What strange travels you have, Ronnie!
I should mention I was woken up by you last night, Ronnie, as I was dozing on the sofa watching some repeat of ‘Silent Witness’ on UK Blah!. You suggested that I made a contribution to the BNP thread on Metro; as a result I woke up this morning thinking about the topic and posted a reply or two. You are to blame for all of my contributions in this thread! Tsk!
The fundamental problem with the argument of the woman in the video is that she sees the human species as a collection of separate ‘races’. She could possibly argue that has been encouraged by continued legislation defining such differences in the name of equality, but from an anthropological point she’s on a 'sticky wicket', unless she's prepared to deny the 'Africa Origin' theory which many now accept.
As a fellow board member mentioned earlier: the British Isles have been a collection of possibly the most diverse ethnic population for millennia.
What the woman from that video forgot to mention is that we ‘British’ then went ahead and infiltrated a quarter of the globe with our culture, language, beliefs and system of government. Yes, we should be rightly proud of that achievement as part of our heritage, with perhaps many regrets about the methods employed.
But perhaps some of our ‘British’ technology, transport ingenuity and innovation led towards the global society we are seeing develop now; and all for the betterment of humankind, not individual ‘races’, the differences between which we can see eroded by every generation. I don't see any disadvantages with that stage of evolution.
Nationalism must not be confused with patriotism, which can obviously be a positive tool, and was employed to good effect during the Second World War. Some have claimed that we are denying that heritage by opening our borders so willingly to those from the rest of the EU and the rest of the world.
The UK is a nice place to live, we wouldn’t all be here otherwise. It’s safe and secure, but by no means perfect. Obviously it’s a place other people want to come to live in, but that again is something we should be proud of. I think it’s fair that perhaps we increase border controls, as we can’t afford to pay for everyone who sees the UK as ‘utopia’, otherwise we’ll suffocate under the strain. However, draconian restrictions won’t help the rest of the world open their borders.
Australia had some immigration restrictions during the 70s, which my Mum failed for health reasons, otherwise I'd be an Aussie now, but they were still trying to populate a rapidly growing country and had the chance to take the best available. The world doesn't operate in such isolated bubbles anymore; people who support the BNP will realise that in the end.
It’s quite easy for those of us who disagree with BNP policies to view this as a fateful event which may now force some people to express publicly their hitherto unknown feelings - if they could possibly have an influence on their effectiveness at work.