This is my preface to a new book on European Populism and Winning the Immigration Debate. Edited by Clara Sandelind, and published by the European Liberal Forum and Fores, the book brings together many contributors including Matthew Goodwin, Mikael Hjerm, Andrea Bohman, Jamie Bartlet, Meindert Fennema, Sjoerdje van Heerden and Sarah de Lange. It is launched today at a roundtable discussion at the European Parliament and available free online from the ELF or Fores.
Preface to
European Populism and Winning the Immigration Debate
Golden Dawn in Greece. The Front National in France. UKIP in Britain. Sweden Democrats. The True Finns. Throughout Europe groups once seen as fringe organizations are dominating headlines, and often setting the political agenda. The challenge that such groups pose to mainstream political parties, and the instability they have unleashed upon the mainstream political arena, has created a sense of panic about the rise of ‘populism’.
But what is populism? Why is it a problem? And how should it be combated?
What are considered populist parties comprise, in fact, very different kinds of organizations, with distinct historical roots, ideological values and networks of social support. Some, such as Golden Dawn, are openly Nazi. Others, such as the Front National are far-right organizations that in recent years have tried to rebrand themselves to become more mainstream. Yet others – UKIP for instance – have reactionary views, play to far-right themes such as race and immigration, but have never been part of the far-right tradition.
What unites this disparate group is that all define themselves through a hostility to the mainstream and to what has come to be regarded as the dominant liberal consensus. Most of the populist parties combine a visceral hatred of immigration with an acerbic loathing of the EU, a virulent nationalism and deeply conservative views on social issues such as gay marriage and women’s rights.
The emergence of such groups reveals far more, however, than merely a widespread disdain for the mainstream. It expresses also the redrawing of Europe’s political map, and the creation of a new faultline on that map. The postwar political system, built around the divide between social democratic and conservative parties, is being dismantled. Not only has this created new space for the populists, but it is also transforming the very character of political space.
The broad ideological divides that characterized politics for much of the past two hundred years have, over the past three decades, been all but erased. The political sphere has narrowed; politics has become less about competing visions of the kinds of society people want than a debate about how best to manage the existing political system. Politics, in this post-ideological age, has been reduced to a question more of technocratic management rather than of social transformation.
One way in which people have felt this change is as a crisis of political representation, as a growing sense of being denied a voice, and of political institutions as being remote and corrupt. The sense of being politically abandoned has been most acute within the traditional working class, whose feelings of isolation have increased as social democratic parties have cut their links with their old constituencies. As mainstream parties have discarded both their ideological attachments and their long-established constituencies, so the public has become increasingly disengaged from the political process. The gap between voters and the elite has widened, fostering disenchantment with the very idea of politics.
The new political faultline in Europe is not between left and right, between social democracy and conservatism, but between those who feel at home in – or at least are willing to accommodate themselves to – the post-ideological, post-political world, and those who feel left out, dispossessed and voiceless. These kinds of divisions have always existed, of course. In the past, however, that sense of dispossession and voicelessness could be expressed politically, particularly through the organizations of the left and of the labour movement. No longer. It is the erosion of such mechanisms that is leading to the remaking of Europe’s political landscape.
The result has been the creation of what many commentators in Britain are calling the ‘left behind’ working class. In France, there has been much talk of ‘peripheral France’, a phrase coined by the social geographer Christophe Guilluy to describe people ‘pushed out by the deindustrialization and gentrification of the urban centers’, who ‘live away from the economic and decision-making centers in a state of social and cultural non-integration’ and have come to ‘feel excluded’.
European societies have in recent years become both more socially atomized and riven by identity politics. Not just the weakening of labour organizations, but the decline of collectivist ideologies, the expansion of the market into almost every nook and cranny of social life, the fading of institutions, from trade unions to the Church, that traditionally helped socialize individuals – all have helped create a more fragmented society.
At the same time, and partly as a result of such social atomization, people have begun to view themselves and their social affiliations in a different way. Social solidarity has become defined increasingly not in political terms – as collective action in pursuit of certain political ideals – but in terms of ethnicity or culture. The question people ask themselves is not so much ‘In what kind of society do I want to live?’ as ‘Who are we?’. The two questions are, of course, intimately related, and any sense of social identity must embed an answer to both. The relationship between the two is, however, complex and fluid.
As the political sphere has narrowed, and as mechanisms for political change eroded, so the two questions have come more and more to be regarded as synonymous. The answer to the question ‘In what kind of society do I want to live?’ has become shaped less by the kinds of values or institutions we want to struggle to establish, than by the kind of people that we imagine we are; and the answer to ‘Who are we?’ defined less by the kind of society we want to create than by the history and heritage to which supposedly we belong. Or, to put it another way, as broader political, cultural and national identities have eroded, and as traditional social networks, institutions of authority and moral codes have weakened, so people’s sense of belonging has become more narrow and parochial, moulded less by the possibilities of a transformative future than by an often mythical past. The politics of ideology has, in other words, given way to the politics of identity.
Both these developments have helped make the ‘left behind’ feel more left behind. Atomization has played into the hands of the deracinated middle class. Identity politics have helped foster communities defined by faith, ethnicity or culture. For many working class communities these two processes have helped both corrode the social bonds that once gave them strength and identity and dislocate their place in society.
The ‘left behind’ have suffered largely because of economic and political changes. But they have come to see their marginalization primarily as a cultural loss. In part, the same social and economic changes that have led to the marginalization of the ‘left behind’ have also made it far more difficult to view that marginalization in political terms. The very decline of the economic and political power of the working class and the weakening of labour organizations and social democratic parties, have helped obscure the economic and political roots of social problems. And as culture has become the medium through which social issues are refracted, so the ‘left behind’ have also come to see their problems in cultural terms. They, too, have turned to the language of identity to express their discontent.
Once class identity comes to be seen as a cultural attribute, then those regarded as culturally different are often viewed as threats. Hence the growing hostility to immigration. Immigration has become the means through which many of the ‘left behind’ perceive their sense of loss of social status. It has become both a catch-all explanation for unacceptable social change and a symbol of the failure of the liberal elite to understand the views of voters. The EU, meanwhile, has become symbolic of the democratic deficit in many people’s lives, and of the distance (social, political and physical) between ordinary people and the political class.
In an age in which progressive social movements have largely crumbled, and in which there is widespread disenchantment with the very idea of collective social transformation, people’s political anger often finds expression not through opposition to a particular policy or government, or even to capitalism, but through a generalized hatred of everything and everyone in power. That is why populist groups position themselves as ‘anti-political’ parties. They play upon on and fuse together many of the themes that have become so corrosive of contemporary politics: not simply the contempt for mainstream politics and politicians, and the sense of voicelessness and abandonment, but also the perception of a world out of control and as driven by malign forces, of victimhood as a defining feature of social identity, and a willingness to believe in conspiracy theories. The result has been the creation of an indiscriminate rage that is not just politically incoherent, but also potentially reactionary. Inchoately kicking out against the system can all too easily mutate into indiscriminately striking out against the ‘Other’.
So, how do we challenge the populists? First, we need to stop being so obsessed by the parties themselves, and start dealing with the issues that lead many voters to support them. It is true that many of the policies, even of relatively mainstream parties such as UKIP, are repellent, and many of their leaders hold obnoxiously racist, sexist and homophobic views. It is true, too, that many of their supporters are hardcore racists. But this should not blind us to the fact that many others are drawn to such parties for very different reasons – because these seem to be the only organizations that speak to their grievances and express their frustrations with mainstream politics. Given this, simply exposing UKIP or Front National politicians as racists will change little, especially given that virtually all politicians are busy stoking fears about immigration. It is not that such exposés should not be done, but that they are futile if wielded as the principal tactic.
Engaging with the concerns of potential UKIP or FN voters, rather than simply dismissing them as racists, does not mean, however, caving into reactionary arguments or pandering to prejudices. It means, to the contrary, challenging them openly and robustly; challenging the idea, for instance, that immigration is responsible for the lack of jobs and housing, or that lower immigration would mean a lower crime rate, or that Muslims constitute a social problem for the West.
Yet, mainstream politicians have generally done the opposite. What has made their assault on parties such as UKIP and the FN particularly ineffective is that at the same time as attacking them as racist, mainstream politicians have themselves assiduously fostered fears about immigration and adopted populist anti-immigration policies. All this has merely confirmed the belief that the populists were right all along. It has engorged cynicism about conventional politicians. And since immigration has not been primarily responsible for the ‘left behind’ being left behind, it has done nothing to assuage the sense of marginalization and voicelessness that many feel. Indeed, by stoking new fears about immigration, it has merely deepened the sense of grievance. To combat the populists, we need to challenge the rhetoric and policies not simply of UKIP or the FN but also of the Conservatives, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats, of the Parti Socialiste, the UMP and the Nouveau Centre. It is the anti-immigration rhetoric of the mainstream parties that make people receptive to the anti-immigration rhetoric of the populists.
Finally, we need to establish new social mechanisms through which to link liberal ideas about immigration and individual rights with progressive economic arguments and a belief in the community and the collective. Those who today rightly bemoan the corrosion of collective movements and community organizations often also see the problem as too much immigration. Those who take a liberal view on immigration, and on other social issues, are often happy with a more individualized, atomized society. Until all three elements of a progressive outlook – a defence of immigration, freedom of movement and of individual rights, a challenge to austerity policies and the embrace of collective action – can be stitched together, and stitched into a social movement, then there will be no proper challenge to the populists.
The images are, from top down, ‘Chromatic Geometry 21’ by Joanne Mattera; ‘Loss’ by Bridget Riley; and Jessica Snow’s ‘320 Dots’.
Pandaemonium 
I hardly know UKIP’s platform, do not like UKIP’s leader. But look at this heading:
Migrants from outside the EU have taken £120billion more from the state than they paid in taxes over 17 years
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2821151/Non-EU-migrants-State-costing-British-finances-120billion-1995.html
Immigration was supposed to shore up pension and health services in preparation for the full demographic pyramid inversion of the 2030s which is inevitably coming. Instead, immigration (it’s particular UK implementation, not immigration per se) became financial and fiscal black hole sucking up the UK welfare state.
Tell me that immigration is a good in itself, so enormous in its quantity and desirable in nature, that it more than makes up for having to abandon the largest generation of old and sick that ever lived in the UK during the 2030’s.
Newspaper headlines, unfortunately, are rarely good means of making sense of an argument. Here is the actual Dustmann / Frattini paper on ‘The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK’ from which that figure comes. And here is a useful FullFact analysis of the Dustmann/Frattini paper, what it actually reveals about the costs of immigration – and why the figure for the costs of non-EU immigration since 1995 is not quite as it is presented in much of the media.
Thanks for the links. These figures will generate debate as there is already a clash of opinion regarding them and what they imply: that the desirability of immigration cannot be taken as a given. The debate must take place. It’s not about populism. It’s about establishing the facts.
Wonderful Kenan: thank you!
This is a brilliant piece, as always.
As a Marxist, I would argue that the only way to counter the rise of populist parties is to restore the language of class struggle and radical equality. It is to show that poor whites and poor non-whites have far more in common with each other that they do with elites in their respective communities, and that state-driven identity politics (e.g. multiculturalism) have in fact helped reinforce social inequalities at the national and international levels.
But how difficult it is to deploy such (antiquated?) language in our post-political/populist world… How then can we get that point across today?
You should go head to head with Farage. And Cameron, Miliband, Clegg.
You’d wipe the floor with ’em ;o)
Engaging with the concerns of potential UKIP or FN voters, rather than simply dismissing them as racists, does not mean, however, caving into reactionary arguments or pandering to prejudices. It means, to the contrary, challenging them openly and robustly; challenging the idea, for instance, that immigration is responsible for the lack of jobs and housing, or that lower immigration would mean a lower crime rate, or that Muslims constitute a social problem for the West.
Simply dismissing them as racists has worked well in the past. For example, when Griffin made those loathsome claims about Muslim males “mistreating” “white” girls in some godforsaken hellhole “oop” north, the authorities quite rightly responded by putting him on trial and trying to imprison him. The anti-racist community applauded — and quite rightly. We can see now see that the vile racist narrative about Muslim males singling “white” girls out for rape was wrong. Muslim males were (and are) doing it to girls in their own community too:
Asian girls ‘also victims of sex grooming’ in Rotherham
Imagine that — men from Pakistan behaving the same way in Britain as they do in Pakistan. Who could have seen that coming? It’s as unexpected as the US having free speech because it was settled by the British rather than the Moroccans.
“…that Muslims constitute a social problem for the West.” Well, they do in “reality”, but what does “reality” matter when there are liberal fantasies to indulge? For example, Muslim immigration is clearly disastrous for free speech, but admitting that would end one’s career and make one look rather stupid, would it not? Better keep pretending that mass immigration from authoritarian and misogynist Third World nations will have no effect on free speech and female rights in the First World.
If you are going to accuse others of not grasping reality, it help to be within touching distance of reality yourself. The fact that some men of Pakistani origin were involved in grooming gangs is no more evidence that ‘Muslims constitute a social problem for the West’ than the fact that that well-known Muslim Jimmy Saville may have spent decades abusing girls and women is evidence that ‘white men constitute a social problem for the West’. And trying to pretend that it is, is no different from trying to ignore the fact that men of Pakistani descent were involved in these gangs. I find it amusing that those with the most illiberal of views suddenly discover a burning need to defend liberalism when talking of Muslim or ‘Third World’ immigration. If you want to defend liberal views on free speech or ‘female rights’, or to oppose ‘authoritarianism’, it helps to do so consistently, not just when it happens to suit your prejudices.
The fact that some men of Pakistani origin were involved in grooming gangs
Is “grooming gangs” an honest or accurate way of describing organized rape and child prostitution involving hundreds of if not thousands of individuals? Yes or no?
is no more evidence that ‘Muslims constitute a social problem for the West’ than the fact that that well-known Muslim Jimmy Saville may have spent decades abusing girls and women is evidence that ‘white men constitute a social problem for the West’.
One problem I have when trying to use reason with scientific illiterates is their inability to grasp the concept of “average” and “tendency”. You’re not a scientific illiterate, so I’m puzzled that you seem to have the same inability. Some questions for you, Mr Malik:
How many girls did Savile soak in petrol and threaten to set on fire?
How much money did Savile make from running a prostitution ring of under-age girls with the cooperation of hundreds (if not thousands) of like-minded men across England?
How many girls did Savile murder because they offended his sense of “honour” or broke cultural taboos within his “community”?
How many girls did Savile perform genital mutilation on?
How many years would Savile have been able to commit his crimes if he’d been a taxi-driver or kebab-shop owner?
My suggested answer, in every case, is: zero. Would you agree? If you would, which group do you think has a stronger tendency towards pathological behaviour: Muslims or the white British? And what about the vote-rigging and political thuggery seen in Tower Hamlets and other Muslim-enriched areas? Are they a problem? Do they reflect a political culture imported from Pakistan and Bangladesh? And what about consanguineous marriage? A problem among whites or among Muslims? Which group has Grayson Perry said he will not satirize or offend for fear of being beheaded? Anglicans? Buddhists? Or Muslims?
I find it amusing that those with the most illiberal of views suddenly discover a burning need to defend liberalism when talking of Muslim or ‘Third World’ immigration. If you want to defend liberal views on free speech or ‘female rights’, or to oppose ‘authoritarianism’, it helps to do so consistently, not just when it happens to suit your prejudices.
I’ve been defending free speech and liberalism all my life. That’s why I object to mass immigration from illiberal Third World nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Somalia. You see, I notice that the pathologies of culture in those nations are reproduced in the UK by people from those nations. Multiculturalism and “anti-racism” didn’t produce the Muslim pathologies on display in Rotherham and Tower Hamlets: it merely allowed them to be freely expressed. It is not rational for a liberal to support mass immigration from the Third World: it is suicidal. That’s “liberal” in the genuine sense. Marxists and other non-liberals welcome mass immigration because it can be used to justify authoritarianism, including the destruction of free speech.
Again, if you want accuse people of being ‘scientific illiterates’, it helps not to be one yourself. The fact that some men of Pakistani origin may, unlike Saville, have ‘soaked [girls] in petrol and threaten to set on fire’ or ‘made money from running a prostitution ring of under-age girls’ has no bearing on my point that ‘The fact that some men of Pakistani origin were involved in grooming gangs is no… evidence that “Muslims constitute a social problem for the West”’. It is as logical as suggesting that because Ian Brady and Peter Sutcliffe and Fred West were, unlike the Rotherham abusers, mass murderers, so whites are more ‘pathological’ than Muslims or constitute a ‘social problem for the West’. What is ‘scientifically illiterate’ is to imagine that because some people in a group commit terrible acts, so that group is in some sense necessarily ‘pathological’.
Which group, you ask, ‘has a stronger tendency towards pathological behaviour: Muslims or the white British? How much of Britain’s history of colonialism, imperialism and racism do you think I should take into account before answering the question?
You suggest that immigration from Third World countries must end because such immigration undermines free speech and liberal values. It is not the first time you have come on Pandaemonium to make that claim; I have answered you every time, and you have simply ignored the facts and the arguments. It is getting tiresome, so let me be brief this time. What you are confusing are peoples and values. People of North African or South Asian parentage do not inevitably cleave to a different set of values than those of European ancestry. Being born to European parents is not a passport to Enlightenment beliefs. So why should we imagine that having Bangladeshi or Moroccan ancestry makes one automatically mysoginist or oppose free speech?
This becomes clearer if we take a historical view. I have written many times of how different Muslim communities were, say, 30 years ago. I grew up in communities, and in a generation, that were broadly secular. It is the rise of identity politics and of multicultural politics that have helped transform the cultural and political landscape. It is not from first generation Muslims, but from the generation that has come of age since the late 1980s, a generation that, ironically, is far more integrated than the first generation, that the Islamists and reactionaries draw most of the support. There is, in other words, no single ‘Muslim’ community nor are values Muslims accept fixed or unchangeable.
We need to defend certain values. We cannot do so by discriminating against particular groups. It is in discriminating between peoples rather than between values, as you do, that illiberalism manifests itself.
I’m disappointed that you didn’t allow my reply through. Even if you think my arguments are wrong, I see no harm in allowing others to judge for themselves. I’ll repeat this bit:
We need to defend certain values. We cannot do so by discriminating against particular groups. It is in discriminating between peoples rather than between values, as you do, that illiberalism manifests itself.
Then Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill were not liberals. All of them would have been appalled by Muslim immigration and all would have predicted dire consequences for liberty, secularism and social cohesion.
But they were liberals, of course. And successful ones. I claim that you misunderstand both liberalism and free speech. Free speech emerged in particular cultural circumstances. One circumstance was the loss of power by the Catholic church. Modern liberals who support mass immigration by Muslims are, in effect, supporting the return of Catholicism in a more virulent form:
All the damning facts are on my side; all the evasive rhetoric is on your side. Third World immigration is disastrous for free speech and female rights. Gay rights too. And note: I fully agree that Western foreign policy has made the situation worse, but Western foreign policy has been in the hands of the same lunatic elite — Blair, for example — who support mass immigration from the Third World.
What reply that I didn’t allow through? You’ve made dozens of hostile, occasionally abusive, comments on Pandaemonium, all which I have published, many of which I have responded to. If anyone ‘misunderstands free speech’, its not me. Victim mentality, though, seems to be catching.
You must have seen the polls that show the very high support for jihad against infidels and sharia for all among the Muslim youth of European countries, including the UK. What strategy one adopts to cure this problem depends on the numbers. If the numbers are low enough to be manageable, one can try to use persuasion to change the minds of these people. But once the numbers reach a certain point, the battle to persuade becomes not only infinitely more difficult but also a battle for the very survival of our civilization. The people who argue for limits on immigration from Islamic countries do so not because they are bigots, but because they are afraid Europe will not be able to persuade these ever increasing numbers. It’s not a matter of ideology, but a matter of practicality and realization that if we fail, we will be enslaved. So we must not fail, and that means, well, that perhaps we cannot count on just persuasion, given the way the numbers are going. We have to put some limits on the growth of the numbers. For now, at least. Until we get a handle on the situation.
There are a number of problems with this argument. First, those drawn to radical Islam and jihadist groups are, as I wrote above, mainly not recent immigrants but usually the second or third generation, a generation that is often highly integrated and British; many are also converts. Stopping ‘immigration from Islamic countries’ is not simply a deeply reactionary policy, it is also one that does not actually address the problem. Second, you talk of ‘immigration from Islamic countries’. What about Muslim immigrants from France, or the USA or India? I suspect that what you really mean is that you want to stop not ‘immigration from Islamic countries’ but simply Muslims from wherever they come. In what way is ‘No Muslims’ a less racist proposition as you suggest than ‘No Jews allowed’, ‘No blacks allowed’ or ‘No Irish allowed?’ And before you say because they do not threaten ‘the very survival of our civilization’, that’s exactly the threat that people imagined that Jews and Catholics and blacks posed in the past. The current panic about Muslim immigration is little different from previous panics about Jews and Catholics and blacks. So the 1903 Royal Commission on Alien Immigration expressed fears that Jews were inclined to live ‘according to their traditions, usages and customs’ and that there might be ‘grafted onto the English stock… the debilitated sickly and vicious products of Europe’. And when you say, ‘it’s not about bigotry, it’s not about numbers’, that’s exactly what was said about previous opposition to Jews and Catholics and blacks. The Conservative MP Major Sir William Eden Evans-Gordon told parliament in 1905 that Jewish immigration must be stopped because ‘Ten grains of arsenic in a thousand loaves would be unnoticeable and perfectly harmless but the same amount put into one loaf would kill the whole family that partook of it.’ Arguments sound familiar?
The numbers of Jews coming to Britain at the turn of century were tiny. But that did not stop people claiming that they were a threat to British culture and ways of life. In other words, however much you frame it as a question of numbers, the same argument is used whatever the numbers. As I wrote in my survey of immigration panics:
Today’s arguments about Muslims recycle the panic expressed in response to almost every wave of immigration over the past century and more.
I read your articles on multiculturalism and I agree that part of blame for the birth of a whole generation of jihadist/sharia loving yourth in the UK can be attributed to a toxic implementation of multiculturalism. But that is **not** the only factor: the culture/religion that gave birth to this generation is a factor as well. Why this particular brew of multiculturalism+Islam gave this particular result is not clearly understood. Why psycopaths and violent jail inmates are attracted to Islam is not clearly understood. And because it is not understood, many would argue, better err on the side of caution and close the spigot of Islamic immigration until a better understanding is reached and a plan of action is well in place.
Comparing today’s reaction against Islamic immigration with racist reactions in the past seems wrong, not just because Islam is not a race (which it is not, and stopping immigration from Islamic countries will also keep out potential blond blue eyed Circassians), but rather seems wrong because no other religious/racial group that immigrated in the past developed such an unrelenting hatred for the host culture, or carried out such horrible terrorist attacks in such numbers with a message that doesn’t just say “leave us alone (sharia for us)” but “we’ll come and get you when the time comes (sharia for everyone).” The secret services have already warned that the number of terrorist plots they are tracking is so high that sooner rather than later one plot is bound to succeed. The UK does not have the resources to keep taps on the ever growing numbers of jihadists and does not know how to prevent radicalization because the causes are not understood.
To keep insisting in the principle of not making a distinction between immigration from Islamic countries and immigration from countries with friendlier cultures to avoid being called racist (whether it is justified or not) causes more harm than good in the present situation. Closing the spigot of immigration, at least temporarily, from Islamic countries is a reasonable measure, though I agree it cannot be the only one, as the radicalization affects generations already born in the UK.
Distilled down, your argument seems to be that ‘we don’t really know what causes people to become jihadis, so for reasons of caution we should stop Muslim immigration’. That is as illogical as it is illiberal. Particularly so as the latest studies on French jihadis, for instance, suggest that 80 per cent come from non-religious or atheist families and almost a quarter are converts. By your logic, for reasons of ‘caution’, perhaps we should stop all immigration of atheists and ban all conversions to Islam?
The point is that jihadism, and the attractions of jihadism within certain sections of society, are important issues that need tackling. We cannot tackle such issues through kneejerk response to Muslim immigration, responses that both fail to deal with the issues and in, creating a more illiberal society, allow fundamentalists of all kinds a victory.
A thought-experiment: If millions of redneck southern Baptists entered the UK from a parallel universe, would they pose a threat to secularism and free speech in the UK? And would DOES constitute evidence that immigrant group X is causing social problems?
Today’s arguments about Muslims recycle the panic expressed in response to almost every wave of immigration over the past century and more.
Inductive logic and its pitfalls. You’ve surely studied the topic. Why then do you say something as ludicrous as that? If a turkey is fed daily by the farmer, is that ever-stronger evidence that the farmer will never harm the turkey? There have been numerous “End of the World” panics down the millennia. None has ever proven correct. Is this proof that asteroids do not strike the earth? Concerns about large-scale Muslim immigration are not disproved by past concerns about small-scale Jewish immigration. Jews have never formed rape-gangs, blown themselves up on public transport or forced the British authorities to spend millions protecting a Jewish author from having his throat cut.
In what way is ‘No Muslims’ a less racist proposition as you suggest than ‘No Jews allowed’, ‘No blacks allowed’ or ‘No Irish allowed?’
In what way is that a rational argument rather than moral blackmail? Muslims practice an authoritarian, misogynist religion characterized by violent intolerance. As a secularist who’s fond of free speech and doesn’t think much of gang-rape, I object strongly to mass immigration by members of a religion like that. I would also object to mass immigration by white fundamentalist Christians, though they, unlike Muslims, would not set up rape-gangs, commit electoral fraud or blow themselves up on public transport.
If the numbers are low enough to be manageable, one can try to use persuasion to change the minds of these people. But once the numbers reach a certain point, the battle to persuade becomes not only infinitely more difficult but also a battle for the very survival of our civilization.
You’re a rational liberal, so KM won’t accept what you say. However, even when the numbers are low enough to be manageable, they’re not manageable in liberal ways. As I point out above, ending FGM in the UK will require very illiberal and intrusive methods.