We mustn’t allow fears over immigration to make us lose ‘a common sense of what it is to be British’

FOR years, anyone who suggested that mass immigration raised fundamental issues about our nation was dismissed as racist.

Mention that it might cause problems to allow hundreds of thousands of people a year to settle here, with no thought given as to how — or even whether — they should integrate, and you were accused of pandering to prejudice.

3

Repeat the warnings of doctors, teachers and housing officials that in some towns they simply couldn’t cope and you were attacked as a bigot.

Now, however, there is official confirmation that mass immigration has had a profound effect on the country.

Dame Louise Casey’s groundbreaking report shows how whole towns have changed beyond “all recognition”.

Some parts of Blackburn, Birmingham, Burnley and Bradford are so segregated that they are 85 per cent Muslim.

Political correctness meant that governments did nothing to counter these trends because they feared being labelled as racist.

All they achieved was to create fertile territory for extremists.

Since Tony Blair opened up our borders without ever consulting the public, every government has behaved in the same way — refusing to acknowledge that there has ever been an issue.

3

The biggest political consequence of that so far has been the Brexit vote, when the electorate seized the first chance to take back control of our borders.

As if that wasn’t enough of a wake-up call for our complacent political class, Dame Louise’s report now exposes the deep impact of mass immigration.

Britain has been changed, without any consultation or even planning.

The report is a damning indictment of all governments since the ’90s.

But because, for the first time, it confronts reality rather than a multi-cultural fantasy, it gives grounds for hope.

The job now is to look ahead at how we make up for previous failures.

A basic start is for immigrants to Britain to learn and speak English.

But more widely that means, as Louise Casey puts it, “a common sense of what it is to be British and what our common values, rights and responsibilities are”.

Because if we lose that, we lose everything.

related stories

'MAJOR WAKE-UP CALL'

Even rich areas of UK are 'riddled' with hidden poverty as cost of living spirals out of control, says charity

REFUGEE CRISIS OUT OF CONTROL

War, gang violence and poverty has 'driven 50 million children from their homes'

HUMAN TIDE

More than 50,000 terrified citizens flee Aleppo as families scramble to get out of rebel-held areas while Syrian government siege rages

‘RISKING THEIR LIVES’

Plight of refugees past and present documented in series of powerful images

Aid scandal

3

IT is bad enough when taxpayers’ money is frittered away on idiotic aid projects.

We’re so used to that happening that it seems almost normal.

Britain is donating more than half a billion pounds to Somalia.

But an official report says that taxpayers’ cash is “certain” to end up in the pockets of terrorists.

The Government is committed to splashing the cash on aid, just so it can say it has hit an idiotic UN target.

Surely they can see that something is deeply wrong.