Today's Truism

EU Referendum today points to a piece by Fraser Nelson in yesterday's News of the World, who says that "things are looking great" for the BNP and Nick Griffin. Not because of their recent election results, but because the 'mainstream' politicians have completely failed to learn anything in the aftermath. Immigration, as massive an issue as it is, and long has been, for many people, is still very much a taboo subject for the men and women of Westminster.

There's a certain degree of snobbery about it. The old 'argument' of foreigners coming in and taking jobs from British workers, whether right or wrong, has always been seen as an excuse for idleness. Now we're in a recession, though, yesterday's cliché becomes today's truism, as proven by unpublished figures Nelson has obtained from the Office of National Statistics:

Strip out the public sector and do you know how many new jobs have gone to British workers since 1997? Zero. Squat. Nada. In fact, there are fewer UK-born workers in the private sector than 12 years ago.

In the last year there are 119,000 more migrant workers in UK jobs, but 615,000 fewer UK-born workers. In recent months, both are falling. But UK-born workers are being laid off at five times the rate.

Nelson goes on to point that the 'benefits culture' been part of the problem for a long time too, as well as emigration. I would add a lack of trained and skilled homegrown workers coming into the market, as well as an educational infrastructure to produce them, is another large part of the problem. It's the final statistic, that "UK-born workers are being laid off at five times the rate" of migrant workers, that has the potential to be political dynamite in current circumstances.

Of course, the view is very different from Westminster. Unemployment, and concern about immigration, is reserved to those ghastly council estates, so far from the House of Commons in so many ways that they may as well as be in a different nation altogether.

Was it actually a surprise, then, when the BNP finally got those European seats? Not really. Not if you still live in the real world. What's most aggravating, though, is that we know what the problems are, and to an extent we know how to work towards solving them. It's just that no one who 'matters' seem to really give a damn.

Real Issues

BBC News: The Conservative Party has formally complained to the BBC Trust over the decision to let Sir Alan Sugar continue in his role on The Apprentice.

Why? Who cares, really? It's a problem, but let someone else deal with it. No one's going to vote for you because of this. Why not concentrate on things people actually care about? You know, real issues!

The Million Dollar Question

BBC News: Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke says the Tories will not reopen negotiations on the Lisbon Treaty if the Irish back it in a new referendum.

All sorts of questions will now be asked, all of them attempts by Conservative loyalists to try and find a loophole in Ken Clarke's words, desperately trying to justify their being patriots and yet supporting just another party that is willing to bend over backwards for Brussels.

This comes on the same day as Conservative Home gasps in shock-horror as Ken Clarke also states the obvious - the party is "not as eurosceptic as it was".

Should they be surprised? Of course not. David Cameron, via any means, has never stated what exactly the Conservatives would do should Lisbon be ratified by all member-states. Now, unless Ken Clarke has, as Bill Cash MP hopes, "reinvented unilaterally Conservative Party policy on the whole of the Lisbon Treaty and European policy", and tomorrow we'll get a firm denial from either Cameron or Hague, we appear to have finally got our answer.

But never mind. Clarke reminds us that the Conservatives, as ever, are still committed to begging for the "return of some responsibilities, particularly in employment law, to individual nation states", distractions to stop anyone asking the million dollar question: does Britain want to remain an independent nation-state, or not?

"Doomsday scenario"

On missing the bus into college, I received an email from Councillor Phil Andrews of Isleworth, including a link to a post on his blog that informs us, "Independent community action is the key to freezing out the BNP - but don't tell the politicians!"

The key to freezing out the BNP is to get the politicians to recognise that they are a symptom of discontent. The key to "freezing out" the BNP is to have one of the larger parties representing the interests of the white working class, be it Labour, Conservative, or whoever. At the moment, that isn't happening, and instead we're heading for a "doomsday scenario" in which the ever expanding ethnic population votes for Labour and other radical parties, and the shrinking white working class population votes BNP, both fearing the other, both feeling that they need rescuing from each other.

Not that it will matter too much when we're consumed by the EU, but it's still not too cheerful a state of affairs.

Pushing Buttons

Cranmer has a very good post today on Bob Crow, the leader of the RMT, who fancies himself as a bit of an Arthur Scargill, albeit on a severely reduced and less dramatic scale. Cranmer tells Boris Johnson to "order an immediate feasibility study into the introduction of driverless trains":

It is puzzling that an aeroplane can cross the Atlantic entirely on autopilot, but a journey from Piccadilly to Heathrow is not possible without a man pushing buttons and pulling levers.

That may well be, but workers, striking or not, are still voters. Most likely, they would never vote Conservative anyway, but it's unlikely Johnson would take the risk.

Notoriously

The Devil holds up Polly Toynbee's comments this week for ridicule. The gist of it (and if you don't trust the summary, check it out yourself), the Devil says is ...

"Labour got utterly kicked in the local and Euro elections because they weren't left-wing enough and didn't nationalise enough banks."

That rather defies common sense, seeing as the biggest beneficiaries of Labour's collapse including the Tories, UKIP, and most notoriously, the BNP. Granted, the latter have a number of leftist economic policies, but I'd still hesitate to call them "left-wing", despite Ron Paul's argument presented by the Nameless Libertarian. I've always thought that real left-wingers are interested in oppressing everybody, regardless of race.

A Decent Principle

I wouldn't want to read too much into yesterday's results, nor the local council ones. Any election with such ridiculously low turn-out can't really be taken too seriously, can it?

The fact that the BNP have gained two seats in the European Parliament is certainly a 'bad thing', but that's not to say it was a shock out of the blue. The way things are going in the real world outside of the Westminster bubble, and have been going for some time, it was moreorless inevitable. Not that this fact will stop opportunism. Along with all the world's problems - famine, plague, pestilence, and Susan Boyle coming second - Gordon Brown is now being blamed, by Tim Montgomerie anyway, for the "shock" BNP victories:

I don't say this lightly but I blame Labour for the rise of the BNP. I blame Brown for creating Nick Griffin. I blame Labour for introducing the electoral system that has given the BNP this opportunity but much more I blame Labour for its failure to control Britain's borders... for promising a referendum on Lisbon and reneging on that promise... for a failure to get to grips with Islamic extremism... and for a failure to tackle the social causes of poverty.

The BNP gaining two seats is a consequence not of twelve years of ignoring the English working class, but of a number of decades. For all that he is, Nick Griffin was speaking with some truth last night when he claimed that the BNP were now the party of the white working class. It's not Labour, and certainly isn't going to be the Tories, for all that Monty wishes.

The challenge for the Conservatives ... is to learn from Labour's huge failures. We mustn't over-promise but we must restore order to our borders, give a sense that Britain is in charge of its destiny and pursue a compassionate agenda that will give financial and structural security to the Labour heartlands - heartlands that the Brown-Blair years have so comprehensively failed.

To be honest, I don't think many want a "compassionate agenda". I don't think many people would have the faintest idea what a "compassionate agenda" actually is. I do think it sounds incredibly patronising. I think the vast majority of people would far prefer the government and everyone associated with it to get off their backs and let them live their lives as best they can. It might well be as simple as that. It's at least a decent principle to start on before the Tories begin rediscovering what being a "Tory" actually entails.

Making the Effort

The Mail reports that turnout has suffered a "nosedive":

Insiders were estimating a turnout of less than 30 per cent in the 37 local council elections, and just 20 per cent in the European elections. If correct, this would be among the lowest ever turnouts.

Laban, though, thinks different:

About 15 people in the queue and more arriving in the car park every minute. I think there must always be a rush around 9pm - either that or people are more motivated than everyone says.

It doesn't seem logical for turnout to have "nosedived". Surely if people are as angry as we are told, they'd want to go out and vote? At least, that's what's been said by pundits on the BBC.

From personal experience, my barber went out to vote yesterday, the first time I've known him do so. Admittedly, he spoiled the ballot paper, but at least he made the effort.