Breitbart London’s Editor in Chief Raheem Kassam joined presenters Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn as guest of the day on the BBC’s Daily Politics programme yesterday.
Remarking on the ongoing migrant crisis, Raheem Kassam said that he would not be inclined to take more refugees into the United Kingdom, at least not until Britain’s net immigration figure was significantly reduced – a pledge made by David Cameron in 2010 and which, to this day, he has completely failed to honour.
“I believe we’ve been led down a path by successive government who have sort of dirtied immigration as a word. I don’t see immigration as a bad word. But the extent to which it has been conducted since 2004 actually has driven public opinion to this point.”
He argued that people no longer trust politicians or the media, and that Tony Blair’s recklessness with Britain’s borders was to blame.
He was joined by the Guardian columnist, Rev Giles Fraser, who argued that the public was wrong on the issue of immigration, and said dismissed the idea that multiculturalism and mass migration had created, at a minimum, cohesion problems in the United Kingdom.
Kassam stated, “That’s all well and good to say from London, this multi-cultural paradise… or, not a paradise actually, let’s face it… but in the rest of the country there are cohesion problems, there are integration problems. We’re seeing the problems of migration from Rotherham to Tower Hamlets.”
Fraser replied: “I understand those concerns… it’s just wrong.”
Kassam replied: “So these things aren’t happening? Tower Hamlets isn’t segregated?”
Fraser: “There’s all sorts of issues but I think people that have that reaction to people who are coming from another culture, I actually think they’re just wrong about their moral reactions.”