Peace brings War (as Thucydides observed in 5th c. B.C)

The Roman Empire had Peace & Prosperity. The Goths were pushed out of their lands by the Huns. In 376 A.D. the Goths appeared on the banks of the Danube and asked the Romans to be allowed to live within the Empire. The Romans agreed on condition the Goths surrender their weapons and children. The Romans had weapons inspectors! But some Goths kept their weapons by allowing the inspectors to sleep with their wives or daughters. Following a skirmish started by the Romans there was a battle at Adrianople. The Goths won. On New Years Day 407 the Vandals crossed the Rhine which was frozen over. In 410 the Goths sacked Rome. Some things were better: because of Christianity gladiator fights were stopped. Were "human rights" partly responsible for the misery of the Romans? Thucydides wrote "The Peloponnesian War" in the belief it would be a model for future wars.

Poor Britons

Mrs May said at the United Nations we should distinguish between refugees and economic migrants. Mrs Thatcher was saying that in the 1980s. It's pointless saying it and not doing anything about it. Nobody persecutes children. Workers in the flourishing refugee industry (which, unlike other successful British industries, has - alas - yet to be sold off) have 2 strings to their bow: the Law and Morality. While poor Britons who want good immigration control only have one: the Vote. Where has it got us? Disunity and discord with our fellow Europeans. This is an appeal for a judge to take affirmative action against foreign men using marriage to live in the UK.

"Deja Vu" again

Historians will dispute everything under the sun. But there's one thing, I believe, they all agree: History doesn't repeat itself. Conditions and personalities are always different. However, there's deja vu. In 1962 the implementation of the Commonwealth Immigration Act was deliberately delayed to allow Commonwealth people to settle in the UK. The result was a rush of young men. Now the illegals coming to live in Europe are likewise mostly young men. "History is past politics. Politics is future history."

No wonder they Head here

The senior rabii has written to the Prime Minister asking that more refugees be admitted to Britain. The rabbi said (Radio 4 "Today") she was one of 90,000 Jewish children who came to Britain from Germany and Austria in the 1930s. But I have heard the argument - I expect everyone has - that Britain should accept more refugees because Britain turned away Jews in the 1930s (i.e. we should learn from past mistakes and atone for guilt).

Selfish Interests

President Charles de Gaulle (means "of France"!") said France doesn't have policies, only interests. When an Englishman on the radio recently said Britain shouldn't take any more refugees he was told by Mahmood that he was selfish. But Mahmood too was being selfish. Immigration increases his political clout, and it is obviously more fun to occupy than to be occupied. And maybe he wants revenge for Britain's past imperial endeavours. De Gaulle emphatically said "Non!" when the UK applied to join the Common Market. That may have been for selfish reasons. But he didn't like the British. (Strange that he liked the Americans even less.) Now that the UK has voted to leave the European Union it would be a surprise if any Frenchman likes us.

15 Years On... The UK leaves the EU

"Welcome to the Asylum", Centre for Policy Studies 2001, page 10: "The Home Office Control of Immigration Statistics are equally suspect.... As very few illegal immigrants are ever forced to leave this country, most would have stayed on anyway, invisible, at least statistically."

Pointless Leaving the EU

Brexit disrupts European co-operation and goodwill and aggravates rifts in the UK. It was driven by discontent with immigration. The person in charge of immigration for the past 6 years is now the new Prime Minister! Mrs May has just said there will be no points system (as was largely advocated by Leavers). Instead, other means of immigration control must be implemented. Presumably that means reducing chain migration through marriage, deporting illegals, ending abuse of the asylum system, etc. All of which could have been done without leaving the European Union, and which should have been done anyway....

Public Opinion

Goering told his British captors in 1945 something like: "We never wanted war with you. It's true we wanted war. But with the Bolsheviks. You'll find they're now your enemy. And they are stronger now than before. You think you've gained a great victory. But you will lose your great empire." The historian A.J.P. Taylor argued back in 1961 that Britain made a big mistake in declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939. Hitler had no territorial designs on Western Europe; and he admired Britain. Taylor tells us Britain's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was a man of peace but he was under pressure from members of his own Cabinet and from public opinion. If there was such concern about Germany invading Poland it begs the question: Why not also declare war on the Soviet Union which a couple of weeks later also invaded Poland?

British Enterprise

In 1942 no ship did more to win the war in the Pacific than the American aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (at Midway and Guadalcanal). In 2016 there is much anxiety that Southern England is wide open to illegal migration because of a shortage of ships to patrol the coastline. So what is HMS Enterprise doing? She is in the Med., officially combatting people traffickers but in fact helping them by bringing more people (mainly young men) illegally to Europe.