Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

'Historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution.' Georg Lukács

Monday, November 06, 2006

Bloody foreigners

The following inflamatory speech in the House of Commons by a Conservative MP railing against 'foreign invaders' whom he claimed were displacing native Britons caught my eye:

'Not a day passes but English families are ruthlessly turned out to make room for...Romanians, Russians and Poles. Rents are raised 50 or 100 percent...It is only a matter of time before the population becomes entirely foreign...The working classes know that the new buildings are erected not for them but for strangers from abroad; they see schools crowded with foreign children, and the very posters and advertisements on the wall in a foreign tongue.'

The date of the speech? Er, 29th January 1902. Its author, one Major William Evans-Gordon was demonising Jewish people looking for refuge from anti-semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. Thank goodness British MPs today would never stoop so low as to make a bid for political power by playing the race card against migrants.

[Quote from Nigel Harris, Thinking the Unthinkable (2002), p. 46]

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