Rather than them adapting to our way of life, we were adapting to theirs. This wasn’t integration. It was a revolution. Yet nobody – especially their elected representatives – would listen to them, because they were assumed to be Powellite bigots, motivated by some sort of unreasoning hatred.
I now believe that the unreasoning hatred comes almost entirely from the liberal Left. Of course, there are still people who harbour stupid racial prejudices. But most of those concerned about immigration are completely innocent of such feelings.
The screaming, spitting intolerance comes from a pampered elite who are ashamed of their own country, despise patriotism in others and feel none themselves. They long for a horrible borderless Utopia in which love of country has vanished…
It wasn’t our wages that were depressed, or our work that was priced out of the market. Immigrants didn’t do the sort of jobs we did. They were no threat to us. The only threat might have come from the aggrieved British people, but we could always stifle their protests by suggesting that they were modern-day fascists.