Multiculturalism

Is multiculturalism working for Britain?

George Galloway is going to be sworn into Parliament today or is he the new MP for Gaza? It’s so difficult to tell these days. This, after Rishi Sunak targeted both Islamist and for some reason far right extremists on Friday saying that democracy is under threat.

This comes as hate preachers will be blocked from entering the UK as a terror threat level, we’re told reaches its highest since 9/11. But, I thought hate preachers were already not allowed in the country?

Let’s talk about all of this and plenty more besides with author and journalist Douglas Murray who joins me right now. Good afternoon to you Douglas, how did we get here? Good afternoon, thanks for joining us.

I mean, you know we’re only talking about Islamist extremism now after the rise of what we’re seeing on our streets, so don’t forget also far right extremism because Rishi Sunak seems just as concerned about that does, he not, even though I’ve not really seen that being a particular issue on our streets every other Saturday or indeed with, you know, what is going on in terms of threats to Parliament.

But there we are, that’s up to him, but this all comes of course after George Galloway was elected as the new MP for Rochdale, but then immediately said this was for Gaza. It all goes back to what my last guest went through Noah, on October the 7^th. How did we get here Douglas?

George Galloway & Rochdale

Well, it’s several things Julia, as you know I mean the first, multiculturalism is obvious and in the case of a parliamentary seat like Rochdale, it’s a result of mass migration for many years and a total failure to integrate populations as I’ve said repeatedly for a very long time.

Now, if you import the world’s people you also import the world’s problems and you know there’s a reason why it wasn’t just Galloway but the Labour candidate for Rochdale who of course had to pull out or was dumped eventually by the Labour party for making antisemitic comments. It’s no coincidence is it that there was a sort of cluster of people who pander to certain bigotry in that seat.

That’s what a significant number of people in that voting district want and you know Galloway is an opportunist of course, but he was giving the local electorate or part of the local electorate what they want.

If you were an ordinary citizen who cared about you know unemployment, poverty, opportunity and much more in that area you didn’t really get a say, you didn’t get anyone to vote for in this election, it wasting the leaflets that were put out, there were two very different white boards got you know it’s all about the I know what a woman is, Rochdale grooming gangs, a local maternity hospital but it was the Muslims.

It’s all about Gaza and he said in his speech you know this was a win for Gaza. When this is a city or sort of town that has huge problems, I mean huge issues of you know poverty and deprivation and desperately needs an awful lot to be dealt with and I’m not entirely sure that they should be concerning themselves almost entirely with what’s going on in Gaza.

Rochdale Grooming Gangs

I mean that’s their choice, but it’s not going on to necessarily help those people, it’s all connected though Julia. I mean Rochdale as most people watching will know is the scene of one of the most appalling rape gang scandals in modern Britain and there’s an interesting conundrum that that throws itself up here which is what happens if you are a voter in Rochdale who has seen this happen in your neighbourhood. Who knows it’s happening, who probably knows of victims and you’d like to get your voice heard, to have a vote on multiculturalism.

Well, here are the options; you can make your voice heard in the way that most of us can in democracy which is to speak up, make your voice heard by you know going out on the streets or attending a demonstration or something, but no, if you did that you would be decried as a member of the far right immediately because you’re not allowed to have a voice on matters like that.

If you happen to be particularly white and working class, let alone a white working-class male which it seems is the least pleasant thing to be in the eyes of much of the commentariat in the UK, you’re not meant to have a voice.

But let’s say instead of turning out on the streets or making your voice heard in opposition to rape gangs then you waited patiently to exercise your vote in the democratic process. Well then, you have a bunch of people ranting about the Jews and friends of Saddam Hussein and Bashar Al Assad all showing up and again pandering to the local Muslim vote and you don’t really have a say then either.

So, when Rishi Sunak and others play this game of ‘it’s about Islamists but also the far-right’ yeah there are some far-right people in the UK and they are completely on the fringes and they’re disliked by everybody.

Far Left, Far Right

They don’t have any place in our democracy, they’re not in Parliament, they don’t get voted into Parliament Rishi Sunak had to summon up the spectre of the former head of the British National Party Nick Griffin who’s had absolutely no presence in public life for 13 or 14 years now, had to summon up him up like a ghoul as an example of a far right.

But I go back to this point, what if you’re just a concerned voter in Rochdale who has seen the Muslim rape gangs in your area, who has seen all of equivocation of the political class and has seen everybody who’s spoken up about multiculturalism decried as far right? You know where exactly are you, a louder voice on this yes exactly and where are you on this?

That’s the thing and again I think lots of people watching that speech that Rishi Sunak made were quite shocked by again the sort of, on the one hand far right, on the one hand Islamic extremism, when I’m not aware of the far right playing a role in our democratic procedures being changed a couple of weeks ago as a result of the far right the threats to MPs. Right now, are coming from Islamist extremism, not from the far right.

A teacher forced into hiding for over three years in Batley, not from the far right. A cinema chain not showing a film about the prophet Muhammad’s family not from the far right. London Bridge attacked both of them, Westminster bridge, I mean you know, I can keep going, like yes Joe Cox awful, horrible, terrible murder, but really is that all they’ve got.

Intimidation of MPs

I mean that’s all they’ve got and yet we’re going to say these things are equivalent when quite clearly they aren’t, but the British government has played this very cynical game for many years now and again I come back to this point, if there had been a far right crowd, an actually far right crowd let’s say of British National Party to again summon up that long dead spectre of the past, if there had been a British National Party demonstration outside the House of Commons the other week, you know it’s not like you or I or anyone else we know would have any problem condemning that either.

It’s like, it’s very simple, we wouldn’t want and we don’t like thugs of any kind intimidating our representatives let alone threatening them, we find that perfectly easy and if there was such a group you and I and others wouldn’t have a problem with saying we condemn this.

We wouldn’t have to summon up other groups to sort of allow us to condemn it, we just condemn it okay so why are they so afraid, why are they so, why are you so afraid of calling out the failure of multiculturalism? Because it seems to me, we often hear and again even in Rishi Sunak speech again there’s a lot of talk about you know diversity and you know and multi-ethnic, interesting he did keep saying multi-ethnic rather than multiculturalism or multiracial rather than multiculturalism which I thought was very interesting because for years we’ve been told by politicians that multiculturalism is good diversity.

Multiculturalism has Failed

Of itself, on its own is a good thing and a lot of people like me and you rather more beautiful profile in your books Douglas have made a point that multiculturalism isn’t necessarily a good thing multi-ethnicity, multiracial absolutely fine no issue there, but culture is something that should be what a country defines itself by. We like our culture being liberal about people having equal rights, if whether they’re white or black or women or men or gay or straight and being able to marry someone of their faith, of their choice being able to have a religious view and leave that religion if they so choose without facing a death threat.

Really basic stuff like that but multiculturalism doesn’t necessarily mean that does it? No it doesn’t, but I mean this is just so all of this is just so past its sell by date.

I mean it’s almost 15 years now since prime ministers Sarkosy, Angela Merkel and David Cameron all said that multiculturalism had failed and so this is an old argument, this argument has been effectively won, i.e. lost years ago and here we still are in the UK rabbiting on about it and why the fact is that some diversity is good for a society.

But there must be some point at which multiculturalism no longer is and I would say that the point at which it no longer is, is where you have communities of people who hold on to the prejudices that they brought from their country of origin and then start to push them into our own political system. Worst of all is when that happens in a threatening manner as it does with sections of the Muslim communities in this country.

Many People do not want to Integrate in Britain

Where effectively MPs and the speaker and the Prime Minister and everyone else are intimidated from identifying the problem. You know I’m so fed up of hearing people saying things that you know would have been fine 20 years ago but are just way out of date now. The question now is what are you going to do about it?

What are you going to do about it and Richie Sunak’s answer is; well, we have record high migration but we’ll talk about what a great liberal country we are. No that just doesn’t do it, a lot of people don’t want to integrate in Britain and we should have realized that by now.

They don’t want to be part of Britain and what’s more when Rishi Sunak and others talk about this country, they very often talk about it as if it’s just you know our liberalism, our political liberalism is the one thing that we have going for us. That our diversity is actually our essence as a country and that’s just not true.

Britain was not very diverse until about 60 years ago and was certainly nothing like what it is now until the last few decades principally since the Labour election of 1997 & subsequent drive for multiculturalism.

But you know this is a country Great Britain with an extraordinarily long and rich history, all of which we now push aside, all of which we ignore and we sell ourselves simply as this uber liberal sort of landing spot for the world and I don’t think that passes muster. It’s also, it’s not the need to be tolerant something the British public asked for or consented to and when asked repeatedly say no thank you very much.

British Politicans Enabled George Galloway

Again, that doesn’t make someone racist or bigoted or xenophobic it’s about wanting to protect the very thing that supposedly what attracts people to this country and again the need as Sweden and Germany and other countries have discovered the need to be intolerant of intolerance and stop tolerating that.

Can I ask you just in terms of George Galloway which seemed to be what prompted the prime minister to make this speech on Friday evening, though of course when Suella Braverman and Lee Anderson speak about very similar things apparently it’s totally beyond the pale and they really can’t be you know in the government or part of the conservative party anymore because of their clumsy language.

But it seems to me that the British people don’t deserve George Galloway but it seems to me that the British political class do and that they created him, they have created his success, they are responsible for it and they’re the ones who are going to have to do something about it. Do you agree?

Well, they just, they’re all, I mean Labour, Conservative they’re all totally incapable of speaking to the public, they’re incapable of speaking to our concerns. Rishi Sunaks speech was a good example, any speech by any Labour MP is a very good example.

Look at Jess Phillips last week talking about how wonderful Birmingham is and how there are no problems in her area and how the marchers and the Palestinian protesters weren’t any problem.

Hate Preachers

You know she should look by the way to her constituency, she should look to Birmingham and the hate preachers preaching antisemitism in the mosques in Birmingham which there’s plenty of video of. She could find it if she was curious about it but because all these parties have ducked all these issues of course they leave it open and they also pander to it.

As I say there’s a reason why the Labour party selected and then deselected somebody who was pandering to antisemitism, it was because he was pandering to a voter base in Rochdale that wants antisemites and wants to vote for them. If the best that Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer can do in response to that is to start talking about fundamental British values then I’m sorry we’ve lost already.

It has to be said, one other thing quickly if I may George Galloway is a great political opportunist, I just hope that all the Muslims who voted for him are pleased they voted for somebody who said the most slathering and slavish things about Saddam Hussein and Bashar al Assad two men who’ve killed more Muslims in recent decades than anyone else in the world.

So those Muslim voters in Rochdale can feel proud of themselves yeah, they’re really good Muslims, they’re great Brothers great, yeah good work.

Always good to talk to you thank you very much indeed. Sam Armstrong quick word from you, 10 years ago Douglas warned that Europe was literally dying, he said it’s a strange death that our leaders were committing suicide.

I cannot hold that view anymore strongly now, they hate us, they hate our values, they hate what we stand for, they’ve replaced it with this bile, dangerous Multicultural nonsense.