Immigration: equality fatigue

RICHARD NORTH

I know we’re coming up to what is supposedly the season of goodwill to all men, a time associated with generosity, kindness, hope, and helping those less fortunate. But, as the legacy media winds down into Christmas trivia (with some exceptions), there are those abroad who are determined to tax our bonhomie and patience to the limit.

One such is Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, Starmer’s choice last June as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an appointment confirmed on 31 July.

As a sign of things to come, she gained the support of Dr Zubaida Haque, former Deputy Director and Interim Director of Runnymede Trust. In a lengthy testimonial, he said: “As the former Deputy Director and Interim Director of the Runnymede Trust during pivotal moments like the Windrush Scandal and the global Black Lives Matter protests, I know how important it is to centre the voices and experiences of Black and minority ethnic communities in public policymaking”.

“Having worked closely with Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson for nearly a decade”, he continued, “I can say without hesitation that Dr Stephenson has a very strong understanding of race, intersectionality, and the importance of including marginalised voices in all aspects of policy and decision-making”.

To conclude, he added: “We are living in uncertain political and economic times. Dr Stephenson’s extensive experience and leadership in equality and human rights is exactly what the EHRC needs right now”.

There was, though, less enthusiasm in other quarters. After scrutiny hearings by the Women and Equalities Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, in parliament, following which both committee chairs wrote to equalities minister Bridget Phillipson, rejecting the appointment.

In their joint letter, the committee chairs said: “It is clear that Dr Stephenson has extensive academic credibility in the field of women’s rights and has an important contribution to make to public life”.

“However”, they added, “it is with regret that we do not feel we can endorse her appointment to the role at this time. Our reasons relate to our concerns about vision and leadership, about breadth of expertise across the wide remit of the EHRC, and about rebuilding trust”.

This being a democracy, the Starmer Regime ignored parliament and went ahead with the appointment anyway, replacing the Pakistani-born Muslim, Baroness Falkner – famed for her fight to draw a line between women’s rights and trans rights – who stood down in November,

Despite her high profile, public sources, including official EHRC and government profiles, her professional biographies and media coverage of her appointment, provide no information about her birthplace or parents. But we might assume from her name that she is a native-born Englishwoman,

If that is the case, it goes to reinforce the impression that the greatest threat to the nation’s health, wealth and happiness is white, university-educated liberal women, her potential for trouble indicated by the Telegraph report at the time of her nomination.

A left-wing economist, she had previously taken a series of controversial positions, including support for a national wealth tax and a new system to increase the number of asylum seekers in Britain, acquiring a reputation as a left-wing campaigning feminist economist.

Mims Davies, the shadow equalities minister, said that choosing Dr Stephenson to lead the body “defies common sense”, declaring: “Replacing an esteemed and well-respected Chair, who stood up and fought for women’s rights, with a left-wing ideologue who has demanded new taxes and open borders shows how out of touch this Labour government really is”.

Shortly after her appointment, Stephenson made an early public contribution on “trans rights”, suggesting that male and female toilets could be rebranded as unisex to allow trans people to access them. Such “straightforward” changes, she said, could make it easier for those “who can’t or don’t want to use the services of their biological sex”.

This rather supported a comment made by Mims Davies at the time of Stephenson’s appointment, when she had said: “The British public deserve a government focused on their priorities not more virtue signalling” – a remarkably prescient remark, borne out by a number of reports in today’s legacy media.

The Times seems to have got the story first, with a headline: “Demonising migrants is risking lives, warns new equalities chief”, the sub-head identifying Mary-Ann Stephenson who, we are told, “defended the European Court of Human rights as she blamed politicians for helping to make life ‘very difficult’ for ethnic minorities”.

This, apparently, is drawn from an interview with Stephenson who starts with “a robust defence of the Strasbourg court” and goes on to say that opposition to Britain’s membership was often based on “misleading” stories of cases that had been thrown out by the courts.

She then calls for politicians to stop demonising illegal migrants calling for “a recognition that the demonisation of migrants, thus creating this idea that migration causes huge risks for the country can make the lives not just of migrants to the UK, but of ethnic minority UK citizens, very, very difficult”.

The Telegraph follows up with a similar story, headed: “Don’t call migration a threat to Britain, says EHRC chief”, with the sub-head referring to the “demonisation of immigrants”.

Just how out of touch this women is brought out by the Telegraph’s further comments, telling us that public concern about migration is now at its highest level in a decade, according to YouGov polling, with 51 percent of respondents saying it is one of the most important issues facing Britain.

The cost of operating the UK’s asylum system, the paper says, currently exceeds £5bn a year, with £2.1 billion of this allocated to housing and supporting tens of thousands of migrants in about 200 hotels.

Furthermore, the paper adds, more than 1.2 million foreigners now claim Universal Credit, while modelling suggests a low-wage migrant who arrives in Britain at the age of 25 will pose a net cost of about £187,000 by 65. But, says la Stephenson, we mustn’t demonise migrants.

I suppose, though, if this stupid woman was out on her own, we could ignore her and she might go away but, at the heart of the establishment – with the support of Starmer – she represents the evil of a system that would gaslight us in to believing that we should not protest about out own extinction as a race.

And it’s all much of a muchness. Elsewhere in the Telegraph we have an article headed: “Father Christmas is ‘too white’”, with the sub-head conveying a message from Brighton and Hove Museums declaring: “Santa is not qualified to judge ‘naughty’ children from other cultures”.

Santa Claus, we are told, needed to be decolonised in the name of diversity, and he should work alongside elves in the name of equality while a “Mother Christmas” would help tackle the patriarchy.

I don’t know if this is just clickbait, or people deliberately winding us up, although to add to the seasonal merriment, we have another article headed: “‘Offensive’ Christmas song lyrics could be banned by Labour law”, as we are informed that “Days of festive sing-alongs may be over owing to fears certain lines from popular tunes may upset staff in pubs”.

This is largely speculative, though, suggesting that pub landlords must ban “offensive” lyrics under new laws requiring them to take “all reasonable steps” to protect staff from third-party harassment.

Candidates for the chop include “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, which has been accused of stereotyping the continent of Africa, and “Jingle Bells”, which is said to have “racist” origins after an academic found the song was first performed in blackface in a minstrel show in Boston in September 1857.

It seems unlikely that this is going to run, but it is another sign of the times that such a report is even given an airing. But yet another example of the equality virus is very real, as a BBC report has hijab-clad Aqsa Saleem, a Pakistani heritage girl, training to be a detective in the West Yorkshire Police Force, after being told “Your culture or gender shouldn’t stop you joining police”.

This is the liberal mindset in a nutshell. Amongst the many occupations that are culture specific, there are few that are more so than policing, yet to the liberal mind, this occupation is both gender and culture neutral.

Even at a superficial level, a Pakistani Muslim is not going to understand the nuances of English language and can certainly never be schooled in the cultural differences needed to promote empathy and understanding and thereby project authority and gain respect. Respect, as they say, is earned, and such a person isn’t even on minimum wage.

Even within her own community, a Muslim woman police detective will have enormous difficulty dealing with Muslim males who regard women as inferior beings. What Muslim male is going to accept a Muslim female as an authority figure, to whom he must defer?

As such, this illustrates the essential flaw with multiculturalism combined with gender politics. An average white native male simply isn’t going to accept the authority of a Muslim female, no matter what their rank or position.

At best, such DEI appointments might have some utility in helping to deal with Asian criminals – or Asian female victims of crime – but that is a niche role which limits the value of such people.

You can call such an attitude racism, but the simple fact of life is that most native English people prefer to be policed by their own kith and kin, and will not react well to immigrant-heritage figures – especially from third world nations – being placed in positions of authority over them.

As for immigrants being policed by their own kind, they should not get that choice when they live in someone else’s country. If Pakistanis want their own kind carrying out law enforcement, they know where to go, where they can enjoy some of the most corrupt policing on the planet.

But, in the interests of “equality”, we must put up with this sort of absurdity, while the white liberal woman tells us not to demonise migrants, as we decolonise Santa Claus and remove “Jingle Bells” from our memories.

Did anyone say: “Happy Christmas”? Or is that racist as well?

---