…Britain does not belong to Labour, and it is to the party’s eternal shame that it has behaved as though it did.

Box Image: Courtesy, The Daily Mail

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If reading this reminded you of certain parts of India where a similar transformation (and possible re-engineering) is taking place, you are not wide off the mark.

Sanjeev Sabhlok (Fellow FTI member and IAS officer from the Assam & Meghalaya cadre) who was recently in Assam told me last month in Mumbai that the subject of influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh hardly raises an eyebrow in Assam today.  It is almost as if it was an accepted fact – a given.

Of course it suits the powers that be to keep it that way.

Who cares about long-term implications? As Keynes famously wrote, “In the long run we are all dead“.

To realise how these dynamics are affecting the long-term stability of India (and dramatically altering the ground realities in Assam and West Bengal) pl. have a look at this post: “India Breaking” – Read this and Weep

And if you are not feeling too pessimistic already, more numbers and data re. illegal immigration from Bangladesh is here: Some startling stats from the eastern front. And finally, a graphic courtesy The Telegraph from Kolkata – which proves why a picture is worth a thousand words (pl. click to enlarge):

Comments and thoughts welcome (for those who may be new here, my comments policy).