This year’s annual Hay-on-Wye Festival has just ended. In his column in last week’s Sunday Times, Jeremy Clarkson wrote this about the annual twelve-day jamboree:
‘You might imagine that Hay is a lovely day out for all the family, a chance for children to meet all the authors they love… Of course, it’s no such thing. Mainly it’s a chance for ramblers and hippies to gather in a field and convince themselves everyone thinks the same way that they do.’
In arguing the need for Britain to reduce current levels of immigration, Trevor Phillips and I succeeded in demonstrating to the vast majority of the audience attending a debate there this last overcast weekend that not quite everyone thinks as they do.
Sadly, we failed to demonstrate our case, losing the debate by a wide margin. But that margin was no different from that revealed by a poll taken at the start of the debate. So we always faced an uphill battle. For those interested in the arguments deployed by both sides, an account of the debate was contained in a report about it in yesterday’s Western Mail.
But while haymakers can afford to reject the notion, the vast majority of the population know better. They fully recognise the need for such a reduction – a reduction the new points system, as it stands, shows little sign of being able or even intended to bring about.
It is very difficult to swim against the tide of the current open door, all comers welcome immigration tide.
I don't care whether or not immigration to the UK damages the immigrants' countries of origin.
I can't be responsible for the situations in their countries since I can't contribute input to deciding how their countries are run.
I want immigration to the UK strictly controlled at a much lower level than now because I see present and future problems in British society getting worse if immigration is not controlled.
Why doesn't anyone actually tell the truth about immigration? It's not Christian Poles or Christian Africans that cause the problem, it's non-Christian Asians (predominantly Muslims) whose religion is totally alien to any concept we have regarding liberal democracy and old style pluralism.