(Sorry to be away so long.)

Racial prejudice is not ‘natural’. If it were we would expect children to have it from birth. Masses of research, however, establishes that this is not so. So does the experience of most of us who have observed young children at play together outdoors. It’s as if they don’t even see racial differences, but only their common childishness. Racism is acquired, in later life, and through other forces acting on us: parents, school, the media, and a host of other influences; analysed for example here: https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/how-children-acquire-racial-biases/.

I was lucky to escape most of these when I was young, growing up in a part of Essex (now Greater London) where I never remember seeing a black or brown face, or being exposed to (for instance) the BUF’s racist propaganda. The only ‘alien’ I knew at school was a single (white) American. The same was true at university, although I did become acquainted there – but only at second hand – with racism; through my participation, at a distance, in the movement against apartheid in South Africa.

That was until I became a post-graduate student, working on British imperial history, in a college and university community that largely consisted of ‘black’, brown and other-coloured foreigners; most of whom of course originally came from countries that used to be – many still were – colonies of Britain: Africa and the Indian sub-continent in particular. Some of them became close friends; one of them – who sadly died recently – the Best Man at my wedding. Our social circle was hugely ‘multi-racial’, and, I felt, all the better, closer and certainly more interesting for it.

Of course we were all ‘intellectuals’, which was what melded us together; in much the same way as their common identity as ‘children’ unites the young kids we see playing together multi-racially in school yards. This undoubtedly made a difference. But shouldn’t that apply equally to middle and working-class people in our British towns and cities, doing the same jobs and facing the same problems as their ‘white’ neighbours?

I recently heard and read of a number of communities in and around London –  Peckham, to name one – where years of immigration had had this outcome, with the effect of reducing the appeal of ‘nativists’ like Nigel Farage, and the parties he leads or has led. Indeed I understand – although I must check this – that the British constituencies that have scored lowest for parties like Farage’s are some of those that have the highest proportion of immigrants; and vice-versa: the constituencies that are most anti-immigration were those that haven’t experienced it themselves. If so, then the best way to counter racism may be to let more (selected?) immigrants in.

And by God, we’ll need them soon, if the ‘native’ birth-rate continues falling as it has been doing in recent years.  In Sweden too, incidentally: https://nordictimes.com/the-nordics/sweden/grim-figures-swedish-birth-rates-reach-new-record-lows/. Kajsa is currently helping to organise a movement here with the slogan utan invandrarer stanner Sverige (‘without immigrants Sweden stops’). Britain – and perhaps the USA – might do worse than adopt a version of that. So far in Britain, Scotland is the only country that seems to be taking this to heart, with immigrants actually welcomed there (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2484nmm2e3o).

In any case, Britain has always been a multicultural society, as we should know. (See chapter 1 of my British Imperial: What the Empire Wasn’t, 2016.) It’s one of her glowing virtues, and great advantages.