Speech by William Clouston at the Battle of Ideas, Sunday 20th October 2024
The challenge – amid atomisation and the loss of the common life – is to find a new us.
THREE OBSERVATIONS:
We’re living through the latest stage in a progressive project to re-make society. Large-scale immigration and multiculturalism is an experiment which carries very high social and political risks. It’s unprecedented – but warnings of the risks have been largely ignored. In-group preference, clannishness, that hardy perennial – racism – and even the fact that human beings can at times be violent animals should be weighed into any multicultural project. The lack of any plan for integration is concerning in a country currently filled with self-doubt and self-hatred – culturally, at war with itself. This session poses the question – integration into what? And it’s good question…
Quote:
“Europe has contrived to weaken national identities at a time when the legitimacy of its institutions has never been more widely questioned. It is a dangerous place to launch an experiment in liberal utopianism.”
John Gray
It’s vital to grasp that immigrants make the places they go to a lot like the places they’ve left. Assimilation – full assimilation – is a myth. Cultural traits, beliefs, practices are highly persistent across generations. They’re sticky. It’s unreasonable and unrealistic to expect people to simply shed their beliefs – particularly religious and cultural beliefs – on arrival. It won’t happen. If you import millions of people with belief x – do not expect them to change it to belief y. Culture migrates.
Super diversity is not a strength. The slogan ‘diversity is our strength’ is an unscientific cliche – a piece of crude political propaganda.
Bob Putnam was correct in saying that some diversity can be a strength but that super diversity lowers social trust, solidarity and sharing.
That’s what the data says. David Goodhart was right to ask the question – Too Diverse? The lesson is that diversity must have limits – or Beirut will be our likely destination.
HOW TO IMPROVE NATIONAL SOLIDARITY?
First, bring the question of immigration and border security under democratic control by aligning it to public sentiment. The survival of the nation state – as a coherent and safe dominion – depends on border control. This will be harder than we might realise. Our political elites have lied to us for over a generation. And policy is outsourced to trans-national legal architecture.
Second, end our chronic addiction to mass immigration. Stop using immigration as a short-term fix – a sticking plaster – to plug labour market gaps. Do some sensible labour market planning. Train British people, give them the skills they need.
Third, heresy… adopt the principle that immigration should benefit the British people. Therefore, it must be highly selective and at much lower levels. Despite what our ruling class thinks… our country is not a shop and it is not a charity.
Fourth, end all DEI appointments and ban Critical Race Theory in public institutions. Accusative anti-white gaslighting and agitation is not helpful. It’s not going to bring anyone together and the state should not be paying for it.
Finally, I believe that strong civic nationalism is our only hope – the only chance we have of finding a new us. We need a national identity robust enough to transcend ethnic and religious differences – because those differences exist.
This can’t be done if our ruling class constantly denigrates British culture and history. After all, who would buy into a culture that can’t respect itself?
Can we do it? Yes, I think we can – but we have to want to.