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”
Marijana
Goodbye,have fun with your pals at the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic (I still laugh every time I say that title).
David Lindsay
Bless.
And that is a new one on me. I suspect that it is now rather inactive, although I am not going to tell you why.
More broadly, though, who could not regret the loss of workers’ self-management and profit-sharing within a multinational state which included both culturally Christian and culturally Muslim places and peoples, and which enjoyed vast global influence while resolutely pursuing peace and eschewing transnational military power blocs?
Opposition to the shameful British role in destroying that (rather Anglophile) multinational state first began to bring back together the traditional British Right and the traditional British Left, each of which found itself excluded from consideration and debate.
Alan Mendoza
Poor Hoare. He is doing very well proving my point about his descent into fantasy. All the facts have been laid out repeatedly yet he still refuses to acknowledge them and discredits himself further by repeating nonsense that has been refuted. I suppose I shouldn’t be too harsh. After all I do have the official records of the organisation as its Director whereas he as a former freelance contributor of course doesn’t :).
Our position on immigration has been laid out clearly in my article.
Now, time for Hoare to answer the following and to return to the vein of conversation opened earlier. If an academic can be proven to be misguided or mendacious in one area, how does that relate to the prospective quality of the rest of their work? After all, an academic’s reputation everywhere depends on their being able to prove their statements anywhere. Without that, who can have any confidence in any aspect of their work…
Come on Hoare…dig yourself into that hole a little deeper. We’re waiting, Marko!
Alan Mendoza
Poor Hoare. He is doing very well proving my point about his descent into fantasy. All the facts have been laid out repeatedly yet he still refuses to acknowledge them and discredits himself further by repeating nonsense that has been refuted. I suppose I shouldn’t be too harsh. After all I do have the official records of the organisation as its Director whereas he as a former freelance contributor of course doesn’t :).
Our position on immigration has been laid out clearly in my article.
Now, time for Hoare to answer the following and to return to the vein of conversation opened earlier. If an academic can be proven to be misguided or mendacious in one area, how does that relate to the prospective quality of the rest of their work? After all, an academic’s reputation everywhere depends on their being able to prove their statements anywhere. Without that, who can have any confidence in any aspect of their work…
Come on Hoare…dig yourself into that hole a little deeper. We’re waiting, Marko!
Marijana
I suspect the reason why the ICDSM is inactive is because Milosevic is dead and discredited, just as the Greater Serbian project is dead is discredited. You still see creeps from the ICDSM crop up occasionally though.
Worker’s self management in 1991? Haha, what a joke. You do realise that the Serbian and federal leadership made it clear early on their committment to free market reforms?
It’s pretty rich to see you lament the death of a multinational state in which Muslims and Christians lived together, considering your support for the Radovan Karadzic project. Also interesting to see you complain about the death of Yugoslavia, given your long, factually innaccurate diatribes against Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Albanians. Love for Yugoslavia it seems, is combined with chauvinistic hatred of most Yugoslavs.
I myself am from the former Yugoslavia, and of course I don’t celebrate its death. But it was obvious that by 1991 Yugoslavia was dead, and Milosevic had killed it. It probably would have been possible to preserve some form of a common state – that probably would have been the best option. But unfortunately Milosevic preferred no union at all, and rejected every agreement on the restructuring of Yugoslavia which every other republic accepted, even ones such as the Carrington plan which were exceptionally favourable to him. Those who use Izetbegovic’s rejection of the Lisbon Agreement (a 1992 version of the Munich agreement which the SDS had already violated and had made it absolutely clear that they had no intention of abiding by) to justify Serb aggression against Bosnia – rarely mention Milosevic’s and the Croatian Serbs’ rejection of numerous peace plans when discussing Operation Storm, I wonder why.
Your last paragraph is actually correct, for a change. In their defence of the ‘socialist’ Milosevic, the radical left found themselves in complete agreement with Henry Kissinger, Malcolm Rifkind and John Major. Incidently, these men used the same sort of whaddaboutery arguments favoured on the far left (you only care about Bosnia and Croatia because the people are white! Whaddabout Angola!). It really is beneath contempt.