Anyone opposed to this shameful collusion with the hardline anti-immigration right should write to the Labour Party figures in question, or to their constituency parties, and make their feelings clear.
The right-wing pundit Douglas Murray recently wrote:
“To study the results of the latest census is to stare at one unalterable conclusion: mass immigration has altered our country completely. It has become a radically different place, and London has become a foreign country. In 23 of London’s 33 boroughs ‘white Britons’ are now in a minority…
“We long ago reached the point where the only thing white Britons can do is to remain silent about the change in their country. Ignored for a generation, they are expected to get on, silently but happily, with abolishing themselves, accepting the knocks and respecting the loss of their country. ‘Get over it. It’s nothing new. You’re terrible. You’re nothing’.
For what it is worth, it seems to me that the vindictiveness with which the concerns of white British people, and the white working and middle class in particular, have been met by politicians and pundits alike is a phenomenon in need of serious and swift attention.”
Such words, one might expect, should place their author beyond the pale of respectable political opinion, in the sole company of UKIP and the rest of the fringe anti-immigration right.
Instead, he is at the heart of a political outfit that is itself at the heart of Westminster politics. Murray is associate director of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), a ‘think-tank’ that, despite being extremely right-wing and predominantly Tory in its loyalties, nevertheless enjoys a following among all three principal British parliamentary parties.
The HJS’s ‘Advisory Council‘ includes not only 28 Tory MPs, but also two Liberal Democrat and eleven Labour MPs. The Labour MPS are:
Margaret Beckett MP, former secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs
Hazel Blears MP, former secretary of state for communities and local government
Ben Bradshaw MP, former secretary of state for culture, media and sport
Chris Bryant MP, former parliamentary under secretary of state, foreign and commonwealth office
Dai Havard MP
Khalid Mahmood MP
Meg Munn MP, former parliamentary under secretary of state, foreign and commonwealth office
Jim Murphy MP, shadow secretary of state for defence
John Spellar MP, shadow minister for foreign and commonwealth office
Gisela Stuart MP
Derek Twigg MP, former parliamentary under secretary of state for the ministry of defence
Indeed, Labour’s shadow secretary for defence, Jim Murphy, in February of this year, gave a major speech on policy at an event organised by the HJS.
Murray did not write his article in a purely personal capacity; it appeared in the magazine Standpoint with an attached biography giving his HJS affiliation.
Murray’s views are scarcely uncharacteristic of the organisation’s. His boss, HJS executive director, Alan Mendoza, expressed similar views at a speech given around the same time (March 2013) at the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Mendoza attacked the EU for what he considered to be its hostility to Israel, in the following terms (as reported by the Washington Jewish Week‘s Suzanne Pollak):
“Immigration is also a reason for rising anti-Israel feelings [in Europe]. In 1998, 3.2 percent of Spain was foreign-born. In 2007, that percent had jumped to 13.4 percent, Mendoza said. In cities such as London, Paris and Copenhagen, 10 percent of residents are Muslim.”
“The European Muslim population has doubled in the past 30 years and is predicted to double again by 2040.
“For all the benefits that immigration has brought, it has been difficult for European countries to absorb immigrants into their society given their failure to integrate newcomers. Regardless of their political views, Muslims in Europe will likely speak out against Israel whenever any Middle Eastern news breaks, just as they will against India in the Kashmir dispute. Their voices are heard well above the average Europeans, who tend not to speak out Mendoza said, adding that the Muslim immigrants do this with full knowledge that they would not be allowed to speak out like that in many Middle Eastern countries.’
In other words, the HJS’s leaders claim that London has become a “foreign country” because “white Britons” are in a minority in 23 of its 33 boroughs; that “white Britons” have “lost their country” and are in the process of “abolishing themselves” because of the increase in the size of the non-white and immigrant population; that the increasing European Muslim population is to blame for Europe’s “anti-Israel feelings”; and that the voices of Muslims “are heard well above the average Europeans”.
Yet instead of the HJS being ostracised by respectable political opinion, senior members of the shadow cabinet and Labour parliamentary party are endorsing and participating in it.
Anyone opposed to this shameful collusion with the hardline anti-immigration right should write to the Labour Party figures in question, or to their constituency parties, and make their feelings clear.
Marko Attila Hoare is a former senior member of the Henry Jackson Society (Greater Europe co-director, then European neighbourhood section director, 2005-2012)
74 Responses to “Labour’s shameful links with the anti-immigration right”
SarahAB
And if you had only been a student – it seems particularly mean to grudge you taking the £50.00!
Alan Mendoza
Hoare once again demonstrates his loose command of the facts. Is he sure he is an historian? He appears to be hovering dangerously close to fantasist territory where if the facts don’t suit, you just make them up…
Let me help him:
1. HJS was registered as an official charity in April 2006. It later became a limited company as well. These are established facts.
2. Prior to this, HJS existed as a website only. The website contained an excellent Statement of Principles – which we still adhere to (with a couple of small alterations suggested by the late Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz which actually made it more left-leaning if anything) – articles written by volunteer contributors like Hoare, and lists of those volunteer contributors and of our prominent supporters. The volunteers, almost exclusively Cambridge students and recent grads, met up sporadically in committee meetings in Cambridge. Aside from this, HJS had a couple of launch events in London – one for the website and one for an equally excellent manifesto which we still stock – and a couple of events in Cambridge. And that was it. These are established facts.
3. Prior to April 2006, Hoare was a volunteer. Afterwards, once HJS had established corporate form, he was a freelancer receiving payment for his contributions – and a semi-detached one at that compared to several others who took no payment and spent longer hours on HJS activity. These are established facts.
4. At no time since HJS’s establishment of corporate form in April 2006 was Hoare a staff member, in a position of general control or “involved in the central decision-making process of the HJS”. Indeed the latter is a legal impossibility seeing as he was never a trustee. These are established facts.
5. Hoare has never been a part of the upper echelons of the HJS membership scheme, details of which can be found on our
website, and which can be the only other interpretation of his strange claim to have been a ‘senior member’.
With the ‘Fisking’ complete, let us turn to a broader question. What are we to make of someone – let us say for argument’s sake an academic – who posts glib assertions of their role in an organisation, when the evidence shows to the contrary? Should such a person not think about the implications of such behaviour for their professional reputation?
Trystan Jones
What bearing does this have on the topic at hand? It’s not an argument. And for your information there are plenty of us who are not academics and journalists who disagree strongly with sentiments like those expressed by Douglas Murray. I’m guessing you’re one of those people who take a very parochial and narrow view of people who aren’t middle-class or upper-class (i.e. the working-class).
Alan Mendoza
No one begrudges Hoare his rate, even though others did not take it – he deserved it. But it is merely indicative of the fact he was a freelancer.
Marko Attila Hoare
So far, Mendoza has kept on repeating his claim that I was never a staff member of the HJS, even after I posted a screenshot of the old HJS website, proving that I was a staff member in 2008. He claims the HJS didn’t exist before April 2006, except as a website, contradicting his previous false claim that it was a ‘student society’, and despite the fact that the Guardian reported its Westminster launch in November 2005. He has repeatedly cast aspersions on me for claiming the £50 per month payment I received for my work, implying it would have been more creditable to have worked for nothing – even though he recently awarded himself a salary raise of 63.64%, to bring his salary up to £75,000 for 2011 – paid for out of the funds of his ‘registered charity’. In these circumstances, I’m really not afraid that my reputation as a historian might suffer from this exchange. But what about his reputation as an aspiring Tory politician. Oh, wait…
He still hasn’t expressed his opinion on Murray’s statements cited above, about London having become a ‘foreign country’ for ‘white Britons’. We’re waiting, Alan !