Many different Englands

Vägen mellan Birmingham och Wolverhampton. Foto: TN

Under rubriken Many different Englands skriver Eric Kaufmann i Prospect om utvecklingen som hänger samman med frågorna om etnicitet, mångkultur och invandring i Storbritannien:

 "The passing of Margaret Thatcher and the publication of David Goodhart’s new book, The British Dream, took place in the same week. Yet the two events share a more substantive connection. Goodhart, though a stronger supporter of the welfare state than Mrs Thatcher, endorses her view that white working-class people in areas of immigration “need to be reassured rather than patronised.” Accordingly, Goodhart welcomes the Tory government’s pledge to reduce immigration and its focus on integration. He notes that Thatcher presided over a period of relatively low immigration in which far-right movements like the National Front were in abeyance.

Yet even if net immigration is reduced to 100,000 a year, ethnic change in Britain will remain brisk: minorities are considerably younger and still have somewhat larger families than the white British. If white anxieties are powered by the sense that the white British are becoming a minority, then the challenge will not abate and far-right support will remain buoyant. No amount of talk about the sunlit uplands of a new Britishness can conceal the fact that being a member of a dwindling ethnic majority is conducive to alienation: just look at the mood of Northern Ireland’s Protestant working class in depopulating areas like Belfast’s Shankill."

Hans artikeln är ovanlig på så sätt att han argumenterar och diskuterar istället för att hojta och gasta. Det har han gemensam med David Goodhart som han nämner alldeles i början av artikeln (vars bok jag recenserade här). Hela Kaufmanns artikel finns att läsa här.