Quote:
Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier
You might want to check some of your facts here concerning Western Europe. There has been mass immigration here since the 1950s so its hardly a new concept. Also the backlash against immigrants in the UK was considerably worse in the period of the 1950s, 1960s and especially the 1970s and early 1980s than it was after the crash of 2008. The only difference now is that immigrants come from different places, hence different issues.  |
I'm aware of the UK's history on immigration, from
Enoch Powell's rivers of blood speech, to the
National Front's peak in popularity in
1976, which also happened around a time of economic uncertainty in the UK.
The
influx of Black Caribbean's into the UK in the
1950's or even
Pakistani's in the 1970's & early 80's was not mass immigration.
The resistance to it was also largely economic, because they were placed in competition with neighboring white working class communities, which traditionally are low educated, low skilled and not surprisingly highly xenophobic. In other words the Lawyer & broker in Kent weren't concerned about it.
Mass immigration (as the chart below shows) didn't start until
New Labour obtained power in
1997 under Tony Blair.
(This was a general trend under left wing governments in the western world in the 90's & 00's as they moved away from economic policies like nationalization & Keynesianism, towards cultural ideologies like multiculturalism and political correctness.
Granted, people in Europe have been complaining about the rate of immigration for a long time, and although
populist right wing parties (ie Freedom Party: Austria) had some success before the
collapse of 2008, there has been an
unprecedented rise in these parties across Europe. In poll after poll it tends to be the number one issue of concern amongst citizens in the UK.
Immigration is the public's biggest concern, poll says - Telegraph