Douglas Murray and the Strange Death of an Honest Argument — Part 1

By J.Spooner & J.Stubbs

“I suppose it is inevitable in a book of this length that some errors will be found…I expected that various people would claim the statistics and figures herein (factual and correct though they are) were in some way erroneous…I expected them to claim that I had ‘cherry-picked’ their speeches or even ‘quoted out of context’. Yet none of the many facts in this book were able to be refuted” — D.Murray, The Strange Death of Europe, page 335.

Douglas Murray’s bestselling book The Strange Death of Europe was originally released in May 2017 to predictably mixed reviews. It comes as little surprise that a book focussing on traditionally hostile and often ideological debates surrounding immigration would polarise opinion. Positive reviews for the book flowed from the expected outlets: The Sunday Times, The Australian, the Evening Standard, The Spectator and The Jewish Chronicle, to name a few. Others such as the Guardian, Ralph Leonard and the New Statesman heavily criticised the book, with the Guardian going as far to call it “gentrified xenophobia”.

Yet, the overall arguments that form this book’s thesis are built on certain presuppositions that, we believe, require even closer examination and verification. This critique of The Strange Death of Europe is less than a review and more of a deconstruction or dissection. We have broken our analysis down, chapter by chapter and section by section, contrasting the claims that the book makes against, what we believe, the evidence really shows. We have tried to do this by (mostly) using Murray’s own sources themselves. In other words, we set out to test the validity of perhaps Murray’s boldest declaration of all — that “none of the many facts in this book were able to be refuted”.

The Strange Death of Europe Fact Check

Chapter 1: “The beginning”

The 2011 census

At the beginning of Chapter one, Murray delves into the 2011 census results, attempting to isolate and highlight the particular numbers on immigration that support his thesis. Unfortunately, despite the vast array of statistics and figures that the census includes on this topic, many of those chosen by Murray are either misrepresented by him or, when examined, often don’t support the claim he tethers them to:

1. Murray says: “the two local authorities which had already grown the fastest (over 20 per cent in ten years) were those that already had the highest Muslim populations in the UK (Tower Hamlets and Newham). These were also among the areas of the country with the largest non-response to the census, with around one in five households failing to return the census at all.”

We say: False. According to the census, the two local authorities with the highest Muslim population in the UK are not Tower Hamlets and Newham, but Bradford and Birmingham — by a long way. Funnily enough, (and contrary to Murray’s hypothesis) these two local authorities weren’t even in the top twenty for population growth. Additionally, it is also incorrect to say that ‘around one in five households’ failed to return their census in these areas. In Tower Hamlets the percentage of household return of the census was 89% and Newham 88%. That would mean a fair approximation would have been more like one in ten households failed to return (which is only just under the national average of 93%). But “around one in five households” is incorrect, a lie and thus by no means were these areas among those with the “largest non-response”.

2. Murray says: “And it revealed that nearly three million people in England and Wales were living in households where not one adult spoke English as their main language.”

We say: Unproven. This is lazy and technically, incorrect. Nowhere in the 2011 census is this “revealed”. What the actual census reveals is that 1.185 million UK households do not have an adult who speaks English as their main language, living within it. At no point does the census convert this number to a total amount of people. Murray does this however, by (presumably) multiplying the 1.185 million figure by the average household size of 2.3 people, obtaining approximately 2.7 million and thus his eventual “nearly three million” figure. Regardless, this is again an assumption and one which Murray offers no specific evidence for.

As a side note, Murray predictably omitted the following census figures, statistics that are not only pertinent to his case but also help to clarify the numbers and provide some context:

“…only 1.3 per cent of the population (726,000) reported that they could not speak English well, and 0.3 per cent (138,000) reported that they could not speak English at all.”

3. Murray says: “White Britons have become a minority in their own capital city”.

We say: Deceitful. This same line was pushed by right-wing tabloids following the release of the census data. Here Murray regurgitates this popular headline, arguing that because London’s ‘white British’ ethnicity group has dropped below 50% of its total population — 44.9% — this then means that they have now become a minority. Yet the next nearest ethnic group in terms of size, is the category ‘any other white’ at only 12.6%. Thus, we instead tend to agree with the census report itself, which states “white British was the majority ethnic group in London”. By having nearly four times the population of the next closest ethnicity group, it requires some incredibly cynical mental gymnastics to fashion the claim that “white British” are actually the ones in the minority.

In a further aside, note the curious way Murray labels London as white Britons’ “own” city (Is it not BAME Britons’ “own” city as well?).

4. Murray says: “But the response to facts such as that in 23 of London’s 33 boroughs ‘white Britons’ were now in a minority was greeted with a response almost as telling as the results themselves. A spokesman for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) hailed the results as a tremendous demonstration of ‘diversity’.”

We say: Lie. Putting to one side our previous analysis of what it actually means when Murray alleges white Britons are in the “minority”, this claim is incorrect for additional reasons. Firstly, for his claim that the responses to the London Borough census data were “almost as telling as the results themselves”, Murray quotes an ONS official in a 2012 BBC article named Guy Goodwin. Goodwin, he argues, “hailed the results as a tremendous demonstration of ‘diversity’”. Yet in the online article, Goodwin claims nothing of the sort. It is simply a one minute interview clip of him in a matter-of-fact and mundane manner simply repeating the results of the census. Watch it here.

Additionally, the only quote written in this article from Goodwin states:

“It’s a really changing picture so the 2011 census population will go down as a diverse population compared with 2001.”

Thus, Goodwin never says specifically or can even be interpreted to be inferring about a “tremendous demonstration” of anything. The picture painted by Murray is completely fabricated and a blatant misrepresentation.

Secondly, Murray uses this quote to demonstrate a “telling” “response” from the media to the census results, yet in the very same BBC article that Murray cites, there is a much more subjective and “telling” response bemoaning the results, from right-wing think tank Migration Watch, who protested:

“for goodness sake we can’t have them arriving at this sort of scale”.

If anything, the article that Murray cites only serves to reinforce that actually, the “response” to the census results varied and hence was anything but “telling”.

5. Murray says: “Yet, despite being hard to digest in a year, the story of the census passed by within a couple of days — like any other ephemeral news story”.

“The political and media reaction (to the 2011 census), meanwhile, was striking for being conducted in only one tone of voice. When politicians of all the main parties addressed the census they greeted the results solely in a spirit of celebration.”

We say: False. Unlike Murray implies in the above quotes, the reaction of the media and politicians alike following the census results, varied immensely, depending on the individual. Negative reactions — the same concerns that Murray raises — arising from the census results on migration were pushed heavily in the right-wing press. This included a production line of fear mongering Daily Mail stories (which Murray was well aware of as he was one of the authors of these pieces) whilst The Mirror, The Evening Standard and The Times also published articles which focussed on these same concerns surrounding the census immigration data. Even the Guardian, who openly welcomed the increased diversity, released articles voicing the same concerns arising from the results. To say that all media/political reaction was conducted in the one celebratory “tone of voice” is blatantly false.

Likewise the “political reaction”, came across in more than just “one tone of voice”. The data from the census only poured fuel on the already burning national debate on migration — with political leaders such as Yvette Cooper MP, Ed Milliband and David Cameron making public speeches relating to combatting immigration ‘issues’ in the months following the results. Not exactly the “ephemeral” reaction that Murray remembers.

Historical Immigration

Murray goes on to briefly touch on the history of immigration. Here he attempts to ground his argument in the premise that Britain has had very little immigration between 1066–1945 and thus isolate the post 1945 immigration figures as something alien to British history.

1. Murray says: “Britain had retained an extraordinarily static population. Even the Norman Conquest in 1066 — perhaps the most important event in the islands’ story — led to no more than 5 percent of the population of England being Norman.”

We say: Firstly, the reference that Murray sources for the above claim is a book called The Tribes of Britain by David Miles. Murray’s claim is taken from Miles’ quote that states:

“the total number of Norman immigrants and their cohorts may not have amounted to more than 5 percent of the total population”.

Miles does not make any concrete claim here and cautiously uses the word ‘may’ — yet Murray fails to do the same in his citing of the passage. Secondly, while Murray claims that the Norman invasion “led to no more than 5 percent of the population being Norman”, Miles’ very next line states:

“Nor were all the invaders all Norman: others who had joined William’s crusade to the land of opportunity included Flemings, Betons and French. Later Italian and Jewish and merchants were to follow.”

2. Murray says: “What movement there was in the years before and after (1066) was almost entirely movement between the island of Ireland and the countries that would eventually comprise the United Kingdom.”

We say: False. Using Murray’s own source again, The Tribes of Britain, David Miles provides plenty of evidence to the contrary. Miles makes the following observations:

• “People of French origin continued to migrate into England throughout the Middle Ages”
• “The colony of Pembrokeshire, still called ‘Little England Beyond Wales’, attracted Flemish settlers…the Flemish language was spoken in Pembrokeshire until at least 1200…the Flemings were great colonists in Eastern Europe, and also had a considerable impact on Scotland.”
• “The Jews prospered and experienced relative toleration during the reign of Henry II with new arrivals coming from France, Spain and even Russia.”
• “The Chronicler Matthew Paris complained as early as 1255 that the city (London) was overflowing with Poitevins, Provencals, Italians and Spaniards…foreigners were welcome when they brought much needed skills.”
• “In 1440, the City of London…housed 1,500 immigrants and there were a further 350 in Southwark. These aliens included Welsh, Irish and Scots — but the largest group were Dutch… — which included Flemings, Germans and Brabanters from the low countries. These were followed by Italians and French…At this time Jews in London were usually…from Spain or Turkey.”
• “Between 1440 and 1501 the number of ‘aliens’ in London doubled to at least 3,000 out of a population of 50,000.”
• “Huguenot immigrants continued to flow into Britain and parts of Ireland through the 17th Century…In Bristol 80 percent of immigrants came from Poitou and Saintonge…In London and Canterbury most arrived from Normandy.”

In more recent history leading up to 1945, Murray also fails to mention the:

• 250,000 Belgian refugees accepted into Britain during World War One
• The 150,000 Eastern European Jews who settled in Britain between 1888–1920
• The 130,000 Polish refugees taken in between 1939–1947

In contrast to Murray’s claim, even in the 150 years prior to 1945, when Irish Migration was at its most intense following the Potato Famine, Irish (and other UK) Immigrants accounted for 65 percent of the total immigration to Britain. Not exactly what Murray described as “almost entirely”.

Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech

Parallel with Murray’s observations regarding this now infamous episode in British Politics, runs an overall argument that Powell was speaking for the majority of the British Public and that much of this speech today would not even be seen as controversial. Given our lack of accessibility to reliable sources from this period, to thoroughly test Murray’s claims, we enlisted the help of historian and expert on the topic, Dr Shirin Hirsch. Hirsch has just completed publishing her research into Enoch Powell during this time period and her book is set for release in November. She kindly obliged to assist us in verifying Murray’s claims:

1. Murray says: “Although Powell’s speech was about identity and his country’s future, it was also about practical concerns — about constituents finding hospital places or school places for their children in a stretched public sector…ever since the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, common wisdom in Britain has had it that Powell’s intervention not only wrecked his own career but wrecked any possibility of a full or frank immigration debate in Britain for at least a generation.”

We say: Unfortunately Murray provides no references or citations for this ‘common wisdom’. Although it is true that Powell’s intervention “wrecked his own career”, Hirsch states that ironically, (and in contrast to his speech being about “practical concerns”) the speech was a calculated attempt by Powell to do just the opposite:

“There is a myth that Powell made the speech as a brave ‘speaking out’ to the detriment of his career. All evidence shows this was a leadership bid. He had to be sacked by Heath from the shadow cabinet because Heath knew this. Powell’s career ultimately failed because of the development of an anti-racist movement that challenges the racism Powell has attempted to normalise.”

As for the claim by Murray that Powell’s speech “wrecked any possibility of a full and frank immigration debate in Britain”, Hirsch states it “had the opposite effect!”. Powell received enormous attention, brought people out protesting and counter protesting in the streets and garnered huge media debate, as evidenced by his popularity (or infamy) still today, 50 years later.

Also no coincidence was the rise of far right political party, The National Front, whose popularity peaked in the five or so years following Powell’s speech. Therefore, to say Powell’s speech “wrecked…full and frank immigration debate” is absurdly disingenuous and, like the supposed uniformed media reaction to the 2011 census, another one of Murray’s cynical (and poorly referenced) attempts at revising history. If anything is clear, it is that Powell’s intervention put the topic of migration in the forefront of everyone’s mind and on the tip of everybody’s tongue.

2. Murray says: “But among the things most striking when reading his speech — and the reactions to it — today are the portions for which he was lambasted that now seem almost understated: for instance, Powell’s insistence that there was a street in Britain on which only one white woman was living. In subsequent interviews and discussions the case of this woman was widely dismissed as a fabrication because it was believed that no such street could exist.”

We say: Misleading. This part of the speech wasn’t disbelieved because, as Murray writes, “only one white woman was living” on it, but it was (as Murray deftly omits) because of the many other claims Powell made regarding this mystery woman, such as:

“She is becoming afraid to go out. Windows are broken. She finds excreta pushed through her letter box. When she goes to the shops, she is followed by children, charming, wide-grinning piccaninnies. They cannot speak English, but one word they know. “Racialist,” they chant.”

HIrsch, whose book uses her interviews with former constituents of Powell and citizens of Wolverhampton, adds:

“this is drawn from a racist imaginary rather than any kind of reality within Wolverhampton.”

Furthermore and again in contrast to what Murray describes as being “dismissed as fabrication because it was believed that no such street could exist”, Hirsch states that ALL anecdotes Powell gives in his speech:

“were immediately challenged because they are so vague — none of the people are ever given names, all are anonymous, and Powell refused to ever give further details or identify the supposed constituents. The woman on the street being attacked by immigrant children, or ‘wide grinning piccaninnies’ as he puts it through the ventriloquism of an anonymous source, was never tracked down by the press despite attempts to do so (the Mail’s attempts to identify her do not fit the fact that Powell claims she was a widow); no woman on the register details fit the description Powell claims of her. All respected historians question the veracity of these anecdotes. Other anecdotes in the speech in Walsall he gives earlier in the year claim there was a school in his constituency with only one white child in a class — again the truth of such a statement was challenged by contemporaries, at the time journalists scour the town trying to find such a class. It’s been disproven that any such class existed in Powell’s constituency.“

Ray Honeyford

Like Powell, Murray also makes his case for Ray Honeyford — the head teacher of a majority Asian school in early 1980’s Bradford, who was suspended (and eventually resigned) for writing a letter, published in the conservative magazine The Salisbury Review, about the limitations of multiculturalism on education, a letter immediately called out for its use of racist slurs and language.

1. Murray says: “He mentioned the refusal of some Muslim fathers to permit their daughters to participate in dance classes, drama or sport, and the silence of the authorities on this and “other cultural practices, such as taking children back to Pakistan during term time. He also argued for pupils to be encouraged to speak the language and understand the culture of the country they were living in and not to be encouraged to live — as Honeyford argued the race-relations leadership were trying to encourage them to do — parallel lives within society…Why should a popular headmaster — about whom there were no other complaints — have been forced into retirement for making such an argument? The only explanation is that at the time even plain truths about these matters had not yet become palatable.”

We say: False. This is not the “only explanation” as to why Honeyford was forced to resign his post, and by no means the only arguments he made. We will let you — our readers — decide if, as Murray argues, these truths that Honeyford spoke of have now become “palatable”, the thrust of his arguments “widely accepted” and whether his ‘forced’ resignation was in hindsight, undeserved. You can read Honeyford’s letter in full here. Otherwise, we have highlighted just a few of its “plain truths” below:

“‘Cultural enrichment’ is the approved term for the West Indian’s right to create an ear splitting cacophony for most of the night to the detriment of his neighbour’s sanity”

“The roots of black educational failure are, in reality, located in West Indian family structure and values”

“A generation of cultural relativists in the field of linguistics has managed to impose on the schools the mindless slogan ‘All languages are equally good’”

“Those of us working in Asian areas are encouraged, officially, to ‘celebrate linguistic diversity’, ie applaud the rapidly mounting linguistic confusion in those growing number of inner city schools in which British born Asian children begin their mastery of English by being taught in Urdu.”

“The hysterical political temperament of the Indian subcontinent became evident an extraordinary sight in an English School Hall.”

“Pakistan is a country which cannot cope with democracy…which, despite disproportionate western aid because of its important strategic position, remains for most of its people obstinately backward.”

“Pakistan, too, is the heroin capital of the world (A fact which is now reflected in the drug problems of English cities with Asian populations.)…How could the denizens of such a country so wildly and implacably resent the simple British requirement for all parents to send children to school regularly?”

“A half-educated and volatile Sikh usurped the privileges of the chair by deciding who was to speak.”

“A growing number of Asians whose aim is to preserve as intact as possible the values and attitudes of the Indian sub continent within a framework of British social and political privilege, ie to produce Asian ghettoes.”

“An influential group of black intellectuals of aggressive disposition, who know little of the British traditions of understatement, civilised discourse and respect for reason.”

Unfortunately for Murray, Honeyford’s above claims are certainly not anything like the “plain truths” he described and are most definitely not currently “widely accepted” as he audaciously declares.

Secondly, when Murray states that there “were no other complaints” regarding Honeyford, this is again misleading — Murray fails to mention that Honeyford was reprimanded two years earlier, in 1982, for writing a letter of complaint to the local press, on school-headed paper, about the opening of a West Indian community centre.

New Labour and the Blair Era of Immigration

Murray concludes his first chapter by attacking the immigration policies of Tony Blair’s New Labour, who he described oversaw an “opening of the borders”. Singled out for special mention was former Minister of State for Asylum and Immigration, Barbara Roche.

1. Murray says: “Although neither a manifesto commitment nor a stated aim, once in power Tony Blair’s government oversaw an opening of the borders on a scale unparalleled even in the post-war decades. They abolished the ‘primary purpose rule’, which had attempted to filter out bogus marriage applications”.

We say: Misleading. The change to the primary purpose rule was in fact in the 1997 Labour Manifesto, which clearly states:

“We will, however, reform the system in current use to remove the arbitrary and unfair results that can follow from the existing ‘primary purpose’ rule.”

2. Murray says: “Of course there are various claims as to how this post-1997 immigration surge occurred. One, famously made in 2009 by the former Labour speech-writer Andrew Neather, was that Tony Blair’s government wilfully eased the immigration rules because they wanted to…create what they unwisely took to be an electorate that would subsequently be loyal to the Labour Party.”

We say: False. The article that Murray cites to substantiate this claim can be read here. In direct contrast to what Murray claims — that Neather’s piece states an aim of Labour’s “opening of borders” was to “create an electorate that would subsequently be loyal” to the party and thus increase its voter base — the article actually states the opposite. Neather repeatedly states in his piece that the immigration policy decision by Labour was seen as a risk to “Labour’s core white working-class vote”, and that:

“while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn’t necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men’s clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland”

Not only did Neather not infer in his article that Labour’s migration policy was a deliberate plot to boost their own loyal base (this claim appears to be a completely unevidenced allegation also repeated at the time in the right wing tabloids), Neather’s article conveys the fears at the time within the government that the policy might instead isolate the core of Labour’s current base and potentially lose them votes.

3. Murray says: “Indeed Roche — who criticised colleagues for being too white — insisted that even the mention of immigration policy was racist”

We say: Misleading and false. Checking Murray’s source that he cited for this claim, it actually states that “Roche also openly criticised IND staff as being uniformly white males”. Thus, it is clear that Roche was actually bemoaning the lack of racial (and gender) diversity of staff at the IND — the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. Regardless of whether this attack on the IND was warranted, to spin it as Roche criticising her “colleagues for being too white” is terribly misleading.

Furthermore, whilst checking this same source, nowhere in it does it directly state or even try to imply that Roche “insisted that even the mention of immigration policy was racist”. The lack of any direct evidence of such a claim in this cited source is compounded by the fact that Murray cannot even refer to a direct quote in the book. Instead, Murray vaguely cites an eight page passage on Roche as his evidence for this. Yet, even still, nowhere in this passage is this implied. In contrast, as the former Minister of State for Asylum and Immigration under Blair, it is clear that Roche never ceased to “mention immigration policy” — that was after all, her job. Another truly bizarre and poorly referenced claim by Murray.

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