Toby on Tu..Wednesday *cough*

'Snakes in the Grass'

In the past and given its infestation by spies and traitors, George Blake, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, John Vassall and the rest, and given its obsession with the Euro-project, it has been all-too easy to condemn our Foreign Office as a nest of vipers.   But this is unfair and untrue, as the Foreign Office also contains some outstanding public servants who dedicate themselves to our country with courage and integrity.   And here I would like to introduce you to one of them, Andrew Green, who founded Migration Watch UK and who in 2014 became Lord Green of Deddington.   Such has been his influence in unearthing reliable data on the sheer scale of migration that the other day no less a personage than the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was able to declare that dismissing the fears of those concerned about mass migration as racist was “outrageous.”

 

Now if anyone knows about the trouble that Britain has stored up for herself by her lax migration policy since 1973 it is Andrew Green.   After studying Arabic in the Lebanon, he served in six posts in the Middle East.   From 1991 to 1994, he was our Ambassador in Syria before becoming the Foreign Office’s Director for the Middle East and then finally our Ambassador in Saudi Arabia for nearly five years.   Since retiring in 2000 he has chaired Migration Watch UK, which he co-founded, as well as serving for 12 years on the board of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, highlighting the plight of persecuted Christians.   A wholly admirable man, you might say, but his work has brought him nothing but abuse and vilification from the left.   

 

Yet he has prevailed and it is now possible to talk about the consequences of uncontrolled immigration without being trashed by the politically-correct thought police.   And to confirm the facts, freedom of movement, including access to all benefits, is a core principle of EU membership.   For Britain and Ireland, which are not part of the 26-member Schengen border-free zone, there are passport checks at entry but presentation of a red EU passport still entitles its owner to enter the UK or Ireland and then to just the same rights as existing British or Irish citizens.   The Schengen zone of course, like the doomed Euro currency, is another utopian Euro-construct which is unravelling before our eyes, due in large part to Germany’s trampling over the EU’s own Dublin Regulation on migration.

 

And Andrew Green’s Migration Watch UK has finally started to reveal the true scale of migration into our country, despite all the authorities’ attempts to suppress the figures.   The official statistic is that last year, 617,000 migrants came to live in Britain, while 294,000 emigrated, to give a net figure for migration of 323,000.   Yet Migration Watch UK has revealed that last year 630,000 EU citizens registered for a new National Insurance number.   Given that the official figure includes non-EU immigration, the anecdotal figure of some 1 million new entrants to the UK per annum is almost certainly correct and the population of our country is clearly way ahead of the official statistics – supermarket food sales indicate a figure well over 80 million.   The £9 per hour living wage by 2020 can only act as a further magnet.   

 

If ever the argument that, after 40 years of immigration Britain now needs 40 years of integration, required evidence to support it, then this is it.   And where this is relevant is that, under the current EU-Turkey agreement, some 80 million Turkish citizens will from June onwards enjoy visa-free travel to the Schengen zone and consequently to the UK.   Turkish accession to the EU will follow soon afterwards.   And despite the misgivings of wise and good men like Andrew Green, both the Foreign Office and David Cameron himself are hell bent on bringing Turkey into the EU.   In David Cameron’s own words, “Turkey deserves its place at the top table of European politics – and that is what I will fight for!”   I’ll leave it to you to decide what that particular judgment, just like our Dave’s “Arab Spring” policy in Libya, will do for the EU, but I can guess what someone who really understands the Middle East like Andrew Green must think!

 

Until next Tuesday!

 

Toby