Isn't this all kind of silly? The central sentiment of the riots is anti mass migration, and according to YouGov, 66% of Brits believe that the current rate of immigration is too high. This represents an all time peak in support of this position. I agree that rioting is a bad look but the British people stand in firm opposition to mass migration.
I mentioned that "polling suggests most Britons do want immigration reduced". My point was that they clearly don't prioritise the issue, or else more would have voted for Reform in the recent election. I also noted this in a footnote: "The polling data are more complicated than many conservatives realise. When you ask about specific categories of immigration (such as “students” or “family migration”), most people want them to increase or stay the same."
...and in the case of Brexit they were voting in large part to demonstrate their weariness of E European migration. What they got for it was a million non-European foreigners a year.
I remain bullish on the issue. The fact that a single issue party was able to garner 15% of the total voteshare is actually quite remarkable, and if the average person learned just how compromised our "student" and "family migration" systems are, they would certainly oppose them.
I agree with Noah. My sister agrees with me that immigration is too high yet she wouldn't dream of voting for Reform. She clearly dislikes immigration but not enough to vote for the only party with any intention of reducing it. She therefore can't be that bothered.
It is far, far safer to participate in a regime-approved protest than it is to participate in a regime-opposing protest. Likely, participation is suppressed as a consequence.
Moreover, citing the percentage of voters who voted for certain parties ignores the historically low turnout among the disillusioned.
The first point is interesting, and I'd have to think more about it. However, the simple fact restrictionists (such as myself) have to contend with is that Reform ran on a clear anti-immigration platform, with a leader who had some credibility on the issue, and only got 14% of the vote. If disillusioned non-voters cared enough about immigration, they surely would have cast a protest vote for Reform.
This article is more or less correct as far as it goes. But there is a very big But here.... concerning what the British public has "had enough of". There is evidence that a large part of the electorate has 'had enough' of the delusion that we are still a functioning pluralist electoral democracy - as in: vote Left get Left; vote Right get Right.
I suspect that these riots will be our version of 6 January: pointless and damaging to our cause. What doesn't help is that it's not clear what the rioters are rioting about. The murder of three little white girls by the son of Rwandan refugees? Well everyone is against that. Mass immigration in general? Far from everyone is against that. And looking at the rioters my immediate thought was, 'Oh, it's those people'. I used to see them whenever I went to football matches in the 1970's and still today I try to avoid them whenever I venture into our horrible town centre.
But on the other hand being nice, like Eric Kaufman and Matthew Goodwin, just doesn't seem to be having much effect. Maybe there is no way, neither civil nor incivil, of stopping this madness.
You mean the ones who had their daughters & sisters groomed, trafficked, and sexually abused, with zero protection (or even recognition) from the police and authorities? Those authorities stood aside and also said "Oh, it's those people", and then provided no protection, as it would have been "politically incorrect".
Enoch Powell was a popular politician. He could see this coming in the 1950s. He was basically turned into a national pariah for his completely correct and provable positions in today’s “Britain”. The chilling effect on him at the time and with which has permeated through the decades has completely smashed the chances of anyone taking on his positions again openly. I remember on BBC question time when a female black American poet said to Nick Griffin of the BNP “what indigenous people?” referring to people like me, white English not actually being indigenous to anything. The retarded British public in the crowd sniggered and cheered for the woman who doesn’t even live in the country making dishonest snipes about an entire group of people who gave her the platform to spew overt racism to the host country. The problem is all the based people like myself who have the means have already seen the wood for the trees and left and moved abroad. That’s what all the pioneering Brits did to make America. They say the country was shit and left. All that’s left in the country is soft meek and mild retards. Two world wars killed off the gene pool of actual men and the left overs are soft mid wits. The general public of the UK would rather appear tolerant to a fault than be cussed of anything. You could see it when anyone still got on the same train carriage as a Muslim wearing a giant back pack after 7/7. They are lambs to the slaughter. If you’re based then leave and let the retards who want more of the same get their heads chopped off and have their children raped. They at this point would still find a way of blaming whitey.
Bollocks. I've heard this "all the good men died" argument and it's just self-aggrandising cope from Yanks who want to think it won't happen to them. The US is far worse off in terms of demographics, we've had a week of race-riots as well, set your own house in order
The biggest lie of liberalism is ‘tolerance:’ There will be massive crackdowns on free speech, especially on social media platforms, and likely new ‘antiracist’ legislation sponsored by Labour in Parliament.
I think you over-estimate support for mass immigration significantly. Consider that Reform got that 16% of the vote despite being deliberately sabotaged by the establishment in several ways:
1. The election was called suddenly, with no warning even to the Conservatives and with an extremely short deadline. There's some evidence Sunak did this specifically to destabilize Reform, as they thought Farage wouldn't be able to return and organize candidates in the tiny amount of time available. This was somewhat correct. In a normal election called with plenty of warning Reform would have been able to organize much better, to mount a real campaign and so on.
2. Part of the reason Reform wasn't able to organize earlier is that the Conservatives kept promising to reduce immigration once Brexit was complete. Farage, like most Brits of his age, did have residual trust in the system and did not expect the Conservatives to choose self-destruction over reducing immigration. So Reform didn't even really get energized again until very recently.
3. The media has been brainwashing Britain for decades on the topic of immigration and wokeness in general. A lot of people think Farage is racist; ask them what specific event makes them think that and they can't give you one. You get nonsensical answers like "everyone knows that" or Brexit. This makes asking what people _want_ yield confusing answers, like when people say they're against immigration but then agree they like specific kinds of immigration. Do the people answering polls realize that "family immigration" really means "one guy from Afghanistan arrives and then brings in his extended family of 20-30 people"? Or do they imagine nice nuclear families like their own, moving as a unit? How many even realize the extent to which family reunification gets abused in this way if their media aren't telling them?
Creating that impression has required systematically attacking Reform at every level in ways that are completely illegitimate. Just before the election Channel 4 broadcast an entirely fake news report in which an actor pretended to be a racist Reform activist in front of "secret" cameras. People immediately discovered that the guy was acting, but both C4 and Ofcom blew it off and refused to investigate. The average Brit isn't able to imagine the extent to which mass immigrationists will break every rule in the book, violate every norm, deceive them in every possible way. What can really be said about anyone's preferences in a world where the news they consume is literally fake?
4. Anyone stepping up to take part in Reform is going to come under incredible personal attack. Farage himself was nearly exiled from the UK by being debanked. Literally NO bank in the UK was willing to give him an account, and then they lied about the reasons, which of course turned out to be rampant Remainer extremism. The Conservatives failed to pass legislation to prevent this, so now anyone who supports Reform (or even the Conservatives for that matter) faces the same fate. And that's on top of all the usual cancellation that the left dish out. Go on TV and promote Reform, you'll get a visit from the police.
Asking the public what they think in this environment is like going into China and polling them to ask how many would like democracy. If you do that you'll discover that everyone likes democracy! 91% of Chinese polled in 2022 said democracy is important to them. The teeny tiny problem is that 80% said China already is a democracy.
I’ve read recently that the main reason the government has been so unresponsive to concerns over immigration is that, while low skilled immigrants are a net drain on the commonweal, they still inevitably increase GDP, which the government can use yo argue that their economic policies are working on aggregate.
I didn't have to hold my breath long before those eagle-eyed in calling out the lame excuses for BLM rioting over racism would have the exact opposite take with rioting over immigration. Special pleading for one's own moral panic.
Labour ran on a secure borders platform basically feigning as a right wing party to get elected. They promised employers would have to train locals before they could employ from abroad, they promised a crackdown on illegal migration.
The fall of the conservatives showed the feeling of disaffection as people got tired of them not actually doing what they promised about migration. Their vote split because of this, not some left wing open borders swing.
Immigration is in the top few issues on people priorities.
The voting alone doesn't really show you the picture.
"Likewise, Enzo Brox and Tommy Krieger examined the impact of the 2014–15 Dresden protests, and found they were associated with a sharp decline in the number of Germans moving to that region – presumably because they made it less attractive as a place to live."
'presumably because they made it less attractive as a place to live'--but this really says nothing.
Couldn't the explanation have been, for the findings of this and the study you mention next, that the rioting was taken as indicative of communal tensions previously unknown to the prospective relocators?
Your reasoning in this piece might be correct; it might not. Let us see how it turns out. This might be the beginning (it's a week's worth of discontent in a country where nothing has happened for many years) of something much larger and/or more polished and more directed.
It's not necessary that a majority be mobilised. Protests in Ireland started in much the same way, and they appear to have legs despite not involving anything like the majority.
That's a valid concern regarding Brox and Krieger's study. In the paper, they do give a couple of additional arguments in support of their interpretation. My understanding is that the event that really galvanised the Dresden protests was the Charlie Hebdo massacre, which obviously took place in another country. And I believe Dresden has a lower percentage of people with a migrant background than other major German cities. (Most people with a migrant background live in West Germany.)
But I think some of this article misses the point that an awful lot of people don't want to go deep into issues. It's uncomfortable for them, so it's far easier to believe media narrative, especially if your peers are. We don't like to be seen to stick our heads out above others, incase we are called a name (lots of cases of that at the moment) we don't like disagreeing with others especially in public discussions where we may be put down or corrected by articulate people who don't listen, even if our overall intuition may be along the right lines, it's easier to tow the line. And saying we can do a different vote in the booths doesn't allow for the uneasy conversation afterwards, so often we live and vote in our bubble without real, deep questioning. COVID vaccines was a good example of feeling pressured to do something by social peers/ norms and media etc etc. with out allowing people to discuss on a more personal, intuitive level and not being put down.There is a very real issue, discussed by the likes of Douglas Murray, about Islamic faith and immigration. Human psychology and conflicting religious faiths. Many also don't have the time or headspace to study the complex nature of these issues so put faith in media and state who tell us they are saying the truth. But we now have other platforms that can give us other sides to the story that often differ to what the media would like us to believe.
Calling people names shuts down decent disscutions.
- we've not had race riots for a generation or more. These are very significant as they a) were started by whites and b) have already spread across the length and breadth of England. They have also gone on for over a week
- the cost of race-rioting and crime is massive for native Brits. Not so for foreigners
- we've now seen very starkly that the Police treat foreigners differently. 'Community liaison', 'community leaders' etc etc. This is hard to hide
- a lot of normies have now watched footage of what are clearly Muslim mobs taking over streets and districts of cities. They've also seen the Press prevaricate and euphemism when the truth is clear for any eye to see
- the mental and practical shift towards ethnic politics is there and is now permanent until one side wins. This is not trivial either
1) Though weakening considerably, the established parties (Labour, Conservative and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems) have a lot of residual loyalty, based on the belief that, under FPTP, they’re still the only plausible parties of government. Reform were not perceived as potential winners in many seats. This may have made right wing voters reticent about voting for them.
2) A month ago, Labour actually presented itself as to the right of the Conservatives on immigration. It talked pretty tough on it.
3) The Lib Dems are best understood as a non-political protest party - as a more respectable “none of the above” choice than Count Binface. Their leader, Ed Davie, ran the most non-political campaign in UK history, spending all his time merely going to theme parks. Even if the Lib Dems think of themselves as a less left wing version of Labour, that’s not how most voters see them. Even though they’re the UK’s most Euro-Federalist Party, before 2016 the Lib Dems regularly got elected in the South West as an outlet for anti EEC/EU anger, especially towards the CFP.
4) In the election there was a strong “Zero Seats” campaign, started by Neema Parvini, the Academic Agent. This was a right wing campaign, which argued that the most important thing was to destroy the Conservative Party as a fake right wing “containment” party, even if the consequence was a Labour victory. As the right wing Substack author Morgoth’s Review put it, the campaign’s message to the Conservatives was, “I choose to be ruled by my enemies rather than by you!”.
Isn't this all kind of silly? The central sentiment of the riots is anti mass migration, and according to YouGov, 66% of Brits believe that the current rate of immigration is too high. This represents an all time peak in support of this position. I agree that rioting is a bad look but the British people stand in firm opposition to mass migration.
I mentioned that "polling suggests most Britons do want immigration reduced". My point was that they clearly don't prioritise the issue, or else more would have voted for Reform in the recent election. I also noted this in a footnote: "The polling data are more complicated than many conservatives realise. When you ask about specific categories of immigration (such as “students” or “family migration”), most people want them to increase or stay the same."
Brexit was a clear vote against mass immigration. The Government did not listen to the wishes of the working class then either.
...and in the case of Brexit they were voting in large part to demonstrate their weariness of E European migration. What they got for it was a million non-European foreigners a year.
I remain bullish on the issue. The fact that a single issue party was able to garner 15% of the total voteshare is actually quite remarkable, and if the average person learned just how compromised our "student" and "family migration" systems are, they would certainly oppose them.
I agree with Noah. My sister agrees with me that immigration is too high yet she wouldn't dream of voting for Reform. She clearly dislikes immigration but not enough to vote for the only party with any intention of reducing it. She therefore can't be that bothered.
The Brits are as stupid as the Americans, French, and Germans.
Virtually no-one voted in the last election. How can that be a reliable test of a proposition?
The trouble with the argument that the percentage who are fed up is low is made by eugyppius here:
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/england-burning
It is far, far safer to participate in a regime-approved protest than it is to participate in a regime-opposing protest. Likely, participation is suppressed as a consequence.
Moreover, citing the percentage of voters who voted for certain parties ignores the historically low turnout among the disillusioned.
The first point is interesting, and I'd have to think more about it. However, the simple fact restrictionists (such as myself) have to contend with is that Reform ran on a clear anti-immigration platform, with a leader who had some credibility on the issue, and only got 14% of the vote. If disillusioned non-voters cared enough about immigration, they surely would have cast a protest vote for Reform.
"If disillusioned non-voters cared enough about immigration, they surely would have cast a protest vote for Reform."
The elections in Britain are probably as controlled and useless as in the United States.
This article is more or less correct as far as it goes. But there is a very big But here.... concerning what the British public has "had enough of". There is evidence that a large part of the electorate has 'had enough' of the delusion that we are still a functioning pluralist electoral democracy - as in: vote Left get Left; vote Right get Right.
As usual, a very good and measured piece.
I suspect that these riots will be our version of 6 January: pointless and damaging to our cause. What doesn't help is that it's not clear what the rioters are rioting about. The murder of three little white girls by the son of Rwandan refugees? Well everyone is against that. Mass immigration in general? Far from everyone is against that. And looking at the rioters my immediate thought was, 'Oh, it's those people'. I used to see them whenever I went to football matches in the 1970's and still today I try to avoid them whenever I venture into our horrible town centre.
But on the other hand being nice, like Eric Kaufman and Matthew Goodwin, just doesn't seem to be having much effect. Maybe there is no way, neither civil nor incivil, of stopping this madness.
"Oh, it's those people".
You mean the ones who had their daughters & sisters groomed, trafficked, and sexually abused, with zero protection (or even recognition) from the police and authorities? Those authorities stood aside and also said "Oh, it's those people", and then provided no protection, as it would have been "politically incorrect".
Enoch Powell was a popular politician. He could see this coming in the 1950s. He was basically turned into a national pariah for his completely correct and provable positions in today’s “Britain”. The chilling effect on him at the time and with which has permeated through the decades has completely smashed the chances of anyone taking on his positions again openly. I remember on BBC question time when a female black American poet said to Nick Griffin of the BNP “what indigenous people?” referring to people like me, white English not actually being indigenous to anything. The retarded British public in the crowd sniggered and cheered for the woman who doesn’t even live in the country making dishonest snipes about an entire group of people who gave her the platform to spew overt racism to the host country. The problem is all the based people like myself who have the means have already seen the wood for the trees and left and moved abroad. That’s what all the pioneering Brits did to make America. They say the country was shit and left. All that’s left in the country is soft meek and mild retards. Two world wars killed off the gene pool of actual men and the left overs are soft mid wits. The general public of the UK would rather appear tolerant to a fault than be cussed of anything. You could see it when anyone still got on the same train carriage as a Muslim wearing a giant back pack after 7/7. They are lambs to the slaughter. If you’re based then leave and let the retards who want more of the same get their heads chopped off and have their children raped. They at this point would still find a way of blaming whitey.
Bollocks. I've heard this "all the good men died" argument and it's just self-aggrandising cope from Yanks who want to think it won't happen to them. The US is far worse off in terms of demographics, we've had a week of race-riots as well, set your own house in order
Bro I’m from Croydon, South London. But please tell me more.
The biggest lie of liberalism is ‘tolerance:’ There will be massive crackdowns on free speech, especially on social media platforms, and likely new ‘antiracist’ legislation sponsored by Labour in Parliament.
I think you over-estimate support for mass immigration significantly. Consider that Reform got that 16% of the vote despite being deliberately sabotaged by the establishment in several ways:
1. The election was called suddenly, with no warning even to the Conservatives and with an extremely short deadline. There's some evidence Sunak did this specifically to destabilize Reform, as they thought Farage wouldn't be able to return and organize candidates in the tiny amount of time available. This was somewhat correct. In a normal election called with plenty of warning Reform would have been able to organize much better, to mount a real campaign and so on.
2. Part of the reason Reform wasn't able to organize earlier is that the Conservatives kept promising to reduce immigration once Brexit was complete. Farage, like most Brits of his age, did have residual trust in the system and did not expect the Conservatives to choose self-destruction over reducing immigration. So Reform didn't even really get energized again until very recently.
3. The media has been brainwashing Britain for decades on the topic of immigration and wokeness in general. A lot of people think Farage is racist; ask them what specific event makes them think that and they can't give you one. You get nonsensical answers like "everyone knows that" or Brexit. This makes asking what people _want_ yield confusing answers, like when people say they're against immigration but then agree they like specific kinds of immigration. Do the people answering polls realize that "family immigration" really means "one guy from Afghanistan arrives and then brings in his extended family of 20-30 people"? Or do they imagine nice nuclear families like their own, moving as a unit? How many even realize the extent to which family reunification gets abused in this way if their media aren't telling them?
Creating that impression has required systematically attacking Reform at every level in ways that are completely illegitimate. Just before the election Channel 4 broadcast an entirely fake news report in which an actor pretended to be a racist Reform activist in front of "secret" cameras. People immediately discovered that the guy was acting, but both C4 and Ofcom blew it off and refused to investigate. The average Brit isn't able to imagine the extent to which mass immigrationists will break every rule in the book, violate every norm, deceive them in every possible way. What can really be said about anyone's preferences in a world where the news they consume is literally fake?
4. Anyone stepping up to take part in Reform is going to come under incredible personal attack. Farage himself was nearly exiled from the UK by being debanked. Literally NO bank in the UK was willing to give him an account, and then they lied about the reasons, which of course turned out to be rampant Remainer extremism. The Conservatives failed to pass legislation to prevent this, so now anyone who supports Reform (or even the Conservatives for that matter) faces the same fate. And that's on top of all the usual cancellation that the left dish out. Go on TV and promote Reform, you'll get a visit from the police.
Asking the public what they think in this environment is like going into China and polling them to ask how many would like democracy. If you do that you'll discover that everyone likes democracy! 91% of Chinese polled in 2022 said democracy is important to them. The teeny tiny problem is that 80% said China already is a democracy.
https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
You can't get meaningful results out of polls in a totalitarian system, which by this point is what the UK has become.
Yes I think 'British don't mind immigration because Reform only 16 per cent' is not one of his stronger points.
I’ve read recently that the main reason the government has been so unresponsive to concerns over immigration is that, while low skilled immigrants are a net drain on the commonweal, they still inevitably increase GDP, which the government can use yo argue that their economic policies are working on aggregate.
For sure this is one of their reasons. The main reason I think it is not.
I didn't have to hold my breath long before those eagle-eyed in calling out the lame excuses for BLM rioting over racism would have the exact opposite take with rioting over immigration. Special pleading for one's own moral panic.
Labour ran on a secure borders platform basically feigning as a right wing party to get elected. They promised employers would have to train locals before they could employ from abroad, they promised a crackdown on illegal migration.
The fall of the conservatives showed the feeling of disaffection as people got tired of them not actually doing what they promised about migration. Their vote split because of this, not some left wing open borders swing.
Immigration is in the top few issues on people priorities.
The voting alone doesn't really show you the picture.
"Likewise, Enzo Brox and Tommy Krieger examined the impact of the 2014–15 Dresden protests, and found they were associated with a sharp decline in the number of Germans moving to that region – presumably because they made it less attractive as a place to live."
'presumably because they made it less attractive as a place to live'--but this really says nothing.
Couldn't the explanation have been, for the findings of this and the study you mention next, that the rioting was taken as indicative of communal tensions previously unknown to the prospective relocators?
Your reasoning in this piece might be correct; it might not. Let us see how it turns out. This might be the beginning (it's a week's worth of discontent in a country where nothing has happened for many years) of something much larger and/or more polished and more directed.
It's not necessary that a majority be mobilised. Protests in Ireland started in much the same way, and they appear to have legs despite not involving anything like the majority.
That's a valid concern regarding Brox and Krieger's study. In the paper, they do give a couple of additional arguments in support of their interpretation. My understanding is that the event that really galvanised the Dresden protests was the Charlie Hebdo massacre, which obviously took place in another country. And I believe Dresden has a lower percentage of people with a migrant background than other major German cities. (Most people with a migrant background live in West Germany.)
Your analysis of the recent election is shockingly naive.
But I think some of this article misses the point that an awful lot of people don't want to go deep into issues. It's uncomfortable for them, so it's far easier to believe media narrative, especially if your peers are. We don't like to be seen to stick our heads out above others, incase we are called a name (lots of cases of that at the moment) we don't like disagreeing with others especially in public discussions where we may be put down or corrected by articulate people who don't listen, even if our overall intuition may be along the right lines, it's easier to tow the line. And saying we can do a different vote in the booths doesn't allow for the uneasy conversation afterwards, so often we live and vote in our bubble without real, deep questioning. COVID vaccines was a good example of feeling pressured to do something by social peers/ norms and media etc etc. with out allowing people to discuss on a more personal, intuitive level and not being put down.There is a very real issue, discussed by the likes of Douglas Murray, about Islamic faith and immigration. Human psychology and conflicting religious faiths. Many also don't have the time or headspace to study the complex nature of these issues so put faith in media and state who tell us they are saying the truth. But we now have other platforms that can give us other sides to the story that often differ to what the media would like us to believe.
Calling people names shuts down decent disscutions.
Some dubious claims here:
- we've not had race riots for a generation or more. These are very significant as they a) were started by whites and b) have already spread across the length and breadth of England. They have also gone on for over a week
- the cost of race-rioting and crime is massive for native Brits. Not so for foreigners
- we've now seen very starkly that the Police treat foreigners differently. 'Community liaison', 'community leaders' etc etc. This is hard to hide
- a lot of normies have now watched footage of what are clearly Muslim mobs taking over streets and districts of cities. They've also seen the Press prevaricate and euphemism when the truth is clear for any eye to see
- the mental and practical shift towards ethnic politics is there and is now permanent until one side wins. This is not trivial either
As the song says, we’re all “far right” now… https://youtu.be/LsbRrTULpgA?si=GHdQW5oa-mbWp_79
I think you’re over-simplifying.
1) Though weakening considerably, the established parties (Labour, Conservative and to a lesser extent the Lib Dems) have a lot of residual loyalty, based on the belief that, under FPTP, they’re still the only plausible parties of government. Reform were not perceived as potential winners in many seats. This may have made right wing voters reticent about voting for them.
2) A month ago, Labour actually presented itself as to the right of the Conservatives on immigration. It talked pretty tough on it.
3) The Lib Dems are best understood as a non-political protest party - as a more respectable “none of the above” choice than Count Binface. Their leader, Ed Davie, ran the most non-political campaign in UK history, spending all his time merely going to theme parks. Even if the Lib Dems think of themselves as a less left wing version of Labour, that’s not how most voters see them. Even though they’re the UK’s most Euro-Federalist Party, before 2016 the Lib Dems regularly got elected in the South West as an outlet for anti EEC/EU anger, especially towards the CFP.
4) In the election there was a strong “Zero Seats” campaign, started by Neema Parvini, the Academic Agent. This was a right wing campaign, which argued that the most important thing was to destroy the Conservative Party as a fake right wing “containment” party, even if the consequence was a Labour victory. As the right wing Substack author Morgoth’s Review put it, the campaign’s message to the Conservatives was, “I choose to be ruled by my enemies rather than by you!”.