The BNP would end all further immigration, expel all illegal immigrants, and encourage Britons of other ethnicities to migrate through a generous system of repatriation grants. (source)
The BNP’s policy remains unclear, as the party continues its attempt to modernise its image, and present itself as a mainstream nationalist party. What seems certain is that at a minimum all further immigration would be halted, and a witch hunt to expel illegal immigrants begun. What seems likely is that all Britain’s ethnic minorities would be first encouraged and then compelled to leave Britain, so that the UK could be left to its “indigenous population.”
The BNP claims that any immigration is a vast threat to both Britain’s economy and culture. Near the complete opposite is true. The BNP’s policy would not only remove key workers from our economy, but by shutting us off from the world, destroy many of our world leading industries.
Here are some of the key effects the BNP policy would have:
- End the global transfer of skills and ideas. Britain is a world leader in universities and research, in finances and business services, in the media, art and fashion. These industries rely on being able to recruit the best and brightest from all across the world, to network in our cities and spark ideas off each other. Take two American examples : in the US, Hollywood is the home of the entertainment industry, where Asian Directors, Australian stars and British writers can work together to produce films enjoyed all over the work. In Silicon Valley, the home of technology, the leaders of the web revolution Google, eBay and Yahoo were all co-founded by immigrants.
- Destroy our world leading industries. If a British film can’t use an Australian director or a startup an Indian programmer, then those industries will simply lead. Our brightest and best will leave us for climates where they’re more welcome.
- We’d all lose jobs. Whenever any industry closes, the rest of the economy suffers. It’s not just their taxes we’d lose (although that would bankrupt our treasury), but the demand and money they bring to the economy. With our high skilled workers no longer buying goods at our shops, hiring plumbers for their house or eating at their local restaurant, then suddenly retailers, plumbers and waiters lose out too.
- Immigrants do the jobs that nobody else wants to. In reality immigration doesn’t have to be a threat to British workers. It can be a complement to British workers, not a substitute. Polish plumbers, Filipino nannies and Afro Carribean nurses provide jobs that there simply aren’t enough British people who can or want to do.
- Public services wrecked. The NHS would be devastated without its foreign staff; more than half the newly registered doctors between 1992-2002 qualified outside Britain. The Army would lose 10% of its manpower. Education loses its cleaning staff.
- Services become more expensive. Just as the BNP’s tariffs and bans on imports would make goods more expensive, their ban on immigration would make services more expensive too. It would become more expensive to eat take out food, hire an electrician or a plumber, or a nurse to look after the elderly. As usual, the BNP’s policy would leave the lives of the rich relatively unchanged but hurt the poor worst.
In summary, the BNP’s policy would devastate the strongest parts of the British economy, cause a wider recession that would hit us all, and raise the price of basic services to levels that only the rich could afford.
Tags: policy
