It’s been fewer than two days since the Oldham by-election, and as you might have read, UK Independence Party (UKIP) sources have had their say about the result, and the increasingly discomforting demographics of a seat like Oldham West and Royton, which even Britain’s election regulator has flagged up as potentially open to fraud.
But you might have missed the comments from the left’s favourite rag, the Guardian, whose reporter Helen Pidd said, from her reporting in the area last week, that a “dismaying number of voters” in the area can’t speak English, and were voting Labour en masse.
Some people think not speaking, or even refusing to speak English is not a hinderance, and possibly even a right. Take the bizarrely positioned Dan Hodges – a Blairite Labour activist who writes for the Telegraph and who, when I last asked him, confirmed to me he was in the pay (to the tune of thousands of pounds) of the anti-UKIP front group ‘Hope Not Hate’, while writing “journalism” about UKIP and British politics.
So a Telegraph columnist is outflanking the Guardian on “racist” claims now. What a time to be alive. Except Ms. Pidd pre-empted Mr. Hodges predictable shark jumping, following up her Nov 27th tweet with:
Quite. But what she had to say about the voters was more disconcerting still:
And the kicker:
Of course the racism lobby had to chime in, with Sanaa Qureshi, from a “charity” called “Football Without Borders” (I didn’t realise football had borders) tweeting:
Qureshi is of course a Muslim who is paid to be incensed about everything, but it’s worth thinking about what she’s saying. Effectively: “no, we won’t integrate, get over it”. Well, we won’t. Especially those of us whose parents went to great lengths to integrate. Ms. Qureshi should also give some thought to her organisation’s charitable (and therefore non-partisan) status before tweeting such things.
We have communities in election fraud sensitive areas who have never heard of the leader of the party they’re voting en masse for… and speak no English, so can’t exactly read election leaflets, listen to radio or TV broadcasts, or even successfully interpret local papers.
So WHY are they voting Labour?
Is it because their community and religious leaders are showing them the right names and symbols to tick? I personally saw that happening in Tower Hamlets in East London on European Election polling day in 2014.
Is it because Labour activists are turning up at their doors, looking all official, and “helping” them fill out their postal ballot papers? I’ve seen that too.
What we have in Britain today, in a handful of constituencies, but enough to be of concern, is a rotten voting system.
Police at polling stations and council employees at election night counts aren’t going to solve the problem. Radical ideas will.
Radical ideas like having to pass a basic English test to get a vote in this country.
Radical ideas like scrapping postal votes for all except the disabled, elderly, or those abroad during elections.
And radical ideas like not jumping to play the race card whenever someone points on something you don’t like, especially when it relies on sources at the Electoral Commission and the Guardian newspaper – not exactly UKIP’s biggest fans.
Dan Hodges has blocked me on Twitter (obviously), but maybe you could share this article with him. And while you’re at it, share the words of that great progressive icon, President Theodore Roosevelt, who said in 1907 (swap out ‘American’ for ‘British’):
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
And if you’re feeling really fruity, you can add another quote from him from 1916:
“Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope he will learn English, but that he has got to learn it. Let the immigrant who does not learn it go back. He has got to consider the interest of the United States or he should not stay here. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend upon his knowing English and observing American standards. The employer cannot be permitted to regard him only as an industrial asset.
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