The ‘Unite the Kingdom’ march went off peacefully, even joyously, despite Starmer condemning its organisers for peddling ‘hate and division’ – something that evidently did not apply to the rival pro-Palestine march. The GB News coverage was notably sympathetic, its reporters remarking that ordinary, decent people of all races and ages were celebrating their patriotic pride in being British. Starmer’s ‘far right’ smear merely revealed what he thought of this country and its people, especially those who are white and working class.
But there was remarkably little discussion of what the march was really all about: namely, the widespread sense that the cultural inheritance of the indigenous people of these islands – our culture – is being erased; that invasive mass immigration is being utilised to bring about this transformation; and that the creeping Islamification of our public space symbolises this invasion. Such subjects were judged too dangerous to explore, even on GB News.
Concerns about illegal immigration and migrant crime occasionally surfaced in the coverage (though never the mass rape of white working-class girls by Pakistani men and the subsequent cover-up, which is odd since Tommy Robinson has spent 20 years campaigning to highlight this above all else) as did concerns about free speech, the loss of our culture and identity, and that ordinary people were not being listened to. But what was not being listened to, and whatconstituted the loss of ‘our culture’ was not elaborated on.
The social media coverage was more revealing. We are a Christian country was a common refrain, and it was noticeable that the black patriots interviewed were particularly insistent on this. One reminded us that ‘Christ is King’. Then there were the three French women from the anti-immigration, anti-Islam feminist group Nemesis, who appeared on the platform wearing burqas, before removing them to reveal their dresses to loud cheers from the crowd – a spectacle that was obviously not broadcast on GB News. Was this offensive to conservative Muslims? Certainly. Are these women prejudiced against Muslims, and Muslim men in particular? Certainly. But then these women claim personal experience of sexual aggression at the hands of Muslim men. And it is precisely the experience of Pakistani rape gangs, together with a spate of sexual assaults by migrants from Muslim countries, that has contributed to a growing prejudice against Islam, and Muslims, in this country. Yet an open and honest debate about whether fundamentalist Islam is compatible with Western liberal values, or about which Islamic customs and values are, and are not, compatible, has largely been shut down, with any criticism of Islam quickly being branded ‘Islamophobic’.
And what is meant by ‘our culture’? Nowadays, the term ‘British culture’ signifies little more than ‘British values’, a set of universal principles to which anyone can sign up, and which schoolchildren are taught to chant. But culture runs deeper than that. It refers to the shared customs and memories that bind a people together, and confer a shared sense of being at home – in short, an identity. The Scots, Welsh and Irish, along with our ethnic minorities, have all been granted the right to their own culture and identity – to their own mini-cultural nationalisms, you might say; indeed, this is implicit in the very notion of ‘multiculturalism’. But to clear the way for this multicultural utopia, the majority English have been denied their culture and identity. They must worship instead at the shrine of ‘diversity’. That, or be branded racist and xenophobic.
Yet it is English culture and civilization on which our country is founded, and to which we owe our cherished liberties. Are the English not a people? Are the English not a nation? Do we not exist? Or is our destiny to be erased, and replaced, in the name of diversity and inclusion? The critical question of our national identity is still judged too dangerous to discuss openly. But with the country segregating before our eyes on ethnic, religious and cultural lines, our politicians and mainstream media ignore it at their peril.
