Nick Timothy

Nobody ever voted for mass immigration. The country has repeatedly said that it wants border security, very little immigration and deportations for those who break the law, yet successive Governments have imposed mass immigration on our country. Human rights laws that render border security and immigration control almost impossible are treated like untouchable and unchangeable holy scripture. The justifications for mass immigration have changed over the years. First, people were told that the numbers were small and that nothing much would change. Next, people were told that immigrants would integrate and that there was nothing for them to worry about. People were then told that multiculturalism was a gift and that things such as foreign foods made it all worthwhile. More recently, as the numbers became unimaginable and communal intimidation, violence and sectarian politics, and even terrorism, became, in the words of Labour’s London Mayor, “part and parcel of living in a big city”, people have been told to keep their views to themselves and parrot the official line instead. However, diversity is not our strength: it is a very serious and difficult challenge that we have to manage, thanks to policies imposed on the public by politicians who chose—arrogantly and callously—to ignore what the people of their country wanted. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) wants to intervene, he can do so. Britain’s true strengths are our long stability, our legal inheritance, our institutions, our language, our shared identity forged through the triumphs and tragedies of history, the places we have in common, our literature, our culture and even our food. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is entitled to intervene, but he has continued to abuse from a sedentary position—as, indeed, have various Members on the Government Benches. This is supposed to be a debate.