Government and Media Hype - Who Should We Really Be Afraid Of?

“In 1859 Friedrich Engels poked a man in the eye with an umbrella and soon heard from the man's lawyers. 'Needless to say', he wrote, 'these blasted English don't want to deprive themselves of the pleasure of getting their hands on a bloody foreigner.'”

This book is an account of the 'tangled roots' of history that make up our mongrel nation, pointing out that from the amalgamation of Jutes, Saxons, Romans, Danes etc. up to the present time one would be hard-pressed to find a true (pure) Englishman. Immigration, and conversely emigration has been an intricate part of our development. In the 12^th century came French Jews to London, Lincoln, York and Norwich; in the Elizabethan age Italian musicians, German businessmen and the first African slaves; then Protestants from the Low Countries seeking religious tolerance; Huguenot refugees from France 'en masse' in the 17^th century; likewise Greek Christians fleeing from the Turks. In 1768, courtesy of the slave trade, there were 20,000 black Londoners out of a total population of 600,000 and in 1840 400,000 Irish escaping the potato famine came to Manchester, London, Liverpool and Glasgow. By the end of the 19^th century 40,000 Italians and 50,000 Germans had settled here plus 150,000 Jewish evacuees from Tzarist pogroms in Russia. At the time of their arrival most of these groups suffered hostility of varying degrees but as the generations rolled by they were gradually accepted.

Some of the well-known immigrants and their institutions include Rothchilds, Reuters, Marks and Spencer, Trust House Forte, Tesco, Joseph Conrad, Harold Pinter, Doris Lessing, Simon Schama and Linford Christie.

   We imported kings from Germany and Holland, queens from France and Spain and recruited fighting forces from the wide world to support our efforts in WW1 and 2 and then actively recruited large numbers of workers from the colonies post-WW2.

    As a result of intricate research Winder exposes the manipulations, lies and exaggerations of media accounts of more recent waves of immigration and asylum seekers, e.g. in the Thatcher era, with immigrants making up 4% of the population, she gave her vision of what made Britain 'Great' – 9% felt there were too many immigrants before she expounded compared with 21% who admitted to being worried afterwards. Other examples reveal the actual state of monetary and housing benefits to immigrants which are wildly different from the stories abounding in the media.

Poor bloody foreigners – they're just used as a convenient group, easy to label and point the finger at. Instead of falling for the divide and rule tactics which weaken us all, workers should recognise who their real enemy is and work together to defeat the system that enslaves us all.

Book Review: first in Socialist Standard, September 2009

Bloody Foreigners – The story of immigration to Britain

Robert Winder 2004 Abacus

J.S.