Please don’t ask me to tolerate them, understand them, accommodate them, or sympathise with why they feel as they do. I won’t. No one should. I live my life seeking to love my neighbour as myself, which I think is a pretty good way to approach the obligation to all others, whether a person follows a faith or does not. Reform and those who support it oppose that idea. They do, as a result, oppose the whole tradition of thinking that has supposedly underpinned our society for around fifteen centuries.
The desire to overthrow the essence and culture of a society to fundamentally change the norms of behaviour within it is what defines extremism. That is why the far-right is properly described as such. That is why Germany has got this right with regard to the AfD. That is why Reform should also be named as such here in the UK.
The, err, 15 centuries of essence of culture was that our neighbours were those from around us. We looked very askance at Celts let alone Frogs over that time. Muttering something about illiterate goatherders from the Hindu Kush is, in fact, very English, pretty much the essence of that 1500 years of that culture. Even, to note that as individuals wholly welcome, waves not so much.
You know, there were a few centuries of kerfluffle about Willy the Bastard and all that?
Neighbours? I am not obliged to love them.
I don’t care about their race.
I don’t care about their religion.
I don’t even care about their culture.
I care about their behaviour. And that applies at all scales.
My main problem with the left is that their support for migration is one way. When people come from other countries to the UK, then it is great. When British people migrate to other countries, then it is bad.
The desire to overthrow the essence and culture of a society to fundamentally change the norms of behaviour within it is what defines the pro-immigration lot to a T.
It matters little how the concerns of great swathes of the electorate are addressed (the best way of addressing them could just be to sit down and gently explain the real world – depends on the issue).
No, that part matters little. What matters is that those concerns are genuine and need to be properly addressed.
It’s no good accusing Reform of manufacturing grievance – they are simply giving voice to what already exists. The main parties are either in denial of that or simply give it empty lip-service (or both).
Until they change that attitude then their decline will continue.
It is now more than 9 years since I filed my application for a US green card. My case is currently shown as being due for consideration in 2030. During that time between 15-25million illegals will have entered the country – probably nearer the lower figure if the southern border remains effectively closed under Trump.
Over the same period I wonder how many third worlders have increased the UK population?
I mean the real figure, not the results of some Home Office Tarquin with a clipboard asking new arrivals into Heathrow “how long do you expect to be over here for?”
https://www.gbnews.com/membership/overseas-nationals-national-insurance-numbers
“This means 96.6 per cent of NI numbers issued in 2023/24 were to non-EU nationals.”.
I live my life seeking to love my neighbour as myself…
Also:
Please don’t ask me to tolerate them, understand them, accommodate them, or sympathise with why they feel as they do. I won’t. No one should.
Not those neighbours!
Jon – yarp, lol.
The Heresiarch of Wandsworth has an interesting take on Christ’s instructions.
Apparently our neighbours aren’t our neighbours, but itchy-feet Albanian gangsters who arrived in this country 5 minutes ago to consume welfare and sell drugs are our neighbours.
Jesus Christ – who fashioned a whip to deal with blasphemers and whose apostles carried swords – never told us to commit national suicide.
Candidly, I think Ritchie understands Christianity as well as he does economics. 28 year old unmarried, student indebted baristas living in expensive rented accommodation are begging for a loaf but he gives them a stone.
Steve. Evidently 1 Timothy 5:8 is unknown:
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
As you say, ‘ his own’ is now everyone except our fellow Englishmen and women.
“whose apostles carried swords”: it was illegal for civilians to carry swords in the Roman Empire. They must have been very naughty boys.
Dearieme – They must have been very naughty boys.
They were. Peter cut a guy’s ear off and escaped from prison.
Sell your cloak.
“ The desire to overthrow the essence and culture of a society to fundamentally change the norms of behaviour within it is what defines extremism. “
Like, for example, a woman doesn’t have a womb but does have a penis and anyone who says others wise should go to gaol; that it is acceptable for scantily clad men performing as women in a lewd manner in primary schools in front of infants; that having abnormal sexual preferences is a matter of pride and must not just be tolerated, but celebrated?
The thing about lunatics is they think they are sane and everyone else is mad.
Jon – Yarpsolutely, it’s a 100% inversion of Christ’s teachings.
Xenophilia and plesiophobia are nowhere to be found in the Holy Bible. It’s also not a manual for socialism.
I feel like Zia Yusuf is reading my mind*:
Reform UK could take the government to court to prevent migrants being housed in areas where it now controls the local council, party chairman Zia Yusuf told the BBC.
Yusuf said his party had pledged to “resist” housing asylum seekers in Reform-controlled areas and it would use “every instrument of power available”, including judicial reviews, to fulfil its pledge.
The Home Office is responsible for housing adult asylum seekers and while councils can object, they have little power to stop it.
Reform gained more than 600 seats and took control of 10 local authorities in Thursday’s local elections.
As we spoke about yesterday, this will have little effect on numbers, but could have a great effect in politics, as the British state tries to hide the invasion from British voters. Sunlight is our friend and not theirs.
*But don’t be reading my mind between 4 and 5, that’s Willie’s time!
What I’ve always said about Christians. Read their book & watch what they do, not listen to what they say. They’re a couple of centuries past being Islam. Sometimes.
BiS – I agree, ye shall know them by their fruits. Christianity is not a religion of peace or tolerance. It’s a religion of forgiveness.
Jesus Christ surrounded himself with rough men, not simpering, tea-sipping clerics or scrawny nice guys with trendy politics. The modern social equivalent of the Apostles drives a white van, goes to the gym a lot, beeps the horn at passing “fit birds”, and shouts “Oi! Oi!” as a greeting to his mates down the boozer before getting wankered on a Friday night. And is called Barry, or Dazza, or St. Deano.
Our God is so great he can use a bad man like Saul of Tarsus, a turbulent and hateful man who participated in the murder of Stephen, for good. Those pews aren’t built for saints and angels, but for bad men like me and you. By extension, of course the hierarchy is full of bad people, weak people, foolish people, hypocritical and cowardly people. How could it be otherwise? Crooked timber is all they had at the shop, yet build we still must.
You seem alright, BiS. Don’t go to Damascus tomorrow.
@Geoffers – “It’s no good accusing Reform of manufacturing grievance – they are simply giving voice to what already exists.”
Really? Then why does the Telegraph report Runcorn UKIP MP Sarah Pochin as saying “The more HMOs we get with these legal immigrants in them, the more the threat of drug dealing goes on, the more the threat of grooming gangs starts.” but also report that the party is a lot more popular among men than women? Surely if there were a real problem it is the women who would be clamouring for a solution, not the men?
Though there is some truth in saying that it is something which already exists, as there is a deep part of human nature to divide people into an ingroup and an outgroup and blame bad things on the outgroup.
If you feel any temptation to support Reform, I suggest you read their policies and that should discourage you.
Charles, you’re such a straight arrow.
There is a problem. With I slam, with immigrants. It isn’t a perception thing, it’s real. What aspect of rape gangs do younthink is made up, or over-egged? Why is the set of problems denied or ignored? Why do those who promise to fix it always find that they can’t because it’s too difficult?
Here’s my hypothesis. Ever since the Windrush and the Notting Hill reiots the establishment have been concerned only about what I call the Dreaded White Backlash. Possibly influenced by the racial problems in the US. Wher rednecks employed every violent measure to maintain their status quo.
Well, we never had a dreaded white backlash. The odd disturbance, nothing more. But the establishment never changed their line. They imported more immigrants when they might have heeded the warnings, but it was the messengers who got shot, the problem was not nipped in the bud.
And now we have the defence of rape gangs and their enablers, because of the dreaded white backlash. We have rioters in Southport locked and then anyone who tweeted in question of the official story. Because of the dreaded white backlash. We have two-tier justice because of the dreaded white backlash. And now, at the end of the can-kicking road, in the long grass, we finally have the dreaded white backlash. At the ballot box in a fiddled local election. And the establishment can’t understand.
Steve. Syria is not & never has been on my travel itinerary.
Syria (and Iraq and Iran) were places I was keen to visit 30 years ago. Today, not so much.
Although not labelled as such it is Murphy
Remember that we are talking about a party here that Farage aligns with.
This is the party that the Trump cohort, with whom Farage aligns, went out of their way to support before the recent German elections
Political opponents look to castigate a party as extremist – how surprising. Obviously parties committed to wholesale de industrialisation and the replacement of the indigenous population are ‘mainstream’ – that goes without saying
And this is the party that the far-right in France, with whom Farage has very clear sympathies, also supports.
This is a Reform adjacent party, and it has been ruled to be a far-right extremist organisation, as I also think Reform is.
I’m reminded of the Roger Daltrey lyrics as are so many I am sure
You cannot run a party on the basis of hate, which vilifies those who care about others in their communities,
That’s your Hamas Allies rather up the proverbial I think on that basis
and sets up ethnic minorities as objects of hate to be discriminated against
On that basis every party in the U.K. is an extremist organisation as all bar Reform seek to set white people as problematic
, and which denies science,
It isn’t Reform having a meltdown over women being described as women
and which seeks to undermine intellectuals and the arts, whilst using faith as a basis for discrimination in a community,
I take it you are the ‘intellectual’ here – more power to their pen frankly
whilst all the time promoting radical nationalism, and not be far-right extremists, or fascists for short.
Anyone supporting pro Hamas extremists and calling anyone else Fascist is a hypocrite the likes of which Jesus would have been the first to condemn.
!These are what the symbols of the far-right are. These things are what Reform does.
The cognitive dissonance is unusually strong even for him
“The Heresiarch of Wandsworth has an interesting take on Christ’s instructions. Apparently our neighbours aren’t our neighbours, but itchy-feet Albanian gangsters who arrived in this country 5 minutes ago to consume welfare and sell drugs are our neighbours.”
Christ’s instructions are pretty clear, so long as you understand the cultural context around priests, Levites, and Samaritans.
Luke 10:29-37
29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
The Jewish interpretation of the time was that ‘neighbour’ referred to the community of fellow Jews. Priests and Levites were leading members of the Jewish community. Samaritans were regarded as despised heretics and non-Jews. The point of the story was that ‘neighbour’ wasn’t defined by nationality or community, but by merciful behaviour. It’s not about who calls themselves a Christian, who is an upstanding citizen of the official Christian community, it’s about who acts in accordance with Christ’s teachings.
‘Neighbour’ doesn’t mean everyone. It doesn’t mean people who live near you. It doesn’t mean people sharing the same community or culture. It certainly doesn’t mean people who abuse you, or turn their back on you. It means people who are unstintingly generous to you when you are in need out of their own resources. (Note, not a socialist, because the Samaritan spent his own money, not the taxpayers.)
English culture might for 15 centuries have followed a tradition that called itself ‘Christianity’, but like many other societies founded on an ideal before it, they tended to deviate somewhat from the letter of the law they supposedly were following. Distaste for the outsider is a universal human characteristic, not a specifically English one.
(By the way, I’m not a Christian, so I’m not arguing that this is in any way a good idea or something that morally we are required to do. I’m only commenting on what Christ said.)
NiV – But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
By the way, I’m not a Christian,
That is why you fail.
Hi Charles
Sorry, didn’t see your reply until now and my response might be too late, given the ephemeral nature of blog threads. Anyhow, here goes ….
“Yes, really.”
“That is why you fail.”
Fail what?
And how would you know? Neither are you.
Matthew 7:21-23
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.