Islam versus Europe

The Commonwealth started out as a daft scheme to provide psychological compensation to British politicians who were suffering self-esteem problems consequent upon the loss of empire. It was always a useless joke but, lately, has become actively harmful to Britain. For example, Commonwealth citizens have the right to vote in British elections when they are physically present in Britain, thus lending even greater third-world bias to our political system. MigrationWatch estimates that around 1 million foreigners now have the right to vote in British elections because of this rule.

This would be bad enough in itself, but the Conservatives are now reprioritising the Commonwealth and talking about expanding it to include new members, some of whom have no connection to Britain whatsoever.

The Commonwealth has 54 active members, plus Zimbabwe, which is currently suspended. All but two members — Mozambique and Rwanda — are former British territories or dominions. It has existed formally for 62 years and takes in countries with a combined population of more than two billion.

Mr Hague has backed the expansion of the group.

South Sudan is among countries that have applied to join, and others such as Yemen, Somalia and Algeria have been discussed as potential members.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Apart from South Sudan, these countries are predominantly Muslim, Somalia has an extremely tenuous connection with Britain and Algeria has none at all. Algeria is a former French colony. In fact, the country was effectively created by France following its invasion in the 19th century, partly in response to Muslim piracy from Algiers. The notion of Algeria joining the Commonwealth is the height of absurdity.

Moreover, if these countries were admitted to the Commonwealth, immigrants from there would immediately acquire voting rights in Britain. This could be particularly significant in the case of Somalis. In a 2006 article, the BBC quoted estimates of the number of Somalis resident in Britain ranging from 95,000 to 250,000, although the 2001 census recorded only 43,000. Most of these are asylum seekers, so they will currently have no voting rights. If Somalia is admitted to the Commonwealth, that will change overnight. Who are those hundreds of thousands of new voters likely to vote for? The Conservatives? Obviously not. It seems amazing that the Conservatives have been so infected with the mind virus of do-gooderism that they are pursuing policies that are directly contrary to their own interests.

Rod Liddle once claimed that 87 per cent of Somali immigrants in Britain were unemployed, and 36 per cent had criminal convictions. I've never seen the source of this claim, although I would like to find it. Are these the kind of people we would want shaping our electoral outcomes?

It's also noteworthy that the Conservatives now intend to focus British foreign aid on Commonwealth countries.

More British aid money will be given to Commonwealth countries in a shift in policy set out yesterday.

Andrew Mitchell, the Development Secretary, pledged to divert more cash to the former members of the Empire, countries he called Britain’s “friends and family”. Britain should be “proud” of its historic ties to the Commonwealth.

...The department has a priority list of 27 countries in most urgent need of development aid. Fourteen are from the Commonwealth and two, Pakistan and Bangladesh, are to become the biggest recipients of British aid. “Britain can be proud to have a global network of countries that we can call family and friends,” Mr Mitchell said.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Of course much of this "network" of "family and friends" just happens to be Muslim. So yet more foreign aid goes to Muslims, as the jizya flow continues.