A Free Left Blog

I’ve found myself blathering on about immigration rather too much for my own liking lately, but it is probably the issue which best demonstrates a conceit at the core of current liberal-left politics in Britain. We have reached a point which feels like a crescendo in the ‘debate’ on immigration, at least in terms of attention being paid, following BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson’s BBC2 programme last night, entitled ' The Truth About Immigration '. Yet the response of mainstream liberal-left publications and their writers to this heightening of discussion and awareness has been almost universal: that we shouldn’t be having the debate at all . It is a revealing viewpoint, and offers a nice opportunity to look at the arguments of Chantal Mouffe on how liberal politics seeks to crush what she calls ‘the political’ in favour of a sort of self-styled ‘rational consensus’. Let’s have a look at some of the arguments for suppression first. First up is Stephen B...

When someone tells you: “I am right, and you are wrong,” what are they talking about? Do they mean that they are speaking truth while you are saying things that are not true? Or are they claiming they are doing the right thing while you are doing something wrong? On one hand we have right and wrong as truth and untruth, for example: ‘Barack Obama is President of the United States’, or ‘The Labour Party forms the Government of the United Kingdom’. On the other hand we have right and wrong as judgement. Whether moralistic or practical, this makes claims over what is good and bad; for example: ‘Immigration benefits Britain’ or ‘Gay marriage is wrong’. Sometimes these two meanings overlap, but for the most part they are two completely different conceptions. However we tend to use them interchangeably, mixing them up and confusing them in the process. Gay marriage and immigration are interesting topics on many levels, not least for the way that strongly-held views...