Labour call for grown-up debate on immigration - does that also include English migration to Wales?
Westminster Home Office Minister, John Reid, said recently that he wanted to change the culture of the debate and end the "daft, so-called politically correct notion that anybody who talks about immigration is somehow a racist".
How refreshing - time for Welsh Labour to apologies to Simon Glyn? Time for Plaid Cymru's leaders to call on Rhodri Morgan, Huw Lewis, Leighton Andrews and the other Labour British Nationalists to apologise to Simon Glyn?
We believe that it's time we had a clear, sensible debate on movement of people in to Wales. That includes the English who have, over the last few hundred years, failed as a community to 'integrate' into Welsh life. In fact, Welsh people have been forced to integrate into English norms - especially language.
In any case, I look forward to the debate. It seems that Labour's fear of losing seats to the BNP (a nod that their core-voters are institutionally racist?) has got them thinking.
I live in hope. Discussing the laughable idea that Poles and and people from Pakistan are a threat to English/British culture is 'sensible' but discussing that English is a threat to Welsh is racist.
Labour listens to BNP voters, shakes hands with Irish terrorists but will never, ever, admit that Welsh nationalists like Simon Glyn or Glyn (Big Brother) Wise have a point too. Maybe the Valleys boyos and English AMs and MPs who love Wales for the life-style but not the culture would feel a bit foreign here then, eh?
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22 comments:
People who move from England to Wales aren't migrating. They're just moving.
Oh, and Seimon Glyn did all but initiate a "sensible debate". He spoke of a "tidal wave" of immigration and he said that certain incomers were "a drain on resources".
erm...
"Human migration denotes any movement by humans from one locality to another..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_(human)
It is possible to migrate within a state, and as Wales and England are two distinct nations, with their own cultures, and languages, this certainly IS migration.
The English living in Wales are immigrants, and it is a severe problem in Wales with nearly 25% of the population being born across the Severn Bridge. It is impossible to assimilate such a large percentage into Welsh communities.
And yes, older people moving into an area to retire (as in the case of many immigrants) are a strain on resources. This is common sense.
What Seimon Glyn said is no different whatsover to what the British nationalist Labour party are saying today in the context of Britain, but look at the percentages. If there is a problem in England (and I don't think there is, English culture and language is not under threat of extinction.), think of the problem in Wales!
25%!!!!!!
Get real. You know as well as I that migration is used to denote population movement between - not within - states.
I've lived in Wales and I've lived in England as these distinct cultures are a figment of your imagination, or more charitably, a position you would like to see but which does not exist. A very few people in Wales live the distinct culture to which you refer. That does not in any way invalidate that lifestyle, but it remains the case that culture in Wales is in the main identical to culture in England. It's supporting Manchester United, watching American made TV shows, going to B&Q on a weekend, listening to pop music, reading Dan Brown, eating Indian food, wearing Nike, drinking Autralian wine and so on. The Welsh culture that is about Bards and harps is about as widespread as Morris dancing in Enland. You may want it to be otherwise but it isn't. How about celebrating the Welsh culture that is as well as the Welsh culture that ought to be (as far as you are concerned)?
As for your 25% - you know as well as I that hardly any of these people live in the Fro Cwmraeg. Most live in Newport, Cardiff, Wrexham, Connah's Quay and so on.
The fact of the matter is that the Glyn thesis is a myth peddled to scare people, which is exactly the opposite of what John Reid was calling for. Welsh speaking areas are seeing their house prices pushed up by people within Wales every bit as the so-called incomer - why are you not raging againt the English speaking monoglot Cardiffian snapping up a nice little cottage on the Llyn?
Because it doesn't fit the stereotype of the boorish Brummie or Surrey stockbroker, that's why.
'Wales and England are two distinct nations, with their own cultures, and languages'
I was born and brought up in Wales, my first language is English and the same is true for the majority of Welsh people. The language of Wales used to be Welsh, it's now English and has been for a century or so.
Now try writing as if the above is true. It is, after all.
Typical British Nationalist New Labour Party reply. But what would you expect from a Nu Labour employee?
Yes, Welsh is a language only SPOKEN by a minority at the moment because of British Nationalist colonial policies created to erase anything that doesn't conform to their 'British' way of thinking, but it BELONGS to everyone in Wales.
We have 2 options:
1, Accept the situation, and let the language and our Welsh language communities die... or
2, fight back against abhorrent British Nationalism, and give everyone in Wales the right to use and learn the Welsh language.
I'm for option 2, it seems that Normal Mouth and David T have taken the easy option of British Nationalism.
And yes Normal Mouth, people in Wales do support Manchester United, they do watch American made TV shows, they do go to large stores on weekends, they do listen to pop music, they do read best-selling novels, they do eat Indian food, they do wear Nike, and they do drink Australian wine. Seimon Glyn himself is a Man United supporter I believe.
But so do Germans!! What's your point? In a globalised world, cultures will cross each other, and dominant cultures will have a major effect on other cultures, but this does not mean that these other cultures do not exist.
You may be willing to let a culture created over 100's of years to die out, but I and many other Welsh men (both Welsh, and English speaking), will not.
Your path is the easy path, the path of the weak. Swimming with the tide is so easy. Other people are willing to put culture and communities before their own self-interests.
Hold on a cotton picking minute - I said nothing about letting any culture die out. I'm all for people learning Welsh and living their cultural lives in the way you would have them.
But I'm also all for recognising and not denigrating genuine, spontaneous working-class culture in Wales - which happens to be very similar to that in England (and, as you note, Germany and many other countries). That's because culture is about much, much more than mere nations and national identity.
All of which reinforces my very first point (which you haven't addressed) that people who move from England are not imposing some alien culture on another. They are, by and large, coming from a strikingly similar cultural tradition and fitting right in. That's the reality.
Furthermore, Seimon Glyn's talk of tidal waves and so on was the polar opposite of the sensible debate you say is needed.
David T? That's not me.
Again, why not try to deal with the facts.
Most Welsh people are monoglot English speakers. Deal with it.
Most people speak English in Wales - yes, it's the consequence of colonialism. Most people in the UK/England would speak French or German if those countries had conquered them.
English would have been made a second-class language, and then a massive number of monolingual French or German speakers moving into the country would have no need to learn English.
English speakers moving into Wales (and no, they're not bad people with any particular bad disposition towards Welsh) are by their sheer volume, too many for the smaller and economically less well-off Welsh-language community, to absorb.
Are you actually denying it's not a problem for the Welsh language? The reason Deeside or Cardiff is so similar to English culture is because over generations so many English people have moved there.
The Welsh language (which had no status in its own country) was unable to assimilate them. In Cardiff the movement isn't so big now and so a Welsh identity (in both languages) is asserting itself but in Deeside the movement is continual and Welsh is very much a minority culture.
Simon Glyn can see the writing on the wall – the continuation of people moving into Gwynedd from a more prestigious language in every sense spells out language death for Welsh.
You talk of a sensible debate - like what? The movement is a tidal wave – how else would you describe such a massive movement (% wise) of people?
Of course, you couldn’t give a toss for the Welsh language so you don't want to discuss it. What would be this sensible debate? As you NM are unwilling to recognise that this is a problem for the Welsh language?
The Labour Party, being a British nationalist party, won't debate it. Not because identity and language isn't important - we now see the Brit Nat hypocrisy as they sense a threat to English, no it's just that Welsh language and culture isn't important.
Both NM and David's arguments are exactly the same ones used by the Turks against the Kurds, the Chinese against the Tibetans etc. It al boils down to Welsh having no right to exist as a majority language in any territory in the world whilst English speakers have a god-given right to speak their language, and only their language in every part of the UK. I'm amazed by the total lack of irony in your assertion of territory for the English language.
The schadenfreunde you show towards a language under threat points to your immorality.
This is Britishness - Welshness in the image of Englishness - same language and culture and not even the right to assert a different identity. It makes me laugh when I see those Pakistanis who've not assimilated.
Why should they learn English - are you so racist as to say that there can't be a British identity without speaking English? Are you so racist that the British nationalists parties all voted to kill conscripted poor, working class Argentineans who were sent to the Falkland Islands - was sinking the Belgrano really worth the price to pay so that Falkland Islanders didn't have to speak Spanish.
What's wrong with German or French language and culture, what makes you so racist that you killed French men and German men so that you're 'not all speaking German or French now’?
If you - Brit Nats - aren't willing to change your language; if you're not willing to become British in the image of Germany/France/USA. then why should I as a Welshman?
Face up to it! You’re British Nationalists!
This is such a wilful and blatant distortion of everything I've said that most of it is unworthy or response. I'd thought you were someone who was prepared to engage in a proper, grown-up discussion of these issues. I was wrong.
You believe that much stronger measures - namely controls on movement - are required to defend the Welsh language. I can understand that. You appear to believe that Wales should not be a bilingual country, and should move towards Welsh-only; there's an intellectually defensibe position there, though it's one I would strongly contend.
What I find morally repugnant is your distain for English-speaking Welsh people, and your apparent refusal to believe that a Welsh life of any worth can be lived through the medium of English or with reference to English-speaking culture. That's worse than elitist, it's sinister. You would do the Welsh language an immense disservice if you had any influence.
Oh, and one more thing; the number and proportion of Welsh speakers is increasing.
Consider that before you start raving on about colonialism.
"What I find morally repugnant is your distain for English-speaking Welsh people, and your apparent refusal to believe that a Welsh life of any worth can be lived through the medium of English."
I'm an English speaking Welsh person!?!
Aren't you the one who's been arguing that there is no difference between the English language culture in Wales, and the English language culture in England?
Oh, the irony!
"Oh, and one more thing; the number and proportion of Welsh speakers is increasing. Consider that before you start raving on about colonialism."
The number and proportion of fluent Welsh speakers is decreasing.
The percentage of Welsh speakers in Welsh speaking communities is getting lower.
The language of Welsh speaking villages and towns in West Wales is changing over-night!
Yes, more people can say 'Bore Da' (like me) but the language is certainly getting weaker by the day.
"Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics"
Very well, it's clear I'm going to have to spell out my argument in the simplest possible terms. Now, do try to concentrate:
1. People who move into Wales from England aren't migrating (in the sense they are passing from one culture to another) they are moving (in the sense that they are remaining within a very similar group of cultural traditions, being at once English/Scottish/Welsh, British, European and Western and possibly global).
2. The notion therefore that Wales cannot culturally "cope" with this population movement is false. It, and the Glyn argument before it, is a distortion designed to alarm rather than inform.
3. The very substantial part of the "host culture" (to put it in your terms) that is Welsh born and English speaking (What I later referred to as "a Welsh life...lived through the medium of English") draw on cultural traditions every bit as valid as those Welsh lives lived through the medium of Welsh (I urged you to recognise this - you have failed to do so). The fact that the cultural traditions in question are not EXCLUSIVELY OF Wales does not mean they are not A PART OF Wales. In other words, what consitutes Welshness today draws on wide cultural traditions and includes the medium of English (and for that matter, a number of other languages).
Now, the fact that you are an English-speaking Welsh person means nothing; it merely locates you in the "self-loathing" as well as "loathing" category. The fact that you presume to lecture the rest of the world about the supposed assault on th Welsh language while not bothering to learn it yourself merely makes you a self-loathing hypocrite. If you wanted to defend the language of your people, you'd learn it and use it. Anyone who wants to, especially if they live in Wales, can learn Welsh.
Which brings me to the real problem of Welsh today, which is not the provision, in which the state can and do act (the state and its agents operate bilingually, provide education, fund TV, radio and print media in the medium of Welsh and offer heavily subsidised language courses) but in the transmission, in which the state cannot act (without wholly objectional monitoring and enforcement). Halting he movement of English people into Wales (would you also stop the movement of Welsh people into England? Surely that undermines cultural integrity) will not address this, not in an age of global media.
Transmission can only be addressed by Welsh speakers using the language, or by Welsh learners doing so You could be part of the latter. But it appears your passion for the Welsh language does not go as far as making the effort to actually learn it.
I'll respond to your muttering in due course, but just to get one thing straight - I'm not a Welsh speaker, but a Welsh learner.
Believe it or not, but I shared your British Nationalist views up to a few years ago!
Ther's hope for you yet!
"Which brings me to the real problem of Welsh today, which is not the provision, in which the state can and do act (the state and its agents operate bilingually, provide education, fund TV, radio and print media in the medium of Welsh and offer heavily subsidised language courses) but in the transmission, in which the state cannot act (without wholly objectional monitoring and enforcement). Halting he movement of English people into Wales (would you also stop the movement of Welsh people into England? Surely that undermines cultural integrity) will not address this, not in an age of global media."
I'm trying to engage in a reasoned debate with you and I have a lot of respect for many of the views you hold. But you refuse to recognise that people moving into Wales (lets forget the term for now) who don't speak Welsh have an impact on the Welsh language.
This affects the 'transmission' of the language, which you allude to. Why bother learning a language from new (say an English / Irish / Polish person moving into a more Welsh-speaking part of Wales) if only a small proportion of the local people actually speak Welsh viz Deeside say?
The higher proportion of people who don't speak Welsh in an area makes Welsh a lesser-spoken language. This affects those people who's first language is Welsh - you can't order a pint in Welsh 'cos the English person behind the bar doesn't speak Welsh (and its considered rude/elitist to speak Welsh to him and he could be affronted and accuse you of racism).
Welsh, which is already de-normalised (if there is such a word) in the mass media, magazines, political discourse, forms etc is now a minority 'audible' language in the area. This affects the indigenous Welsh-speakers:
1. An increasing number of Welsh-speakers either don't bother passing the language on to their kids (why bother, every one else speaks English) or
2. The kids themselves have an inferior idea of Welsh (not trendy enough, not language of mass culture).
The whole concept of Britishness then further undermines the self confidence of the Welsh speaking community by saying the kind of class-jingoism which you espouse NM namely that 'we're all the same', 'speaking Welsh is elitist', 'speaking Welsh cuts people out,' 'English speakers are as Welsh as Welsh-speakers'. It all adds up to 'why bother speaking this minority language'? If you were to read any book on linguistics and language transfer then it's obvious that identity is central to this.
The biggest drop in language transference has been in Carmarthenshire which has seen a large movement of non-Welsh speaking people into the county and which in areas such as the Amman Valley has a strong Labour/Brit Nat culture - a culture and political theory which has been wholly unable, sorry, unwilling to promote the Welsh language and which gives nothing which can give confidence into the language.
Your wrong, I have no difficulty with non-Welsh-speaking Welsh people but that's not quite the whole picture is it NM? Not all non-Welsh speakers are Welsh and so are not part of the 'Welsh idom (ethnic even NM) which you support. In many respects, acquiring Welsh gets rid of many questions of origin and ethnicity in a way that being monolingual English speaking in Wales doesn't.
25% of people in Wales are born in England - do you tell me that these people have no culture or values and that by the virtue of them speaking the state language and the confidence that that gives that that colours the way they vote - i.e. not wanting to be in a situation Wales becomes too Welsh?
"but in the transmission, in which the state cannot act (without wholly objectional monitoring and enforcement)."
This is incorrect NM. The state legitimises the whole discourse. It's no coincidence that Welsh is stronger than Breton because of state has acted. Were the Welsh state to act more again i.e. a proper strategy for growth in Welsh-medium education, a strategy to use the more Welsh-speaking parts of Wales as platforms for growth in the language to create a bilingual Wales (which is the supposed policy) then that would impact on the ground. People would see the difference. I don't want to see monitoring and enforcement (which I take to mean on a purely personal and family unit basis - everything is monitored in a wider sense i.e. census, WAG citations etc).
But languages and people don't live in a vacuum. This is where you contradict yourself. What you're alluding to is that people chose not to transfer the language - you’re right, because Welsh is a minority language and a minority culture within Wales. That's why people don't transfer the language. It's mad then to make out that the fears (and they are real fears espoused by Simon Glyn) are some how racist. It's a minority culture which has difficulty enough in transferring the language in its so call heartlands due to the strength of MTV, internet, gameboy, officialdom etc then seeing speakers from this same language community (which Welsh speakers also share) move into the area. Basically Welsh is fucked and you recon it can survive (flourish would be too optimistic in my view and too threatening in your view) in this climate. Get real NM you just don't know the score. Get out of your Brit Nat narrative and see what's happening to Tibetans, Inuit speakers, Bretons, Estonians before independence, Czechs before their 'national awakening'.
Nobody's talking of halting the movement of English people into Wales. It's neither a possibility nor a wish. What people are asking is one:
1. A decent debate - why won't Brit Nat Labour recognise that the movement of English-speaking people into Gwynedd/Ceredigion impacts on the language? Well, I know why because of votes and they sympathise more with the English speakers as British nats than with Welsh speakers. Compare this with the change in tack on Brit Nat labour policy since the BNP won a few votes of 'good working class labour voters'.
2. Why not a debate which one sees on blogs like:
"Halting he movement of English people into Wales (would you also stop the movement of Welsh people into England? Surely that undermines cultural integrity) will not address this, not in an age of global media."
Once again you recognise that Welsh has a week hand in the 'global media' what and this doesn't affect language transference and doesn't weaken the appeal for people to learn Welsh? About stopping Welsh people from leaving Wales - yes, this is another massive problem for the language (why isn't this discussed by the Brit Nat Labour WAG government - 'cos they don't give a toss?). I wouldn't want to stop people leaving Wales - in fact, travelling and working abroad is a good thing (as is immigration). But if other weak countries (eastern Europe etc) are concerned about this why not Wales, which has the added, dimension of a weak language as well. When Cynog Dafis suggested in the last Assembly that WAG should
1. Monitor where our young people study and why so many leave Wales and
2. Look into ways of attracting young people to study in Wales or return to Wales after studying he was accused of racism or some other mind-numbing pavlovian hate-speech by a Labour Brit Nat.
Movement of people is the politics of the C21 as well as the environment. All countries will debate this - except Wales. We can't debate it in Wales 'cos Brit Nats will shout down any debate with words of racism. The Welsh language (despite some encouraging signs) is in dire straights. Its biggest threat is the movement of (decent) people. It's not the 'immigrants' 'fault' - it's a political situation, which changes the facts on the ground. The Brit Nats have never said, 'look boys, in a global age, English as a world lingua franca, decreasing birth-rate, free movement of people, white flight from cities, higher disposable income amongst many retired people etc. it's going to be difficult for the Welsh language to survive in any meaningful way. Now lets see how we can make the best of this situation? Lets start maybe with recognising the situation?
No, sorry NM what we had in stead is 'Simon Glyn - Voice of Hate'.
NM - your beloved narrative of the enlightened British nationality has been very bad news for the Welsh language. It has never recognised that Welsh defined geographical space (the Adfer or Flemish/Belgian model) or Swiss model, nor has it said that Welsh is truly a language for Wales which needs to be revived and as a part of that then the more Welsh-speaking parts are to centre of growth. In stead, as part of Iaith Pawb (i.e. nobody's language) to create a bilingual Wales, the only truly bilingual parts of Wales i.e. places where people speak and can deal with customers in two languages (Caernarfon, BFf, Pen Llyn etc) as seen as a threat and in the kind of Jacobin new-speak which only the Brit Nat Labour Party in Wales can get way with, have to be de-Welshised in order to create a bilingual Wales! It's like reviving a threatened flower by uprooting it in the very localities it is most prevalent! You talk of Welsh language snobbery towards non-Welsh speaking Welsh people but there's a greater snobbery by non-Welsh-speakers who think Welsh not good enough for them to learn and speak and as we saw during the latest whispering campaign by the Labour party in Cardiff, against Welsh-medium schools - a threat to their monoglot English communities?
Your British narrative has lead to a year on decrease in the number of Welsh speaking communities for over 150 years (if I may take an arbitrary date). It has been unable, no unwilling, to see Welsh flourish. In this global world, Welsh has no chance unless Wales becomes independent (or as close to that). It's only independence (with Welsh an integral part of it), which can give Welsh some chance of creating the cultural and intellectual space, which will give it some legitimacy and status for people to learn it and pass it on. I'll make you a bet - if we're old enough and still part of the UK in 30 years time then Welsh will be in the same league as Irish. Britishness as a political concept has had plenty of time to show it could be responsible for the Welsh language. It failed. For me and many others the Simon Glyn affair was the final insult (especially in light of all the recent debate about migration and Britishness). Before Simon Glyn I'd always supported Labour and was genuinely glad they won in 1997.
Even in 2001 I was glad the Tories didn't win many more seats. But now, sorry NM I have nothing but hate and contempt for Labour for their hypocrisy and double standards. I now hope they lose the next UK election. At least the Tories didn't give us the class-jingoism and hypocrisy on identity etc.
Nicholas,
You have an analysis, some of which I would not (perhaps to your surprise) demur from.
But let's establish one thing first. Please do not put words into my mouth.
I did not say "Welsh is elitist" (though I do believe there are many elitists among the Welsh speaking establishment);
I did not say "speaking Welsh cuts people out" (though I do believe that the way English speaking Welsh people are implcitly accused of being less-than-Welsh does immense damage to bilingualism)
I did not say Seimon Glyn's comments were racist. I said they were designed to alarm rather than inform. They were.
You ask "why won't Brit Nat Labour recognise that the movement of English-speaking people into Gwynedd/Ceredigion impacts on the language?" The answer is because that question has never been posed.
The question that HAS been posed is "why won't Brit Nat Labour stop the movement of English-born people into Gwynedd/Ceredigion as it is destroying the language?"
There is no recognition in this latter question of the position of Welsh born English speakers. Why is that, I wonder? It's because the implications of what you are suggesting - despite what you say - is to restict or allow movement based at least in part on language. And that in turns means perhaps as many 2.4 million Welsh-born people facing restrictions on where they can and cannot live - in their own country.
Which brings me back to my central point, namely where you successfully put words into my mouth - "English speakers are as Welsh as Welsh-speakers". They are. Their language - English - is a language of Wales. It is a vital part of Wales and Welsh culture. Not the only part, not a better part and hopefully in the future not a dominant part. But a part nonethess. That doesn't mean "don't bother learning Welsh"; it means that, to develop Welsh, measures are needed which are blatantly not needed for English. Most of that is in place (the provisionary measures I talked about before). We can debate the sufficiency of those measures but we can both agree that the state needs to provide for Welsh in a way it doesn't for English.
Where we can't agree is what is needed to safeguard transmission. You dance around the issue, but all of your arguments imply the need for restrictions on movement and residency in the Welsh-speaking heartlands based on ability and/willingness to speak Welsh. I say that is too odious a restriction on Welsh-born English-speakers and, yes, on other British and EU citizens. One simply cannot sacrifice vital and fundamental human rights, such as freedoms of association, in the name of indistinct and poorly conceived community rights.
Considering that you are English, I think you should go back to school to learn how to spell in your mother tongue!!
Migration on a scale that can be managed is not a problem, but the migration that we are now seeing in to Welsh speaking communities is having a devastating impact on the Welsh language and culture.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with race or nationality, it is happening all over the world, but in Wales we have a vital treasure that is on the verge of extinction – the Welsh language – and we need to act quickly. Similar measures to the ones being proposed are already in place in the Lake Districts (that’s in England by the way!)
And a final point, the person that starts referring to Hitler, and his vile Nazi party to try and win an argument is ALWAYS the loser!
Err, as I understand it the restrictions in the lake district are on second home ownership and have nothing whatsoever to do with language. You are talking about restrictions on permanent (i.e first home) residence, possibly based on language. They are quite different things.
Yes, the restrictions in the Lake District are on Second home ownership, and that's a start.
I would also like to see restrictions on purchasing 1st homes. These restrictions, as in the lake district, WOULD NOT be dependent on a skill or knowledge of a certain language, but rather on being born in, or have strong connections to the locality.
A clear definition of what is considered 'local' and what is not would need to be made.
Now what I'm saying is, as in the Lake districts, measures need to be taken to ensure that local people can afford to stay in their communities, without being ousted by much richer immigrants BUT in the Welsh speaking communities there is and added factor of the Welsh language and culture, which makes it even more important to act decisively and quickly.
As for Dimdroog, I think we can both agree that he’s a pillock, with no understanding of social justice! Wales will certainly be a dimmer place with that immigrant living in our midst.
I'm 100% in favour of a restrictions on second homes in areas like Snowdonia where there is cear evidence that second home ownership is a) accounting for a very high proportion of the total stock (per settlement) and b) it is fuelling an exceptional increase in house prices.
I thought Plaid Cymru had an excellent idea a few years ago when they proposed that planning permission should be required when someone turned what was a first home into a second home. That would give the local planning authority a high degree of control over the proportion of second homes.
I would even support a proportion of local housing being reserved for lower income groups (i.e designated affordable housing). In practice, I think local people would benefit from this as they would be the most likely to want to live in the area.
What I cannot support is housing reserved for local people and/or Welsh speakers. Someone who has born in a given area has no greater moral right to live there than anyone else. I'm a firm believer in the free movement of people, not least because it enriches (rather than damages) culture.
As for Dimdroog - yes, abject proof that all cultures produce cretins.
Dimroog
I was wrong to call yu a cretin. I apologise.
There is merit in some of what you say, namely that a restriction on residence in Wales or parts of Wales based on language is unlikely to achieve its stated objective. Further measures will therefore be sought. And so on it will go.
Ever thought that alot of the English come here to escape the "multicultural" disaster areas like London or Birmingham for example.
Wales is a desirable location for white flighters.
Also muslim immigration IS a threat to all of Europe not just England.
I'd like to add that maybe wales can go independant but we would have to forfeit the quality of life we have now for several years until we could raise £14 billion (and rising) ourselves every year to run the country.
mike
http://cardiffian.com
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