The conservative-leaning Telegraph of London is lamenting, of all things, the death of Christmas. Their headline:
"Traditions such as Christmas celebrations will die out unless people stand up for British values, government review finds."
They chillingly tell their old readers "British laws and traditions such as the celebration of Christmas are under threat and must be vigorously upheld to stop ethnic segregations dividing society..."
Now, of course, we know they mean those evil Muslims, but why stop there? Jews don't celebrate Christmas, are they to be branded as opponents of "British values?" Are we returning to that sort of gutter anti-Semitism? Even some Christian sects don't celebrate Christmas, or celebrate it at different times. In fact, most Brits aren't even Christians. As one report, earlier this year, noted:
The proportion of the population who identify in NatCen's British Social Attitudes survey as having no religion, referred to as "nones," reached 48.5% in 2014, outnumbering the 43.8% who define themselves as Christian -- Anglicans, Catholics and other denominations. In 2011 the BSA survey found 46% identified as having no religion.
Casey claims, "I have become convinced that it is only the upholding of our core British laws, cultures, values and traditions that will offer us the route map through the different and complex challenge of crating a cohesive society."
Before the rise of the cretinous UKIP types, diversity and tolerance was a British value. And, let's be honest, much of what is now called British values didn't used to be English at all. Democratic values originated in Greece, not monarchial England. Even Christianity was the result of immigration. Jesus didn't walk the streets of London. If the British clung tenaciously to old "British values" they never would have celebrated Christmas in the first place.
The only time Christmas was seriously put at risk it was done so by the British parliament, not by immigrants. Puritans in Parliament, under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell made Christmas a punishable offense. Making Christmas illegal was done by Christians because they recognized very little of Christmas had anything to do with Christianity -- it was the continuation of old pagan rituals baptized with new names. One result of the law was rioting. in 1646 one satirist, John Taylor, published The Arraignment, Conviction and Imprisoning of Christmas to ridicule Parliament for making Christmas a crime. So, historically Christmas was introduced to England by an immigrant religion and banned by that most British of institutions, the House of Parliament.
Yes, immigration can change cultures. Immigrations does it peacefully, unlike the British method where cultural change was the result of imperialism. The British were not reluctant to use military power and slaughter to impose "British values" on nations around the world. They bragged how the sun "never set on the British Empire." Well, one cost of imperialism is cultural change in both directions.
Yes, the conquered are changed, but in the long term, so are the conquerors. If you want to set up an empire you will pay a price for it, and that price isn't just in pounds and blood, but in cultural change as well.
Certainly, it isn't all bad. Ghastly British cooking is less common as Brits have gotten used to cooking that doesn't require boiling away traces of taste. Now Tikka Masala is practically the national dish. Certainly British music has benefitted from the multi-cultural presences of various artists. In the 60s British Home Secretary Rab Butler was whining that "a sizeable part of the entire population of the Earthy is at present entitled to come and stay in this already densely populated country." True, and that's what helped change British music. Freddie Mercury, the lead for Queen, was of Indian descent and born in Tanzania.
Nothing is more British than the great department store, Marks & Spencer, except Marks was a Jew who emigrated from Belarus. He didn't celebrate Christmas but made oodles of money helping others do so. That bizarre British classic car "the Mini" was designed by a Greek immigrant.
Even the Queen's husband was born in Corfu and was Prince of Greece. Prince Charles, in line as the next monarch, is the son of an immigrant. Nor should we neglect how the ruling House of Windsor wasn't always so damn British. They were the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a very German lineage, and the name was changed during World War I for PR purposes.
Even British journalism -- such as it is -- has two immigrants to thank, or blame as the case may be: Robert Maxwell and Rupert Murdoch.
The American version of the bigoted Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, thinks immigration is a sign of national failure. But, anyone with a brain can look at immigration and see the pattern. People don't immigrate to failures, they flee failures. Migrants from Marxist paradises the world over escaped for the uncertainty of free societies without guarantees. Walls are a signs of failure, not greatness.