That’s the liberal “metropolitan” line, but as its critics see it, it overlooks a crucial aspect of the human personality: we are not a random jumble of individuals who just happen to inhabit the same small island. We are a nation, they say: and our sense of identity with nation is, or should be, central to who we are.  And while no civilised nation, least of all Britain, should be opposed to immigration, we should be opposed to the unprecedented scale on which it has been occurring. It’s the numbers, stupid. Immigrants have undoubtedly enriched our culture, but for there to be such a thing as British culture, for there to be a sense of nationhood and national pride, it is essential that the newcomers be absorbed into British life rather than form distinct cultural colonies. There’s nothing racist about this. Nothing racist in feeling apprehensive about the next influx from Eastern Europe, for example. It’s not just a matter of what that might mean for our overstrained services and for British citizens competing for low-paid jobs: it’s the damage done to our sense of belonging to the same community.

Let Them Come: we have nothing to fear from high levels of immigration : Intelligence Squared Tuesday, October 8, 2013 @ 10:08pm