If you think the heap of abuse being piled on Arizona is unique to America’s ethnically fractured politics, you should take a look at England. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is running for reelection, encountered yesterday a 66 year old woman who asked him why so many immigrants from Eastern Europe were receiving government benefits when so many Brits experiencing difficulties were unable to receive any assistance at all. She also asked why there were so many foreigners attending British universities, making it difficult for children like her own grandchildren to attend.
I don’t know the extent to which EU residents can claim British benefits when unemployed, but certainly the woman’s first question was a reasonable one, without any racial overtones about immigrants, and the comment about foreigners at taxpayer supported universities would also seem to be within the realm of polite discourse. Brown apparently did not agree. Not knowing that his microphone was still on, he muttered about how the woman was a “bigot” as he returned to his car.
For me the problem is one of government accountability. No one in government has ever asked the British people whether they want large scale immigration any more than anyone in Washington has ever posed that question to Americans about our 8 to 22 million illegals. Every major political party in both countries reflects the elite consensus view that immigration and “diversity” are good. Opinion polls reveal, however, that the elite view is far from popular, with up to 80% of the indigenous population in both countries opposed to large numbers of immigrants. For the average Brit as for the average American there is, unfortunately, no recourse. If you vote for one of the candidates who is actually likely to win in an election his position on immigration will likely be identical to that of his opponent.
In the essentially two party system prevailing in Britain and America, even when you vote the bum out you are just as likely to get another bum. If you voted for a Democrat or a Republican (or Conservative or Labour) in 2002 you still got a war with Iraq in the following year just as everyone’s vote will be irrelevant if America’s elites decide to go to war with Iran and the British poodle goes along for the ride.
Island Neighbor 
Philip Giraldi 
Barry 
Randal 
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Matt 
Jim Dooley 
Karl 
The legal condition of an EU citizen who migrates to another EU state is roughly similar to that of a US citizen who migrates from one US state to another (with differences, of course — e.g., the migrant’s rights to vote in local elections may differ by state), and therefore the woman’s position is just as “reasonable” as that of (say) a hypothetical Oregon resident’s whining against benefits received by immigrants from Nebraska. It may just _sound_ less crazy to you because there are more linguistic and cultural differences in the EU case, and no sense of “nationhood” (if a group of EU states wanted to secede, I doubt the others would send huge armies against them resulting in 5 years of bloody civil war, for example… just like I doubt the rest of Canada would invade Quebec were _it_ to secede), but it’s really on the same plane.
“No one in government has ever asked the British people whether they want large scale immigration”: wrong! The UK held a referendum in 1975 on whether its citizens wanted to belong to the EU or not, and the yes vote won with a huge, decisive 67% (the accession of not a few US states to _your_ union was much less crystal-clear than this, remember?-). Belonging to the EU of course entails free movement of people no less than free movement of goods and services among member states, just like belonging to the US does.
The case of foreign students in public UK colleges is no different from that of out-of-state students in State-run US colleges: they’re welcome because they pay much more than local residents and their tuition money in fact keeps the whole system afloat! Far from making it more difficult for local students to attend, the out-of-staters’ money _subsidizes_ such attendance (otherwise, to keep the same number of places for local students, taxes and/or in-state tuition would have to surge a LOT).
I’m saddened to see such a poorly researched article (surely all these points are germane, so why didn’t the author mention them?!), but I can’t say I’m surprised — being, since many years ago, a EU immigrant into the US, I know first-hand the bigotry and gut reactions of the nativists. The crucial fact that immigrants like me were among the founders of over 50% of California’s startups in the last few decades, and therefore directly responsible for many jobs here and for the best-performing part of the State’s economy, is inevitably lost on nativist bigots — incredibly sad, but hardly surprising, in a nation like the US that was **entirely** built upon immigration, decade after decade over centuries.