(personal underlines, silent ...)
The British should have their holy places
I think by now most of us can spot a double standard when we see one. So let me try two out on you. In what situation is it acceptable to denounce an MP or parliamentary candidate as ‘not very British’ or even someone who ‘doesn’t get our values, our culture, or our history’. When it is said by a Reform candidate about an MP from an ethnic minority? Or when Jeevun Sandher MP says it about Matt Goodwin, the Reform party candidate for Gorton and Denton?
Doubtless you have already guessed the correct answer. The above phrase was used this week by Labour’s Sandher to denounce Goodwin, and as a result it has passed without any serious comment. By contrast, if Goodwin had described Sandher in similar terms I think we can all agree that the news cycle would have stopped (even Jeffrey Epstein would have fallen off the front pages) and Labour MPs would be gearing up to talk about Enoch Powell again.
Allow me to try one more double standard on you. In what situation is it acceptable to say that an area of Britain is ‘too black’? Would it be acceptable to say it about a town anywhere in England? Or would it be acceptable to go to a country in Africa and return saying that, all things considered, the place needs rather more white people if it is going to be an acceptable, indeed desirable, destination?
The answer to that is once again, obviously not. However, as we have learned this week, it is perfectly acceptable to denounce places – on this occasion the English countryside – for being ‘too white’.
At this point, long-suffering readers might be suffering a sense of déjà-vu, as in fact I am myself. Three years ago I noted that no less an expert than a presenter from the BBC’s Countryfile had denounced the countryside for its ‘lingering, ambient racism’. The Corporation ran a piece suggesting that there weren’t enough Muslim hiking groups in the Peak District.
This time the charge comes from a more formal source. Specifically the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), reports for which have concluded that the countryside is too much of a ‘white environment’, principally enjoyed by the ‘white middle class’. Defra has come to the conclusion that our countryside risks becoming ‘irrelevant’ in a multicultural society.
Before proceeding, let us note something about that word ‘irrelevant’. Is nature meant to be relevant? Are fields and hedgerows and mountains and lakes meant to be things which change and adapt to the zeitgeist?
I’d have thought not. Claiming that the countryside must somehow adapt in order to remain relevant would seem to be a rather striking category error, actually. If you want to see a changing environment, there are any number of places you can go in this country. If you want something unchanging, steadfast and even eternal, I’d have thought the countryside is your best bet. It is one reason why some of us prefer the stuff over, say, Milton Keynes.
In any case, Defra has decided that every effort must be made to make our countryside less of a ‘white environment’. A campaigner called Ken Hinds invited on to GB News very much agreed. According to Mr Hinds, the countryside has been ‘white for far too long’. Asked why it should be so desirable to make more ethnic minorities move to the countryside, he trotted out the usual cliché: ‘We can -benefit from having people from a variety of cultures living among us.’
It’s possible we can. But if so, then why is this not a universal principle? Why should Sparkhill in Birmingham not have more white people brought in? Indeed – once again – why should the Indian subcontinent or Africa not be forced to diversify by bringing in a lot of white people from Wales? Surely the locals will be amenable. Or would there be something sinister as well as silly about making such a case?
Of course the answer is yes: it would be very sinister and very silly to put forward such an argument. But somehow not when it comes to our own green spaces.
There is a madness about this approach. Some people have spent the past week claiming there are not enough Muslims walking around the countryside because too many people there have dogs, and these dogs are often off leads and might therefore be distasteful to Muslims who consider dogs to be haram. What can we do to accommodate that? Cull the dogs? Have areas for dogs to be walked in and areas in which Muslims might roam?
What of the pubs and hostelries in our rural areas? Should Muslims and other minorities be forced into the local pub in order to help diversify it? Should they be forced to drink warm bitter? Or would that be unseemly in some way?
By now we can all agree that there are plenty of people who dislike our country as well as our countryside. But to have government agencies warring on us is a different thing entirely, and I wonder where it will end. In this interim period, perhaps one might simply make a plea to anyone at Defra who has ears to hear.
There is a wonderful poem by W.H. Auden from the 1950s called ‘Streams’, which closes touchingly with the poet referring to the water being ‘Glad – though goodness knows why – to run with the human race’. It is the final two lines of the poem that most move me. There the poet refers to his wish for ‘the least of men’ to have ‘their figures of splendour, their holy places’.
If everyone else is allowed to have their holy places, is it not the right of the British people to have our own holy places too? Or is that another double standard? We can all too easily guess.
