A Christian Eye on Politics
You will not read the above headline (that is, 'Eastern Europeans Flood Britain'), elsewhere. Why? Because Britain is paralyzed by politically-correct liberals who feel some sort of mission to tranquilise the British people against any admission of stark, straight-from-the-shoulder facts which are unpalatable for left-of-centre liberals. So - just in case somebody gets offended - or starts moaning about their "rights," much UK news reporting is often under-stated and overly-cautious in approach [actually there are just a few exceptions to that, the liberal and anti-Christian media will often over-report in certain selected areas, such as when reporting on "new evidence" for (so-called) 'Global Warming' and when any professing Christian gets in trouble with the law, such believers are treated contemptuously and quickly held up to public ridicule].
But truth is - since Britain opened its door to all Europeans within (and apparently also 'almost within') the European Union, her borders have been crossed by many thousands of eastern Europeans "looking for a better life"; at least, that is what the hype tells us. But - fact is - large numbers of these people are actually travelling as singles - mostly unaccompanied men, but increasingly unaccompanied women too. So, where is the connection to 'families looking for a better life'? In the British Home Office figures for May 2004-Jun 2006, it was revealed that 427,000 workers from eight EU accession states had successfully applied for work in UK during this period. Over half of these (62%) were Polish and 82% were aged 18-34. Unfortunately, the source of this information from the Home Office (BBC News website, August 22 2006), did not give information regarding how many of these people were travelling as distinct families and how many as singles. However, those figures are now well out of date and the former gentle stream from eastern Europe is now better described as a 'jet stream.' In 2007 it is believed that over 8,000 eastern Europeans are arriving in Britain every day and a staggering 3 million poured into the country in the 12 months up to June, 2007. The government has claimed that many of these are simply visiting, but another quite astonishing fact is that there is no accurate record of how many of these people ever go home (source: Daily Mail, August 14th, 2007).
Now, of course, Britain has long had the tradition of being prepared to welcome immigrants - nothing new there and many of these people will be genuine. However, an alarming fact which has come to light is how many of these new east European immigrants have quickly become involved in crime. It is now becoming patently clear that among this huge number are criminals who have been on the run from the authorities in their own countries! The British public might have reasonably expected that such checks would have been thoroughly carried out before these people had even reached our shores, but apparently not.
In addition to the huge group already mentioned, Britain also has a problem of thousands of asylum seekers seeking to live in Britain every single year. Unlike the first group, these people might come from almost anywhere. Due to outcry from the longsuffering British public (who had been alarmed to learn that thousands of such asylum-seekers who had previously been refused permission to remain in the UK had never been deported, but simply disappeared somewhere into the populace!), the government has now established temporary detention camps in which to house asylum seekers while their applications are under consideration. It has been known for several years that the vast majority of these people are not genuine asylum seekers at all (that is, they are not at risk if returning to their own countries), and the worry has been strong that petty criminals and - even worse - dedicated terrorists are probably among the number. Campsfield Centre is one such temporary detention centre in England. Recently, 26 men absconded from Campsfield. Later, an embarrassed Home Office were forced to admit that all 26 men who left this immigration detention centre without permission were convicted criminals. Apparently they were "awaiting deportation." It seems that this process can take many months but an enraged British public are demanding to know why such people are not subject to immediate deportation once their cases are decided, since they had entered the country entirely illegally in the first place (because they were never genuine 'asylum-seekers' although had claimed to be such, and had not revealed their criminal record).
A somewhat different but closely associated problem is that the production of fake British passports is apparently a real European growth industry. As far back as 2004 Times Online had reported the ease with which such fake passports were obtainable. The Times Online report stated that these passports,
"...could be used by terrorists, money launderers and illegal immigrants — (and) are being mass-produced by factories in eastern Europe. The counterfeits are cheap, realistic and available in large quantities.
An undercover reporter acquired six bogus passports and five false driving licences from a London-based middleman with links to Moscow gangs. They included a British travel document normally supplied to those granted asylum.
The middleman boasted he could supply 300 passports a month from several EU countries and neighbouring states. Whereas forged passports cost up to £7,000 on the black market, these cost £600 each." (Full report: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1033350.ece).
The feeling is growing that the British Isles is looked upon rather too much as an easy target for organised crime and that certain lawless European gangs are only too quick to exploit this weakness. During just the last 18 months alone, British police have uncovered several cases of non-British gangsters operating in British cities and making non-British girls available for prostituition. In most cases these girls were in the country illegally and were being ruthlessly exploited by gangmasters for the sex trade. They were reduced to slavery. The British autumn fruit picking and the shellfish industry have also been exploited by gangs who have made their people (often illegal immigrants) available for a fee large enough to make the gangmaster wealthy whilst only guaranteeing the hapless workers pocket money and a bed to sleep on. Again, this is virtually slavery! The girls and the seasonal workers are kept under control by gang leaders lyingly warning them that they would face lengthy imprisonment if discovered. In many cases these people could not even speak English so could not check the true facts for themselves.
What are some of the lessons of all this?
One lesson is that Great Britain badly needs to restore strong government which will effectively protect the British people from exploitation by and from those who can only interpret 'national openess' as weakness. Those liberal policies which have been pursued by the present Labour government, first under Tony Blair, now under Gordon Brown, are a main and central culprit for the present situation. Right now Britain badly needs another Winston Churchill or Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately, the current leader of the Conservative Party who is 'waiting in the wings' is David Cameron - a self-confessed liberal who has been critical of traditional conservative values and is something of a Tony Blair admirer!
Apart from the need to abandon a long list of ill-informed liberal policies, Britain also needs to re-assert its determination to retain its innate 'Britishness' and to separate itself from all undue E.U. influence. Liberal policy makers and law makers are now firmly entrenched in Brussels and many of these people would like Britain to simply be the second most western (after Ireland) 'Euro-state.' It is simply intolerable that the British government should ever be dictated to (or told which national laws they should put in place) by the French (whom the British have saved from their own folly twice in the last hundred years), or by the Germans (who have created European havoc twice within the same period). These comments are neither anti-French nor anti-German; both are great countries peopled by great peoples but the long experience of history has vividly demonstrated their total unsuitability to be leaders in European political policy making.
But the major thing which the British need to do to get back to where they should be is to abandon their experiment in cultural and religious pluralism and re-affirm that they are and intend to remain a Christian country. Let the words fall where they may, if anybody should feel their "rights" offended by such a stand, so be it.
Christian Hawk, August 14th, 2007.
(The Christian Hawk is starting to be quoted in many places. That is absolutely fine by us but it should be noted that The Christian Hawk is covered by UK Apologetics copyright).