Postcard from Britain: Immigration Is Hot Issue as Elections Approach

Well, better late than never, I guess.

At the New York Times, "As Elections Approach, a Desire To Roll Up the Welcome Mat":

LONDON — John O’Keefe, a neuroscientist at University College in London, brought pride to Britain last week when he was awarded a Nobel Prize for his discovery, in rats, of the brain’s “GPS” system. But Dr. O’Keefe, American-born, had some unwelcome criticism for his adopted country.

Britain’s efforts to restrict immigration have become “a very, very large obstacle” to hiring the best scientists, he said. “We should be thinking hard about making Britain a more welcoming place.”

That is precisely the opposite of the current mood in Britain, seven months before an election, where immigration, the economy and the health service are the hottest issues.

Before the elections in 2010, David Cameron, now prime minister, had vowed to reduce net migration to less than 100,000 a year by 2015, including migrants from within the European Union, which has a fundamental principle that all citizens may live and work in any member country. Home Secretary Theresa May wants to reduce the figure to tens of thousands.

But there is a long and awkward way to go. While the government has set targets, it has little control over the variables. In the year ended March 2014, the government reports, 265,000 non-European Union citizens moved to Britain, ending a steady decline since the recent peak of 334,000 in 2011. Net immigration to Britain from the European Union rose to 130,000 in the year through March, up from 75,000 two years ago.

Total net immigration in the year through March was 243,000. That is back up to the 10-year average of nearly a quarter of a million people, said Andrew Green, chairman of Migration Watch U.K., which advocates restrictions. “If allowed to continue,” he said, the population will increase by 12 million — two more Scotlands — in 20 years. “That’s huge,” he said, arguing that three-quarters of British voters “want to see it reduced.”

So immigration is a fertile topic for the right and for the nationalist U.K. Independence Party, which is squeezing Mr. Cameron, and it is so sensitive with voters that even the opposition Labour Party has little to say about it.

Thursday’s two by-elections were a warning shot for both parties. UKIP won the seat in Clacton-on-Sea by a large margin, as expected, after the legislator Douglas Carswell defected from the Tories to join Nigel Farage and UKIP. That was historic, because Mr. Carswell became UKIP’s first elected member of Parliament. But what really shook the ground was the by-election in Heywood and Middleton, near Manchester, when the UKIP candidate came within 617 votes of defeating the heavily favored Labour candidate in the Labour Party’s heartland.

By-elections are famous for protest votes that don’t usually carry over to the general election. But UKIP, an essentially English nationalist party, is making headway against both main parties on the issues of sharply reducing immigration and quitting the European Union... 

More at that top link.

Funny, but sometimes the journalistic standard of promoting balance is completely idiotic. Clearly, British elites --- uniformly pro-immigration, apparently --- just don't get it. Britain is Balkanized, crime-ridden, and rotting at the core from the progressive depravity of political correctness. The rank-and-file masses of traditional Britain have woken up to the poxy elite destruction of their once great nation. Ostensibly "right-wing" parties are making record gains, not just in Britain. The left will denounce these trends as "xenophobia" and "racism," but the fact is that basic decency and common sense are making a comeback. Such old-fashioned values scare the crap out of vile progressives. The traditional push-back is destroying the very platform of social destruction that is the essence of radical progressivism.