30 years of campaigning & 3 months in prison

Two stories from today's newspapers vindicate my political campaigning of the past 30 years, but I get little satisfaction from this. In fact, it just adds to the depression of a rather gloomy Sunday here in the far north of Cumbria.

In the Sunday Telegraph we are informed that increased immigration and a high immigrant birthrate will push the population of the British Isles to 75 million by 2051. That's up from last year's total of 60 million and more than double the recommended population for the UK as suggested by population experts at the Optimum Trust. This increase will be the equivalent of building two new cities the size of London in our countryside. The demand generated will push housing, transport and public services to breaking point and our present predominantly White society will have been lost forever.

What irritates me is that our experts claim that it is a 'baby boom', among immigrant women that has forced the statisticians to raise their estimate for the birthrate of the entire population.
"Foreign-born women living in the UK have, on average, 2.2 children. Pakistani-born women living here have an average of 4.7, whereas British-born women have only 1.6. Last year, 22% of UK births were to foreign-born women," reports the newspaper.

"It's not a baby boom", I feel like shouting. "It's just the normal birthrate for immigrant women, and back in their own countries it is even higher!" Most people knew this back in 1972 when immigration from Asia started with a vengeance, only our Labour and Conservative politicians have seemed unable to grasp that fact.

In The Observer today, senior police officers have warned that there must be more 'stop and search' of people from ethnic minorities if the fight against inner-city gun and knife crime is to succeed. Now how often have we heard that!

Police were getting on top of immigrant crime back in 1981 in Brixton. But when the criminal elements in that part of South London rioted to show their disquiet at such effective policing, officers were forced to back off and even ended up being accused of 'racism'. In 1985, after a resurgence of Black crime in our inner cities, Police clamped down again. The criminal elements, this time in Handsworth in Birmingham, didn't like it and rioted again forcing the police to back off once more.

But this time it is very much a softly, softly approach with the leader of the Black Police Association being trotted out to call for a return of stop and search. Now this is very surprising because this organisation had previously questioned the high proportion of black people being stopped and searched by police. In fact, senior black and Asian officers had publicly stated that stop and search risked criminalising and alienating ethnic minorities and even in the wake of the 7/7 suicide bombings by Islamic extremists, they had complained that counter-terrorism laws, including an increased incidence of stop and search, had indirectly discriminated against Asians!

Back in 1983, in an election address to voters. I warned that immigration would ultimately destroy the British way of life and drew the electorate's attention to the rising crime rates within some immigrant communities. Margaret Thatcher and her gang apparently didn't like my comments and I was charged with inciting racial hatred. At Lewes Crown Court I was found guilty and fined £1,000.

I refused to pay the fine on a matter of principle and ended up spending three months in Pentonville Prison, including Christmas, at the end of 1985. It was a shocking ordeal for me and my family and a pretty futile exercise, as my principled stand got little or no press coverage and only my political colleagues knew anything much about it.

I expect that's why, when I read reports like those in today's newspapers, I feel angry that more than 20 years down the line, Britain is still struggling to cope with the same problems that I had highlighted. And it is even more depressing that the electorate has still to switch on to the fact that there must be a complete end to any further immigration into this country and the removal of those immigrants who arrived here illegally, to ever solve these population and crime issues.

As you might have guessed, there's another reason behind my depression. Workington Reds got beaten 2-0 at Alfreton yesterday and dropped to 9th in the Conference North. I was hoping that the England team would be able to lift my spirits, but despite a stirring performance that was not to be either. For the Reds, it will be a recovery mission at Burscough on Tuesday evening.