Latest news with #MattGoodwin
New Statesman
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
In defence of Lord Hermer
Photo byIn a competitive field the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, is the biggest ministerial villain for the right-wing newspapers. Rarely a day passes without the Telegraph, Mail and others screaming about what they see as Hermer's hyper-active interventions within government. Hermer dares to warn ministers that they must act within domestic and international law and his critics fume. 'The least patriotic man EVER to hold high office?' asked former professor turned Reform mouthpiece Matt Goodwin in the Mail over the weekend. None of the media noise would matter that much but for two additional factors. Some anonymous government insiders are quoted regularly echoing the views of the newspapers in their political pages. How can we be insurgent incumbents, they ask with apparently defiant machismo, when Hermer is forever warning us that we cannot do what we need to do to beat Nigel Farage? Inevitably the rise of Reform is the other factor triggering insider briefings. Farage has never been a great upholder of international law if it gets in the way of 'Britain's interests'. A big part of his pitch is his conviction that Britain must leave the ECHR. Like Keir Starmer, Hermer is a world expert on international law, including the ECHR. Apparently No 10's self-described 'insurgent incumbents' are deeply frustrated. Whenever there is speculation about a cabinet reshuffle Hermer's name is cited as one who could or should be sacked. Such an outcome would be calamitous for Starmer and his government, not least because Hermer is an 'insurgent incumbent' as far as that latest, fashionably imprecise term has any meaning at all. He has the confidence and authority to challenge current orthodoxies that have dominated the British media and political culture since Brexit, including an assumption that breaking international law is to be celebrated because it is in Britain's self interest to do so. This is now a mainstream view in parts of the Conservative Party, Reform, as well as the newspapers. The new orthodoxies shaped Boris Johnson's Rwanda policy, a scheme that the courts found violated both international and domestic law. A recent message from Hermer to the government's law officers triggered another outrage in some newspapers partly because he declared: 'You have a key role in helping ministers meet their overarching [legal] obligation while delivering their policy objectives.' What did they expect the Attorney General to state, that they should urge ministers to ignore the legal obligations? It remains staggering that to assert the centrality of the law stirs raging controversy: 'An Attorney General warns ministers of legal obligations… He should be sacked!' Revealingly, those forces touched in some form or other by Hermer's interventions do not share the angry disdain. Senior Tory and Reform figures predicted that all hell would break loose in the Trump administration over the Chagos Islands deal that partly arose from Hermer's reading of Britain's legal obligations. The opposite happened. Trump praised the arrangements. Back in the UK, the Home Office has nothing but praise for Hermer. The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, actively seeks his advice and willingly involves him in sensitive decisions. They do not complain that he is actively or naively obstructing policies they wish to pursue. On some highly charged issues, he shows flexibility. He supports the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, in her current efforts to reform the ECHR. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Some Labour MPs complain that Hermer is hopeless at politics – a failing that becomes more apparent when the Prime Minister struggles with the political demands of high office and the Chancellor realises she is not as skilled as she believed at the near-impossible art of blending politics and economics. But even that common observation doesn't tell the whole story. I am told that Hermer spends more time in the Westminster tea rooms engaging with backbenchers than most Cabinet ministers. Although he is rarely allowed out to do broadcast interviews he did give one recently to the BBC's Henry Zeffman in which he navigated tricky themes with skill, countering the populist onslaughts with the accessible case for his faith in the law. 'No one wants to do deals with people they don't trust. No one wants to sign international agreements with a country that's got a government that's saying, well, 'We may comply with it, we may not'… We do. We succeed… Being a good faith player in international law is overwhelmingly in the national interests of this country.' That answer from Hermer forms the substantial case for keeping him in position. The willingness to break laws displayed by previous Tory administrations did not lead to boats being stopped or flights to Rwanda taking off. There was no evidence anywhere that lawbreaking helped the UK. Starmer is ruthless enough to sack an old friend like Hermer. But doing so would raise significant questions about his own public identity and sense of self, far more than with other high-profile dismissals under his leadership. As power edged closer before last summer's election, Starmer showed only limited interest in ministerial appointments. He was preoccupied with campaigning, well before Rishi Sunak announced the election date. Sue Gray played a larger role in many junior appointments, consulting with shadow cabinet members and their advisers on who should form the ministerial teams. But Hermer's appointment was Starmer's alone. He wanted him in that role. Those within government who brief against Hermer are, in effect, challenging Starmer's judgment and worldview. The Prime Minister's public voice is often unclear. Is he the leader who warned that Britain risks becoming an 'island of strangers,' or the one who later regretted saying so? Removing Hermer would suggest that Starmer had once again ceded power and key decisions to advisers who want him to be someone he is not. The symbolism would be stark. But more than that, his government needs the incumbent insurgents to flourish. Ironically, some of the most distinctive change-makers – Hermer, Ed Miliband, Bridget Phillipson – are being briefed against by those who see themselves as the real insurgents. Yet their version of insurgency amounts to continuity with the recent past: support for Michael Gove's secondary school reforms, alignment with Rishi Sunak's caution on net zero, and a desire to emulate Johnson or Farage on international law. Labour's manifesto was titled 'Change'. It is time to move on from that past. Hermer is among those doing just that. Whatever happens in the reshuffle, the genuine incumbent insurgents should remain in place. [See also: Are Unite and Labour heading for divorce?] Related
Telegraph
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
It's not racist to believe in English identity
The English 'can trace their roots back over generations' and have a history which is 'the legacy of our collective identity'. This should be an uncontroversial claim. When the Venerable Bede wrote his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, almost 1,300 years ago, he felt no need to define the English, and even described 'the English nation' as existing in the 6th century. The first King of the English, Æthelstan, was crowned in 927AD, and it was during his reign that the word 'England' was first written down, by Ælfric of Eynsham. The English have been a people, and England a country, for a very long time. We are what the Bible calls an ethnos; a people and a nation. Yet when Matt Goodwin made these arguments in an interview with Spectator editor Michael Gove, drawing a distinction between Britishness, a wide, cultural identity, and Englishness, a 'very distinct identity… which goes back for centuries', many commentators reacted with fury and disgust. David Henig, a trade expert, described Goodwin's remarks as 'unashamed racism'. Simon Schama, the historian, said they were 'pure recycled Enoch Powell', and journalist Oliver Kamm posted that 'it's alarming how far racism has become normalised in public debate'. John McTernan, who served as Tony Blair's Director of Political Operations, went even further, saying that 'the concept of the ethnic English is truly evil', in a tweet so unpopular that it had been viewed almost a million times, and attracted fewer than 50 likes before he deleted it. McTernan went on to claim that 'races and ethnicities don't exist', despite having described himself as 'Irish' and 'never English'. When I asked him to explain, he claimed that any definition of Englishness 'is either wooly and meaningless or othering and malign'. I find these reactions very strange. Is it racist to recognise that the English exist? I asked Oliver Kamm to explain his thoughts. He said 'it's obvious what the subtext is, and it's alarming… moreover, the reasoning is spurious… very few people can 'trace their roots over generations' – my own ancestors, like many Central European Jews, came off the boat at Liverpool and settled'. Is Kamm right? Can it really be true that 'very few' English people can trace their roots in this land back for generations? Adrian Targett, a teacher from Cheddar in Somerset, has been shown to be the direct descendant of 'Cheddar Man', a 9,000 year old skeleton found in the area. And according to Laura House, Genetic Genealogist at Ancestry, 'the majority of people from the British Isles will be able to trace their ancestors back to the 19th century… [and] for people with Christian ancestors… there's a good chance researchers will be able to trace at least one line into the 1500s'. As with any people, there are fuzzy edges and exceptions. But the existence of these exceptions doesn't mean the people don't exist. Would these commentators say the same if the Irish, Igbo or Han identified themselves as a distinct ethnos? I suspect not. What is different about the English? Bijan Omrani, historian, churchwarden and author of God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England said McTernan's tweet is 'unhinged'. Omrani told me that the hostile response to Goodwin's interview is 'an amazing manifestation of our intelligentsia hating itself', something he links to an education system which, since the 1960s 'doesn't even want to pass on any knowledge or vision of Englishness'. Omrani agreed with Goodwin that there is 'undoubtedly an ethnic element to Englishness', although he sees this as one aspect, alongside language, culture and our Christian faith. To recognise the English as a people need not mean excluding others from Britain, or Britishness, nor does it mean that those who aren't English are lesser, merely different. To say that someone isn't English is no more a moral judgement than to say they aren't Tamil or Maori or French. To believe otherwise a person must think the English are uniquely bad, or uniquely good. It seems that this anger and horror that the English might identify as an ethnos is grounded in a prideful self-loathing. To suggest, as McTernan did, that it is 'truly evil' to even conceive of the English as an ethnic group, is to deny our right to describe, recognise and understand ourselves. That is the true evil.
Telegraph
25-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
How mass migration will transform your town
Mass migration is propping up the populations of towns and cities because of the collapse in Britain's birth rate. Across England, 173 council areas – around 58 per cent of the total – are on course to suffer a fall in their populations over the next 25 years without international or cross-border migration. The data, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), will raise concerns about the growing dependence of business and communities on migration as well as raising questions over integration. The figures suggest that immigration will fuel the majority of change across local areas and the country as a whole with 8.3 million more migrants arriving between 2022 and 2047. Without international migration, the population of England would fall from 57.1 million to 54.6 million, according to the projections. This figure also includes zero movement between England and Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. It comes just weeks after a report by Prof Matt Goodwin, based on ONS figures, which projected that white British people would become a minority in the UK population within the next 40 years. This was fuelled by immigration as well as lower fertility rates among the white population. Prof Goodwin forecasts that by the year 2100, six in 10 people in the UK will not have been born in the UK or born to two UK-born parents. 'This raises enormous questions about the capacity of our country and leaders to unify people around a shared sense of identity, values, ways of life, and culture, and avoid the very real risk of us becoming what Sir Keir Starmer referred to in May as 'an island of strangers',' said Prof Goodwin, of Buckingham University. Across 173 local areas, around one in three of the total, a complete ban on migration would lead to population decline, with Birmingham, Newham and Manchester among those losing over 100,000 residents in this scenario. Urban areas, such as Newham, Birmingham, Brent, Westminster and Manchester are all expected to see UK-based residents move away and be replaced with a steady flow of migrants. Meanwhile, areas with fewer residents will see massive amounts of people migrate towards them, including Cornwall, Somerset and Shropshire. The population estimates, the first at a local level since 2020, also highlight England's continued transition into an elderly-heavy, 'grey' population. By 2047, 78 council areas are projected to have at least one in four residents at retirement age, compared with just eight in 2022. Each area is affected differently by projected trends in birth rates and migration. Use our tool to see how it impacts you. The overall population across England is expected to increase by 12.7 per cent between 2022 and 2047. This would mark a slowdown from the preceding 25 years, when the population increased by 18.5 per cent. Just four local authorities will suffer a population decline using the best estimates of migration: Ipswich, North East Lincolnshire and Gosport, in Hampshire. Previous projections, released in 2018, suggested that 16 areas would see population decline, but this has likely been updated due to increasing international migration. In other areas, there are expected to be population explosions over the next quarter century, with five where populations are due to increase by more than 30 per cent, including South Derbyshire (38 per cent), Stratford-on-Avon (36 per cent) and Tower Hamlets (33 per cent). Based on current household sizes, this would require an additional 3.1 million houses by 2047, Telegraph analysis shows. Additionally, the country would need 18,022 more police officers and 4,730 more GPs to keep per capita levels at current rates. The make-up of your area Across England, the country will continue to grey, with more Baby Boomers entering retirement age, while birth rates among Millennials and Gen Z are expected to continue their sharp downward trend. By 2047, 19.6 per cent of adults will be 68 years or older, the expected pension age at that point, up from 15.6 per cent now. At least one in four residents will be retirement-age or older across swathes of the country, including Dorset, the New Forest, North Norfolk and Rother, where this will be as high as 30 per cent. Declining birth rates will also result in just 18 areas supporting a child-heavy population, defined as a local authority where more than one in five is under 18. Currently this is true in 165 (56 per cent) of all local authorities. In North Norfolk, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea, less than 16 per cent of the population will be children. What will drive population change? Birth rates have fallen drastically in recent decades with each woman giving birth to an average of just 1.44 children in 2023. For the population to continue growing without migration, this figure must be above 2.1. This rate has not been hit since 1972. Across England, the number of deaths is expected to outstrip births by 2031. By 2047, 60,000 more people are expected to die than be born. Over the next 25 years, 187 of all local areas, roughly 62 per cent of the total, are projected to see more births than deaths.
Kiwiblog
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Kiwiblog
UK migration trends
Matt Goodwin looks at how current migration trends will change the UK, if unchanged. Key findings: The proportion of the UK that is 'White British' will drop from 73% today to 57% in 2050 and 34% in 2100 The non-white proportion will increase from 20% to 59% by 2100 19% of the UK will be Muslim by 2100 Hard to imagine that Japan would (for example) have an immigration policy where native Japanese would become a minority in Japan within two generations.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
If white British people become a minority, the Left will be in serious trouble
Within the next 40 years, white British people will become a minority in this country. And by the year 2100, they'll account for only a third of the population. So predicted Professor Matt Goodwin of Buckingham University in a report this week. And, ever since, I've been pondering an intriguing question. If his prediction comes to pass, will the Left still support DEI? After all, the whole point of DEI – the progressive doctrine of 'diversity, equity and inclusion' – is to benefit minorities. So, if white British people become a minority, will Left-wing activists throw all their righteous energies into championing them? Perhaps they'll insist that job adverts give priority to applicants who are white British. And order schools to celebrate White British History Month. And, when political parties are seeking election candidates, demand that they increase white British representation by adopting all-white British shortlists. Equally, perhaps they'll call on the BBC to cast white British actors in non-white British roles. And argue that all non-white workers should undergo unconscious bias training, to check that they aren't harbouring prejudice against the white British community – or, as they're properly known, People of No Colour. I suppose it's possible. But, for some reason, I have a funny feeling they'll decide there's no longer any need for DEI – because, once the white British are a small minority, true social justice will finally have been achieved. In 2016, the late Canadian comedian Norm MacDonald told the greatest satirical joke of our age. It went like this. 'What terrifies me is if Isis were to donate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?' A perfect skewering of 21st-century liberal priorities. I'm reminded of it often. For example, whenever there's a debate in the Commons or on the BBC about the grooming gangs scandal – and the talk, as always, turns swiftly to the dangers of Islamophobia. This week, I was reminded of that sublimely dark joke once again. And it was thanks to a truly mind-boggling article in the newspaper USA Today. Last Sunday, in the Colorado city of Boulder, a firebombing attack was launched on a group of Jewish people who had gathered to raise awareness of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Following the arrest, at the scene, of a 45-year-old Egyptian migrant who allegedly told police he wanted to 'kill all Zionist people', immigration officials began taking steps to deport his family, who are also Egyptian migrants. And how did USA Today choose to cover this development? By publishing a piece with the tear-jerking headline, 'Boulder Suspect's Daughter Dreamed of Studying Medicine. Now She Faces Deportation.' Beneath this headline we were informed that 18-year-old Habiba had recently won a 'Best and Brightest scholarship', and 'written about her hope of accomplishing great things'. Well, I suppose it's only natural that a newspaper would wish to focus on Habiba's plight. Because of course she's the real victim here. After a backlash from thousands of staggered readers, USA Today revised the article on its website, to give at least a little more prominence to the firebombing attack and the members of the public who were seriously injured in it – including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. Anyway, I hope that the newspaper's journalists aren't feeling too sad about the crushing of Habiba's dreams. Because I've got some wonderful news for them. Incredible though it may sound, the US isn't the only country on Earth where it's possible to study medicine. In fact, it can even be studied in Egypt. So there's really no need for Habiba to miss out. And if she doesn't fancy Egypt, there's an exciting alternative. She and her family can simply come and live in Britain. Here, after all, they can rest safe in the knowledge that we never deport anyone. More and more MPs, reports the BBC, are deciding against the legalisation of assisted suicide – or, to use the term preferred by its supporters, 'assisted dying'. These MPs say they supported the idea in principle, but now reluctantly concede that the bill lacks adequate safeguards. Good on them. But I hope that the many MPs who still support the bill will consider another crucial argument against. Which is that, if they legalise assisted suicide, the criteria for eligibility will inevitably widen, as it has in other Western countries. And so, in due course, we could end up like the Netherlands – where, last year, a woman in her 20s was granted an assisted suicide. She wasn't terminally ill. In fact, she wasn't physically ill at all. She was just depressed. It's chilling that the state would agree to such a request. But that's the sort of scenario we could easily see here. It'll be like a dystopian inversion of the Samaritans. If you tell the Samaritans that you're so depressed you want to die, its staff will do everything they can to dissuade you. But if you tell the state that you're so depressed you want to die, it'll say: 'Certainly, we'll book you straight in. Can you do Tuesday, 10 past three?' 'Way of the World' is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines while aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 6am every Tuesday and Saturday Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
